1855-1856 School Committee Report

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12 between the several districts for the support of schools. The sum raised by taxation, for the support of schools dur- ing the past year, was $3,700 ; and, by adding the $89.91, we have a total of $3,789.91, which does not include the expense of making fires and care of schoolrooms, nor the larger item of making and repairing schoolhouses or their furniture. Of the town's appropriation, $1,000 was to be set apart to meet the expenses of the High School; and, of the re- maining $2,700, the two village districts were to have each $800 ; leaving $1,100 to be divided equally between the four remaining districts, which would give them each $275, exclusive of their share ($15 each) of the State School Fund. Of the $1,000 designed for the High School, only about X860 was actually expended. The salary for the teacher was fixed at $800 per annum ; but, as there was a suspen- sion of the school for nearly two weeks, $770.90 was the sum really paid for instruction. GRADES OF SCHOOLS. We now have three grades of schools in this town ; and this number is supposed to be as many as the place, with its sparse population, will profitably admit of. It matters little by what names we designate these grades, whether we call them Alphabet, Primary, and Grammar Schools, or High Schools, Colleges, and Universities : the name would not necessarily alter the character of the school, nor advance or retard the attainments of any scholar. We wish, how- ever, that schools, as well as other things, to avoid confu- sion, were designated by their just titles. Girard College, in Philadelphia, is devoted to a grade of scholars hardly so much advanced as those generally found in grammar schools in this State. But a college with us is very properly sug- gestive of attainments above those ordinarily connected with a High School. And should one be established in this place, carrying with it some pretension to intellectual or 41, 13 social cast, the regents could not fail to fill it immediately to overflowing with the material now in our schools, unless they were deaf to importunity, or required all candidates for admission to be able to parse correctly simple sentences in prose. The scholars, moreover, it will readily be conceded, should create the demand for the school, and not the school the demand for the scholars ; but if the school must necessarily be fed by scholars of slender qualifications, even for an or- dinary Grammar School, in order to keep up a numerical respectability, we confess our inability to see the wisdom of such a course. The only rational way which presents itself to us for putting a High School on a sure foundation is to commence with thoroughly grading all the schools, and then causing those grades to be rigidly observed. Now, this power of classifying the schools, and assigning the particular books, or parts of books, that the several grades shall be instructed in, and of affixing the particular amount of acquirement scholars shall possess to enter either grade, rests, as you are aware, entirely with the School Committee. But as such a step on their part might by some be considered an extraor- dinary exercise of their power, we have little hope that they will ever undertake it, unless they are first assured of the general co-operation of the inhabitants. Those scholars who have completed the course of study prescribed in the Grammar Schools should not only be permitted but required to attend the High School, if they attend any; otherwise there would necessarily be two classes of the same grade in schools of different grades, in consequence of a part entering the High School when qualified, and others, of the same proficiency, by preference remaining in the Gram- mar Schools. In such a state of things, it would be diffi- cult to perceive the real benefit of a High School, and especially if a scholar is allowed to vacillate at will between it and another grade. Of such a scholar it may be said, as of Hamlet's ghost, — "'Tis here ! 'tis here ! 'Tis gone ! "