The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1922-10-19
Not the State, But the Town.

One of those periodical and familia'
walls appears in the Barre Times owe
the signature of ID. J. Boyce,' VIII
calls himself q hill farmer and Is d
posed to blame the state board of ed
cation for everything that's wron.
with his neighborhood.
For one thing, he ;nyeighs again
the state, a safely vague term, b
cause he says it will cost a certain NJ
Slayton Of Calais four hundred an
fifty dollars to take his three childre
three miles to school this winter! Ev
IDENTITY he thinks the school ought I
be moved next his farm, and sin
when has ii cost much money to sen
the children of plain Vermont iarmel
to school, without calling his tin
anything"
This Mr.. Boyce continues:
Now, sir, figure up the expense =
will be to Mr.. Slayton to furnish I'll
extras to send Them to school, and h
cannot make enough on his farm to d
that. Ninety farmers out of V
hundred on our hill farms have be-
deserted on q similar case. Farmer
something has to be done and doi
now, or Vermont will be a wilderness
in so years. There are 20 farms
the district in which | was born, whcr
no one lives now, and where a famil,
averaged seven children then, wit
so to IS who went to that school, nov
there are from five to eight in th
came school, forty years later. If tn
state runs the schools another ),
years there won't be a farm in tn
state can pay its expenses.
Leaving out Of consideration tn
fact that Mr.. Boyce says about d.
serted farms amt so" and cannot i
proved by the records, he falls int
the very common and natural error {
blaming the result instead of tn
cause.
There are fewer children IN some q
these hill districts because the farm
are deserted or II down, perhap
but the reason they are run down an
deserted Is not necessarily because o
schools or lack Of schools or becaus
schools have been consolidated, bur
because the farms have ceased to pa.
Il living to the farmer.
In short, the trouble does not Ii
with the schools but much deeper thar
that-fundamental, perhaps, in the
character OF the farms.
Some students of state conditions
have gotten themselv kaergesta" slat
have gotten themselves greatly disl'k
ed by referring to dying towns" but
the term IS descriptive, much more de
scriptive than most of us like to ad
nit, and it applies, not only to the
problems of town government, but tc
the primary problem of making a liv
ing off farms that no longer pay and
that cannot be restored at a figure
will permit carrying IN.
Some Of them should never have
been cleared, or being cleared, should
have been reforested. Others, by yir
ture of their billy and difficult charac
ter, are not suitable for crop-raisinl
and have reverted into pasture. Ger
tainly the state board Of education
cannot be blamed for that.
In any case, the state does mo-
run the schools of Calais or elsewhere
The town retains COMPLETE control o
them, and Mr.. Boyce and his fellow
voters can have things done as the.
wish, provided always that they are
in a majority.
II Is so much easier to blame some
thing vague and INDEFINITE than IL Il
to blame natural conditions in you
W town that a good many kickerI
again9t the present school plan-an,
It Is not perfect by any means-blam,
the state for everything from an out
break of humps to deserted farm
en- South Hill.
Kickers are nearly always unrea
sonable, but the most unreasonable
man In the world Is the man who ha
failed and ardently desires to shit
the blame to some one who can't ar
swer back. Rutland Herald.