and appropriate remedies, requires an intimate acquaintance with the various elements of character, moral, mental or physical, of his patients, therefore the physician should board around; and, fixing the existing necessity for his services as the standard of time, as in the case of the teacher, the doctor should board around in proportion to the prevalence and virulence of Diptheria and Scarlet Fever. And, as the rule is to the fullest extent equally applicable to the teacher of morals and religion, then the preacher too should board around in proportion to the prevalent wickedness and disregard of all moral right. Such an application of the principles claimed smothers them in absurdity.

It is said, in the second place, that it will be far less burdensome for many families to pay such portion of the expense of the schools as accrues from boarding the teacher, in actually boarding the teacher for the proper proportionate time, than it would be to pay it in money.

Whatever force there may be in this reasoning-and that there is some force in it is not denied-it is believed to be more than counter-balanced by facts and arguments that might be urged on the other side.

In the first place, the only logical basis upon which, in any republican State, a State system of public schools can find a stable and permanent foundation, consists in the necessity of general intelligence and virtue, in order to the general security of life and property, wherever, from the nature of the government, universal suffrage endows every individual with the character of a law-maker.

Good laws, general orderliness and peace give security to property and to life. A general diffusion of knowledge and uprightness give possibility and existence to good laws, general orderliness and peace. A general public system of schools, extending the benefits of moral and mental culture to all, can alone secure a general diffusion of knowledge and uprightness. Therefore a public system of free schools is indispensable in every republican State, and is to be considered a matter of necessity and self-protection, and cannot be dispensed with. Therefore all the property of the State, of every description, should ratably contribute to defray all the expenses of a system of public schools without which security to property is hopeless and indeed impossible. By any logical and reasonable theory of republicanism, then, all the expenses of the public schools should be defrayed by a tax upon the Grand List; or, in other

words, upon the property of the community. And so any attempt to distribute the expense of the board of the teacher, or of any other item of the expense of sustaining the public schools in proportion to the scholars that may attend the school, is in direct contravention of all the theoretical principles of democratic institutions.

As a matter of practical experiment, too, the statistics furnish reason to believe that the apportionment of the expense of boarding the teacher and of fuel upon the scholars who may attend the school, has operated most disastrously for the State. The State system of public schools must, as a matter of theory, be supposed to be adequate for the purpose for which it was designed, in other words, adequate to give necessary culture to the 88,453 children 1eported as of school age. And for this agency, thus theoretically sufficient for the accomplishment of its work, the people annually pay $500,000. And this vast sum is paid, not as a matter of ornamental or philanthropic policy, but as a matter of stern necessity. The State needs that all her 88,453 children should be instructed as a matter of indispensable self-protection. Whatever, then, stands in the way of, or prevents the accomplishment by the schools of their appropriate and allotted work, is prejudicial to the highest interests of the State.

Now a glance at the statistics shows us that some agency or power does stand in the way of the accomplishment by the schools of their proper work. The statistics show that while the whole number of the children of the State of school age, between 4 and 18 years of age is, 88,453; of all these children only 64,042 have attended school at all. This gives 24,411, or 27 per cent of the whole, that during the past year have not attended school at all. And looking a little farther, we find that the average attendance upon the schools of those between the ages of 4 and 21 has been 44,628, and if from this we take the probable average attendance of pupils between 18 and 20 years, which is 1521, we shall have the average attendance upon the schools of the children between 4 and 18 years to be 43,107 which is 48 7-10 per cent, or less than one-half. But if a system of schools organically sufficient for the education of 88,453 children within certain limits, cost $500,000, and yet while sufficient to teach all, is so operated and under such circumstances as to educate only 48 7-10 per-cent, or less than one-half of the children for whom it is intended and is adequate;

then if figures prove anything, these figures prove that onehalf of the State expenditures for schools, or $250,000, is lost.

It is a little strange that among a sharp and a shrewd people, a greater effort has not been hitherto made to discover the cause or causes of so great wastefulness. What then is the leading causes of an average absence from the public schools of more than half of the children of the State, for whose instruction they were organized?

Perhaps a slight inspection of the statistics, together with certain known facts respecting the practical operation of the school system, will help us to give a reasonable and probable answer to this question.

Allowing that an average district pursues the course generally practiced, and figuring expenses in accordance with the discoveries of the statistics, the following nearly will be the result.

At the annual meeting the plan will be proposed and accepted of sustaining a two month's summer school upon the Grand List, then putting the board and fuel for the whole year upon the scholar, and then to sustain as many more weeks of school as will suffice to exhaust the public money. According to this plan, the expenses will be nearly as follows: upon the property will be paid the expense of two months summer school taught by a woman because it will be less expensive. Two months school by a female teacher, at the statistical average price $10,52 per month will cost $21,04. It being summer there will be no expense for fuel. And as the board of teacher and fuel are to be put upon the scholar, and only enough more school be taught to expend the public money, of which the average amount to each district is $39, there will be nothing more in the way of expense to be paid upon the

Grand List.

Upon the scholar will be levied taxes to pay the board of the teacher for the average term-24 weeks-at the average price ascertained by the year's statistics, of $2 per-week, amounting to $48, and to pay the expense of fuel for the year which may be estimated at five cords, which, at $3,50 per cord will amount to $17,50. In the supposed district then, pursuing the ordinary course, and regulating the expenses entirely in accordance with the revelations of the statistics, the property of the district will pay $21,04, and the children of the district attending school will pay the sum of $65,50. When we call to mind the uniformity with which children seem to be distribu

ted to the families everywhere in inverse proportion to their pecuniary ability, it will be apparent that of the average amount of public money distributed, $39, which is distributed mainly in proportion to the average attendance of the children the major portion of whom come from the poorer families, the inequality and injustice of the practice of boarding around becomes very apparent. The statistics show the aggregate average number of children attending the school to have been 64,042. This aggregate average attendance divided by the whole number of districts gives 16 as the average daily attendance of each district. Now dividing the $65,50, the average amount to be paid by each district upon the scholars attending the schools, by the average number 16, attending school constantly, we have $4,09 to be paid by each scholar attending.

Surely when thus it is seen that under the practice of boarding around, by far the heaviest taxes necessary in the support of the school are levied upon the scholar, the property paying less than one-fourth while the scholars pay three-fourths, there can be little doubt that one powerful agency in diminishing the attendance upon the schools is discovered.

unable to

But what

But, it is said that "when a poor man is really board the teacher, we pass him by and let him go.' right has any man or any set of men so to manage a system of republican institutions as to compel a citizen on account of poverty to accept as a charity from his neighbors what belongs to him of right from the government of which, though poor, he is a constituent part?

But other and stronger objections may well be urged against the boarding around practice. By the statistics we have discovered that more than four-fifths of the districts employ two teachers annually, and common observation shows that a very large proportion of these teachers are quite young and inexperienced. All teachers need daily study and exertion and thought in order to enable them to sustain the necessary interest in the various branches which they teach. This is of course especially true of the younger teachers; and it may be said that the most prominent want of our schools is not so much a better class of teachers, as a better application of the latent capacity now possessed by the present teachers. But without study,-daily study and thought-the best powers of our teachers connot be developed. Whatever then has a tendency to encourage and promote the habit of study and thought on the part of our teachers in the effort daily to increase their

power and efficiency in giving instruction, operates directly and powerfully to the improvement of the school. But in order to the possibility of this thought and study on the part of the teacher he must have quiet retirement and opportunity for study. Herein is the specially mischievous tendency of the practice of boarding around, that it absolutely precludes the teacher from that daily study and effort, without which even an old teacher must constantly deteriorate, and without which a young teacher must fail; and in so doing strikes directly at the improvement of the schools.

It is also true that wherever the practice of putting the expense of board and fuel upon the scholar has prevailed, it has ever been a source of constant quarrel and discussion; for, diametrically opposed in principle to the general tenor and spirit of republican institutions, effort after effort will be made when occasion offers to substitute a more democratic and equitable custom, and the result has often been to keep the district in constant strife and to embitter the feelings of citizens, and thus to diminish the good effect of the school.

The Legislature at its last session most wisely enacted laws intended to put a final termination to this undemocratic and injurious custom; and while they remain in force, in spite of the efforts of ingenious men to avoid the effect of the law by cunning devices and exceeding shrewd tricks; and in spite of efforts already actively in operation to procure the repeal of the law; it is to be hoped not only that no repeal will ever be attained, but that additional Legislation will so construe the laws already enacted that a practice which drives the children of the poor from the public schools; which deprives the teachers of all opportunity for study and self improvement; which creates an excessive inequality of taxation; which compels men, merely on account of poverty, to meekly receive as beggars the full enjoyment of valuable privileges that belong to them of right; which tends always to excite bitterness and a spirit of unrest and animosity, shall be forever eradicated. While we thank the good Father that with all its many burdens and sorrows, this terrible war has destroyed the venom and the power of the spirit of caste that for many long years has cursed one portion of our common country, let us pray that that same spirit may not find a refuge in the glens of the Green Mountains, and by levying taxes for the support of education "upon the scholar" seal forever the fountain of knowledge to the children of the poor and the needy.