Year: 1871

The annual March meeting of the
towns occurs next week. If the select
men have been able to peruse the large
octave volume of laws passed at the late
session of the Legislature, and learn its
contents, the warning will call upon the
voters in each town to decide whether
they will abolish the present school dis
trict system, and put in its place the
town system of schools. If the town
votes to abolish the districts. it then pro-
eeeds to elect a central board of three Or
six directors for the town schools. One-
third hold office for one year, one-thirf
for two years, and one-third for three
years, and their successors go fast "a they
are elected will serve for three years


This board will take the place of the old
prudential committees, and have the
same ample powers. They decide the
number of schools and where they shall
be kept, employ the teachers and pay
them. The law provides for the equitable
adjustment of all claims arising ont of
the transfer of the property of the dis
tricts to the towns.


Such are the general features of the
law. Its great advantages over the pres
ent system are obvious at the frat glance.
ut tOWus tudt II VIII gam
educational respects over their unwise
neighbors who may refuse to accept it.
In the new system the best men in each
town will be placed at the head of its edu-
cstionsl interests; the schools will be ele-
waited in character by the mutual associ-
alton into which it will bring them, by
being placed under the same general su-
perintendence and administered by the
same general rules and by being delivered
from the narrow, local jealousies which
often worked SO disastrously in our small
districts. In many respects the system


would be matter of economy, but at any
rate it must raise the grade of instruction
and acquisition in our schools, and SO en-
hance their positive benefits to the schol-
ars as to more than compensate for any
increased expense. We have never found
that men, even in Vermont, were unwill-
ing to pay for good thing. More money
can be raised for good school with great
er ease than less sum can be raised for a
poor school. And if once our towns try
this new system they will never wish to
revert to the old one.


One of the decided advantages of it
would be to establish uniform rate Of tax
alton and furnish more uniform and equal
advantages to every citizen. The poorer
districts, which can now hardly afford to
maintain the poorest schools, will have
the assistance of the wealthier districts.
and will be able to furnish to their scbol-
srs instruction equal to the best and
richest communities. 1t is system which
levels up and does not level DOM. 1t lifts
the lower grades up to higher rank,
and SO diffuses its beneficial influences
through those classes that it is the object
of every good system of government or
education to reach and advance. 1t makes
possible q more advanced course of study
for the best students in every district,
and on the whole put our school system
on the upward march. The objections to
it are SO trivial or so based in antiqusted
prejudices that we shall be surprised if
they should prevail in any considerable
number of towns.


We know that our Vermont munich
pslities are very conservative and indis-
posed to adopt any new measures in any
department. But true conservatism is a
very different thing from utter stsgnstion.
1t does not stick to the old because it is
old, nor run for the new becauseit is new.
1t accepts reasonable innovations when
they are based on sound principles, and
elevate the tone of social and individual
life. We have given up our old ploughs
and harrows, our old wooden axels and
sap boilers, our old fra buckets and
dasher cburns, and skillets for wash
basins, and have suffered no injury. We
have been quick to see the advantage of
new stock and new barns and new meth
ods of draining and of raising calves. But
we keep up the old rickety system of
educating our children. Three months
district school in the summer, and three
more in the winter, with an iH-psid
teacher whose ambition is all worked out
of him by the necessity of boarding round, |
is all we give the children of our State in
the larger part of its districts. We give
our colts and calves more grass than we
give our youth letters. Any system then
which will raise the quality of our
make the property Of town
liable for the instruction and education OF
it's youth, and advance the standards of
and of teaching, deserves the
most unqualified endorsement OF an In
people. The towns that are first
to adopt this measure will reap its richest
benefits.


RrrsINEss DJRFCToRY.-TheN New Eng 1