News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1922-06-21


talk supposed to disguise the fact
that it is hard way. l think ! de-
test all such disingenous underhand
ways because | am Vermonter ano
take for granted that other Yer
monters want, as much as do, to
have the truth told boldly, honestly
with no beating around the bush
about it, either.
Well, the truth which has come out
as result Of this first careful de-
tailed investigation of rural schools
Tin Vermont, is that they are in bad
way. We might as well swallow that
pill without chewing on it.
Here are some facts, recently made
available. Three hundred nine
schools are taken at random, in diff
| ferent parts and counties of the state,
| typically representative of conditions.
From the reports of the superintehd-
ents, usually about ten percent more
favorable than the judgment of the
state supervisor, warrants, it APP
pears that of these 800, 200 are be-
low rs, on less than three-fourths
efficient. Can you picture that?
Suppose you drove for 300 miles and
passed a schoolhouse every mile,
only 10 would be even three-fourths
of what they ought to be. And, alas,
there would be ITO, wretchedly below
even half what any decent country
school should be, ITO out of 300 be-
low so percent, efficiency and only
nineteen above rs percent efficiency
Don't you think such facts, only just
now ascertained, ought to be re-
ported in full to/Vermont? I do.
You can see why there are only six
rural schools in Vermont which have
so far been awarded the name of
STANDARD"
The state department has estimated
that, on an average, $4,000 for each
school would bring every rural school
in Vermont up to good condition of
material efficiency. Four hundred
fifty dollars. That is all that stands
between our children and decent
school surroundings. Four hundred
fifty dollars, about the price of
Ford car-just one Ford car. How
many Ford cars are there in every
Vermont district? And how many
finer, more expensive cars do we find
parked on every village street in
Vermont? To see fine cars standing
around in town where there are
schools not fit for children to attend
isn't that little like seeing dia-
mond ring on a hand, with black
trimmed finger-nails, or seeing
house with fine, shiny set of parlor
furniture and dirty, delapidated
kitchen with no sink and no running
water. And does that sound like the
way Vermonters keep house? You
know it doesn't. It's not character
istic of Vermont and it has happened
in Vermont only because Vermonters
do not know about it. And I am
here today to tell them.
For, note well, as rule, the
schools which have no decent toilets
nor good blackboards nor clean floors
nor enough textbooks, the multitude
of forlorn, down-at-the-he school
houses are not those along the main
roads, are not those past which we
come and go on our way to the next
town. They lie in the back corners
in the innumerable "hollows" off on
steep side roads where there is. moth
ing to take the main crowd,
where the school directors seldom or
never go, where nobody goes except
the few families whose farms happen
to lie around the schoolhouse. Until
the state system of district superin-
tendents was organized and you
know how recently, that is, nobody
outside the district had laid eyes for
years on these back road schools.
That, by the way, is one of the many
many reasons why a decent state
system of education cannot be run
without superintendent.
The people in these poorer noun
tain districts naturally have less
money than main-road people; being
more or less shut up in their distant
inaccessible regions, they have not
come in contact with the growth of
higher and finer and more exacting
ideals in education and till very re-
Gently nobody has gone there to put
them and their schools in touch with
the modern schools. There are such
schools in every town, represented by
every woman here today, which we
have literally never seen, about the
conditions of which we know less
than we do about the conditions of
JllC III SIlIld, VI inc
weather in France. These are the
school which bring down the recorded
average of our Vermont schools.
These are the 81 percent which must
be graded below three-fourths of
efficient.
And who are receiving their educa-
ton in these schools today, this
morning as we meet here? The
future citizens of Vermont. Ten
years from now, only decade, which
we shall hardly notice as it passes
along, and boys and girls whose en-
tire education has been received in
those schools, will be voting all over
Vermont, deciding the future advance
or retreat of Vermont along the road
to higher, better things. If they do
not vote for advance, it will be due
to no fault of theirs, but to ours, to1
day.
For, this taking account of stock
in Vermont has brought out another