Norwich bulletin., 1915-05-08
HOW ONE STATE TEACHES

til these rooms are as instructive as any museum.
 The native woods alone could be
 studied for many hours and with pro- fit. A person who has taken the long train ride up into Vermont under stands the source of the supply Of wood specimens. Hour after hour the hills. recalling ones idea of the forest primeval; just a path along the mar row river banks affording room for the winding railroad line.
 Such a sight makes one a bit skepti- cal of all that Is written and said about cutting off our native forests It would seem as though there must be timber enough here to last for agesi That 1t is being cut off, how
 ever, and rapidly. too. is demonstrated by the great piles of logs lying along the beds of the streams, @ pathetic sight during a dry summer, since only plenty of water in the rivers can serve to move the log booms from
 the hills. down to the towns aAld to
 the saWmills which make them avail
 able for industry and commerce. As may be imagined, too, the stone specimens of Vermont furnish an in- teresting collection.
 An observer appreciates this the
 more. after a visit to any of the Quarries.
 The same fact is impressed, when a
 tourist visits certain of the towns. In Proctor, for example, in the heart of the marble district, the most ordin-
 ary of the buildings are of marble, the streets are covered with pulver-
 ized marble, everything is white as Spotless Town, the material for the
 thriving city coming direct from its
 quarries nearby.
 What Vermont has done, on a large scale, to teach its resources and pro ducts and birds and animals, might be attempted on smaller scale by many another city or town.
 It is safe to say that thousands in every locality are as ignorant of the productions, manufactures and re- sources of their own state or city would be the proverbial traveller from New Zealand.
 We recognize that fact, when, as occasionally, we have in our own city some special exhibit of the output of our mills or factories. There are ex- clamations of wonder, that Norwich produces so many and so varied arti- cleS and manufactures. Because we all take for granted the wonders about us, the grains and fruits and minerals, the flowers and birds and animals the countless arti- cles which we need in our daily lives | and so many of which are furnished by shops or mills in our own city or state, it might be @ revelation to us, were it possible to collect specimens Of many or all, in one place, for our surprise and admiration. In a state largely manufacturing, as is Connecti- cut, one can imagine something of the size and the variety of the goods and specimens to be thus brought together; while it is safe to predict that the variety of the collection from. the Ma l tural History side would be equally astonishing.
 Our occasional small loan exhibi- tions serve to throw much light on local and state history, especially dur ing Colonial times and the stirring days of the Revolution. Great-grand-
 mothers pewter plates and tankards, the quaint church siver, faded prints of long forgotten scenes, portraits of worthies whose names are but a mem ory, the Spindle-1egged- chairs, the blue china, hard made, cabinets, tables, odd highboyS and loWboys, heavy old four
 post beds, maybe with quaint canopies, the warming-pan which some ances- tor took to church to temper the frig- tdlty of the high backed pew, while the staid and solemn parson was eX- pounding from fourteenthly and be- yondi the poke bonnet and the fiounced
 cape; the expansive silk skirt which
 once hid but did not altogether con
 eeal the ugly hoop-skirt; the hair covered trunk which went on journeys when the railway train was a curios- ity; the blue and white coverlid of
 Grandma's industry with her knitting
 needles during many a winter evening
 long ago, everything serves to open a page back in the past, to teach it's
 lesson to the new generations. -
 It is a hopeful sight that towns and
 cities are doing, in a way, what Yer
 mont has done so well, i. e. looking
 backward in one fashion or another
 to study up the states or towns be-
 ginningS.
 Herein lies the prime usefulness of those patriotic societies whose aim it
 is to dig into the past and discover the
 builders of the greatness and the sue ceS Of this our own age. To find out
 who were the mute forefathers of
 each hamlet" the toilers who cleared
 off virgin forests, built the ancient
 turnpikes, erected the buildings which
 we now use so careleSSly and so con-
 stantly, labored day after day and
 year after year, cultivating, sowing,
 reaping; who had time from the hard
 ships of retaining stony fields and
 bridging rushing rivers and building
 Substantial homes, to make laws, found
 schools and colleges and churches, ex-
 pand the weakling towns into great
 cities, and then, when the call came,
 had the courage and the valor to go
 forth to fight for and defend the
 homes and the colony which they had set up,
 Vermont's way is good. We may
 not be able to copy it in its entirety;
 but it is a. method of instruction which
 appeals to heart and gratitude, as well as to eye and brain!