Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1920-11-03

/ to become an adjunct to Columbia
University of New York? Would 1t
not follow that the girls who would
attend such training school would
go principally from the larger and
nearer towns and richer famllles
Girls who would aspire to teach IN
the larger towns in or out OF the
states rather than from the up-coun-
j try hamlets where the need of better
schools is so pressing? Perhaps it
| is a fiattering thought that other
states appreciate Vermont teachers,
but are you educating your girls Tor
your own country schools or not! 80
far as my knowledge of the average
farmers daughters goes 1t convlnces
me that there are still many girls
who could afford to go to Johnson or
Castleton and to live there cheaply
while fitting for their life work.
girls brought up IN small towns, VINO
are content to prepare to teach IN the
rural district where there is crying
need of better schools. Would these
girls be able to 90 to Burlington or
Rutland, say at added expense to the
cost of living, where they must have
more and better clothes, greater per-
sOnal expenses and outside dIStrac-
tions, higher railroad fare and more
outside interests? We might add,
where they will get taste of city
life which would wean them from
their quiet country homes? Does the
average Vermont farmer want his
daughter to do that?
"The Vermont normal school at
johnson has always meant much TO
me and / owe it a debt of gratitude
and service. According to my know
ledge of educational methods and of
IN
| have had experience not only IN
teaching but on school boards and as
a writer on educational topics) 1t
would seem to me that Vermont
should retain her two normal schools
in the same towns and along the
same lines.
There should be more students and
fewer teachers. Nineteen teachers
for % students are too many. I'm
essentials should be cut out. Music,
art and dancing are all right in their
places, but they are not needed in the
training of teachers for rural schools,
except In rudimentary degree which
could be easily covered by the regular
teachers. In the days of S. FL. Pearl,
Edward Conant, w. c. Crippen and
such men, Johnson had only three
teachers to more than a hundred
scholars, and the results would stand
comparison with those of today.
There should be a better plan of
study but for the same schools. Girls
from rural districts should be admit
ted after two years of high school for
a special training TO teach in the rural
schools and a certificate granted to
that effect Then there might be an
additional course, and a longer, for
city schools with another certificate
to cover the larger work
"Of course the methods of today are
not those of quarter-century ago; but
the actual needs of Vermont schools
are the same and / am not a reaction
ary,-no one can tell me so who knows
anything about me-but in our zeal
for modern ideas of progress let us
not throw away the tried and true
for something that may prove only a
chimerical vision of the new.
"Why then, throw away two good
schools with over so years record of
splendid service behind them for
something which is not satisfactory in
the state and city where it originated,
which costs four or five times as much
and which does not adequately meet
the need of the girl who should be
trained to be of practical service TO
her own home neighborhood? Com
munity service is term which We
have made much of during the past
two years. Why is not the slogan
Vermont for Vermonters' a perfectly
good one for the Green Mountain
slater"
Signed, Helen nj. Winlsow.
Boston, Mass. Oct. 25, 1920.