1856-1857 School Committee Report

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4 school as the standard of excellence. This, however, is far from being a safe standard to adopt in all communities. Fidelity is sometimes the cause of unpopularity, and this may not be less true in the case of school teachers than of any other class of pub- lic servants. " Some there are who will not endure sound doc- trine," any more in the inculcation of secular learning than in the higher department of religious teaching. While, therefore, the teacher as well as the scholar is entitled to just praise for fidelity, caution is requisite that injustice be done to none by unfavorable comparisons. The liberal appropriations made from year to year by the town for the support of their schools, is evidence that their importance is at least measurably understood and appreciated. Each year confirms our confidence, that whatever curtailment the town may feel in duty bound to exercise, so much money as is needed for the efficient maintenance and still more elevated character of the schools will not be withheld. We are convinced that we can- not afford to put up with second-rate schools. Money alone, however, will not make good schools. This must be had : Good school -houses and competent teachers, such as cannot be provided without a liberal expenditure and a fair equivalent, are indispen- sable to the prosperity of our educational interests. In this re- spect we think the citizens of the town have done themselves good credit by their repeated acts of liberal appropriation. To realize the largest benefit of the expenditure, our schools must have the aid and cooperation of the parents. This can be rendered in various ways. They can promote the usefulness of the schools by securing the constant and punctual attendance of their children. Few seem to be aware of the damage done to the scholar individually, and to the school as a whole, of frequent and numerous cases of tardiness and absence. Such scholars soon become indifferent—get discouraged, and, from their relative dis- advantage in the classes to which they belong, they will soon feel disposed to seek for reasons, and will invent excuses for be- ing absent. Many children who, under other circumstances, would have been scholars of high merit, have gone through the entire period allotted to their education, afflicted by the irksome - 5 ness of their task, and the mortification of great deficiency in every department of useful learning. Nor does the delinquent scholar alone suffer. He hangs as a dead weight upon his class ; he deranges the systematic order of the school, and brings it more or less into discredit by his negligence and stupidity. While all who will, have a right to avail themselves of the school advan- tages provided by the town, it is certainly a grave question, whether children, who are late at school or absent from it the larger portion of the time, ought to be allowed to attend at all. In our judgment, it is the duty of parents, and of them only, to see that their children constantly and punctually attend school. For this neither teachers or the committee can justly be held respon- sible. It is the business of the teacher to do the best in his power for the scholars placed under his charge, but no part of his duty, as some seem to imagine, to take up a line of march, and drum out to the school all the delinquents in the neighborhood. If he is a teacher fit to be employed, he will have enough to do without this encumbrance, and no teacher who knows what the true dig- nity of his office is, will ever assume any such task. This matter must rest with the parents, and if their children do not go to school when sent, if they are not culpably indifferent to their wel- fare they will ascertain their truancy, and see that it is corrected. Parents can do this work much more easily than the teacher can. To oblige him to report to the parents all the cases of tardiness and absence that may occur, in order to ascertain whether they were known at home, is a most burdensome and unreasonable imposition. Parents also can do much to aid the teacher and promote the efficiency of the school, by sustaining its order. Your Committee would be the last to approve or countenance a barbarous school discipline. We would have the schools governed in the pleasant- est and mildest manner possible, but we would have them efficiently governed. We would have no lowering down of the standard of school discipline, to accommodate the prejudices or the whims of any body. We would have the requirements of the school reasonable and impartial, and then have them complied with. We would never suggest to a teacher that some children have never