Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1917-10-31
THE VAIL SCHOOL.
First-Hand Study of States Work
and Problems at Lyndon and
Speedwell Farms.

(By H. L. Hindley in Rutland Her
ald.)
The Vail school at Lyndon Center
is coming and coming fast One
reason for this is the infexible poll
cy of the state board of education to
make it practical school for young
Vermont farmers, and the other is
the firm intention of DR.. M. B. Hille-
gas, commissioner of education, to
make the farms of the Vail gift pay.
This is one of the biggest things
the state has before it at this time.
Even Vermont's part in the world
war is scarcely more important than
the success of this school in connec-
ton with the magnificent gifts Of
Mr. Vail at Speedwell.
It must be remembered that the
school and the farms are two separ-
ate propositions as they are neces-
I sarily run at the present time.
The school is at Lyndon Center
near the Lyndon institute and about
10 minutes walk from the station at
Lyndonville. ''Speedweu Farms" is
about mile and a half cup the hill"
and the property runs back into
Wheelock and Lyndon Corners, prob
ably six or eight square miles of
some of the best upland on the East
Side and comprising seven different
farmsteads, with complete outfit of
buildings for each.
The Farms and the School
Speedwell Farms, lying near Mr.
Wallis big tower. mansion" are the
center of the big consolidation and
are equipped with everything neces-
sary for the most modern farming
onara tiOns incII11ino stock
At the school there is a three-story
dormitory with heating plant, kitch-
en-, dining-room, office, class-rooms,
library, recreation rooms and 4 we'll
equipped dairy barn, milk laboratory,
wood working and metal shops, hog
pen, chicken house, horse barn and
the usual equipment Of frst-class
farm of $50 acres.
The school also has the use of the
land, but most of the actual farming
is done "on the hill" Undoubtedly
one of the early acts of the new adj
ministration will be to get everything
centered at Speedwell as soon as pos
sible, even if it means abandoning
the plant at the Center.
Learn Farming by Farming.
AS the school is organized, the
boys work at Speedwell one whole
week in every five-work for wages
under the direction of Superintendent
Wallace M. Hubbard, who is a thor
oughly practical and up-to-date farm
er.
The school work is divided into five
ing Director Rollo G. Reynolds, who
is rated as one of the best high school
men in the state Naturally, DR..
Hillegas gives the school considerable
personal attention and the state
board has been fortunate in securing
Prof. Geo. A. Works of Cornell, who
acts as adviser and critic and who is
one of the best recognized experts in
agricultural education in the country.
Following the farm wage group
is a dairy barn group, a field-crop
group, a shop-work group and a
group studying miscellaneous farm
ing. Each Of these groups works a
full week in succession at the dairy,
on crops and soils, in the repair shops
and on the various swine, sheep, pOul- !
try, orchard, maple sugar, gardening
and other problems that may be TAX
en- up.
The motto of the school is edo it
first and learn why afterward." 1t
works out like this:
The boys in the dairy feed and milk
the COWS, make record of the re-
suits and are then told what princi-
Piles are involved.
They are taught to pillow and when
a soil problem comes up they get a
lecture on soils and fertilizer ele-
ments.
Physics in a Hay Loader.
A farm implement breaks down
and they are set repairing it and thus
learn it's principles. The other day a
group of shop-work boys were set
dismantling WORKOUT hay loader
and they found all of the six simple
machines of physics exemplified
therein.
The director wanted a partition
built and the group arithmetic lesson
was figuring the cost of the wall and
then putting it up.
No text books are used in this sort |
of work. but the boys keep up volum- |
nous note books in which they make
records of all their work and in which
they are examined.
The work therefore is intensely
practical with no theoretical teaching
except what grows out of and fits in
to the actual work of doing things.
There are AZ boys engaged in this
work and most of them will make
good Vermont farmers if farming Is
in them.
The Farm Problem.
First class educators with expert
assistance and advice, have naturally
found little difficulty in solving the
strictly school problems. 1t is 1000
acres of farm, with it's possibilities,
that constitutes the big problem.
When the Legislature turned the
board of education, affairs in school
whole proposition over to the state