USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Milford > Town Annual Report of the Officers of the Town of Milford, Massachusetts 1856-1857 > Part 3
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of your children attend school under five or six years of age ; that children, especially those constantly going to school, require a. great deal of exercise in the open air, the objection of distance can hardly be material. Besides, it is designed that the Grammar schools-the Intermediate being abolished-shall be kept in the same houses with the Primary, so that the younger children will have the care and attention of the older, an object very desirable.
Although your Committee are opposed to having a larger num- ber of scholars in one school room, under one teacher with an a's- sistant, as is now the practice in your town, they are in favor of collecting at one locality as many as can be conveniently done. It is believed that it would cost much less to support six schools in one house, than in six houses ; to keep in repair one, though a large house, than six smaller ones ; to supply the necessary yards and appurtenances to one, than to six houses. The grading and classification of several hundred children in one large house, can be made much nearer perfect, and more effectual, than in six small ones, scattered about the village. The house should be divided in- to rooms in size sufficient to accommodate as many scholars as one teacher under the circumstances can profitably instruct and govern, and each room furnished with furniture, apparatus and other con- veniences adapted to the class of scholars to be taught in it. Un- der such an arrangement, it is confidently believed the condition of your public schools, will be materially improved.
If your Committee might be allowed to suggest the localities which now seem to them the most convenient and desirable for new school houses, they would mention in the southwesterly part of the village, the lot of land recently purchased by the town, near the manufacturing establishment of Capt. Elbridge Mann ; and in the northeasterly part, the premises on the northerly side of Main st., near the junction of Pond with the former street. It may be said that the nearness of the latter to the water is a fatal objection to this site. But this objection does not operate to prevent people from dwelling near the water, much nearer than the premises in question ; yet no instances of childrens having been drowned, or having been in danger of being drowned, by reason of their living in close proximity to water, are known. A suitable fence around the premises, such as should be made around every school ground ;
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and proper guards raised on each side of the bridge near by, would be ample security against all ordinary dangers of this kind.
WAGES OF TEACHERS .- No laborers in the community are more worthy of their hire than school teachers. None more deserve the "well done good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord," than the faithful school teacher. The immense, far- reaching influence of school teachers upon the present and future welfare of this beloved land, need not be here discussed. Their arduous, life. wearing labors continuous as the sun ; their irritating perplexities daily renewed; the countless obstacles always oppos- ing but never overcome, need not be here mentioned; every New England man knows the burdens, the duties, the responsibilities, of the honest, upright teacher. No man better knows than he, the value of the labors of such a teacher-and who more duly appre- ciates the wages of deserved effort ?
In school teaching as in the other avocations of life, if you would have ability you must pay for it. The superior workman makes superior workmanship; the superior artist gives your the most valu- able specimens of his art. There is a vast difference between Power's Greek Slave and a stone post ; between the ability ne- cessary to elaborate the one and hew the other; the difference in schools is no less striking. You may as well expect to obtain the the Greek Slave for the price of a door stone, as to obtain a su- perior, first class school at the cost of an inferior one ; as to obtain eminent and finished qualifications for teaching, without giving in return corresponding compensation. If you would have superi- or schools, superior ability must be employed to make them so.
It is a fact not very flattering, that the wages of school teachers in Milford are less than in any town in the vicinity. It costs near- ly if not quite as much, to live here as in Boston, or in other large towns and cities in the state ; yet the wages, paid to your teachers, are scarcely more than one half of what are paid to teachers in sim- ilar schools elsewhere. The merest assistant, in a Primary school in Boston, receives at least $300 a year; in Milford, this same class of teachers have usually received $132; Principals of Primary schools there obtain $350 and $400 in a year; here. the small sums of $150 to $200 has been the yearly stipend. To one who has to board and clothe herself. the trifling pittance of $132 a year, or
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$2,53 per a wock, is a ruiniously inadequate compensation. Oth- ers of your Primary teachers have had less than $3,00 a week, and but one of them as high as $4,00. Take from these niggard sums $2,50, or 3,00 a week for board, and it would puzzle one to learn how the recipients of such paltry wages can clothe themselves, ex- cluding the numerous other little etceteras, without which one can hardly live. The truth is, the young ladies, who have served you as assistants in your schools, have means of support, other than these apologies for wages. They have had honies to go to ; fath- ers and mothers to assist them. No young woman however well qualified, who must rely on her own exertions for support, can af- ford to teach school in Milford-she cannot live-she can do far better with her needle. Your servants are now more generously remunerated than the teachers of your children. It cannot be reasonably expected that talent and experience in teaching, can be obtained for wages so slightly remunerative. The town cannot be justified in educating its youth at the expense of individuals, as it evidently does, when the compensation allowed to teachers is not sufficient. Pay for qualifications and you will get them. Ability at whatever cost, is cheaper than ignorance at any cost. Let your compensation be amply remunerating, and your schools will be sought by the best teachers.
In this connection, your Committee cannot but express their re. gret at your action in a recent town meeting, in which you failed to add to the amount of your school appropriation. But few years ago your appropriations for the education of your youth, according to your means were among the most liberal in the Commonwealth. Since you first generously voted $4500 as the annual sum which you were willing to devote to your public schools, your means have vastly increased, your valuation greatly augmented. Notwith- standing this; notwithstanding plenty and prosperity have general- ly smiled upon you; notwithstanding the means of living in almost every particular have been greatly increased, and the expense of sustaining your schools materially enhanced ; this sum has not been raised ; but the year 1857, will bear witness, that while in your other appropriations for town purposes, you have been liberal in their increase, that for the education of your children not only remains the same. but efforts were made to diminish ic. Where
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were the friends of education, of your public schools? What rea- sons exist for lessening the amount of school appropriattons do not appear. At the time the school districts were abolished, and the schools in the village graded, the town adopted a report and recom- mendation of a committee chosen for the purpose, that the village schools with the High School, should continue 44 weeks in a year. This vote has never been recinded or repealed ; so that the town stands legally and honorably bound to see that the schools be kept the forty four out of the fifty-two weeks, and that it appropriates a sum sufficient. to do it, Can this be suitably and effectually done even with the sum of $4500 ?
But it has been said " the schools are worthless ;" " the money has been thrown away," &c. Will you then have no schools, or less schooling, because your schools may have been poorly adminis- tered ? Will you kill the sick, or endeavor to cure them ? Again it has been said, " your schools are too long;" "children become tired of going so long, and would learn just as much to go less." It is no uncommon thing for some children to become tired of go- ing to school, even to the shortest schools. So do children become tired of work, but who thinks of confining them to labor six months in the year, then, of permitting them to run at large the other six months to relieve them? What reason or sense is there, in com- pelling children to study six months in the year, and in suffering them to omit all mental exercises the other six months ? Is this a proper way to teach children-to teach them all you can in six months, and then to let them "slide" the other half of the year without instruction ? It would be a foolish way of learning to play the piano to practice six only out of the twelve months.
The mind like the body is educated and strengthened by frequent and regular exercise. One could hardly expect to prepare a horse for successful action on the race course, or a wrestler for effective manœuvring in the ring, by exercising him for the purpose one half of the year, and by suffering him to remain quiet the other half. Exercise and rest must be frequent and alternate. So the mind is educated and strengthened by daily exercise and rest. So it has been said that your children, who constantly attend your an- nual schools "are too much confined." This in a very few instances may be true, but it is not because the schools are annual, nor prop-
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erly, because the children constantly attend school ; for children may be too long confined in the school room or elsewhere, in one day. This would be wrong in the school room, it would be wrong elsewhere; wrong in a school of ten weeks, wrong in one of twen- ty. Children should never be confined too long in one position.
It is not the number of days in a year that the child attends school, which fatigues him, or improperly confines him ; it is what he daily performs ; the length of time he daily sits. His tasks and sittings should be graduated not by the year or by the mouth, but by the day-what can he do to day, how long can. he sit to day without detriment ? What is just and proper for him to do to day, may, so far as physical effects are concerned, be justly and proper- ly done every day. If evils of the kind here complained of, ex- ist in your schools-and that they are common is denied-the remedy should be sought not in diminishing the length of your schools, but in properly regulating their administration.
Your Committee most firmly believe, that the interests of edu- cation, as well as the interests of your town, require no diminu- tion in the length of your schools ; and that every dollar too little, which the town appropriates to this object, is twice that amount to it in loss.
There are other subjects of interest connected with your schools, worthy of your consideration, to which no allusion has yet been made, and to which your Committee intended to call your passing attention ; but the length of this Report is already so great, that they fear your patience will be quite exhausted in perusing what has now been imperfectly written; therefore they will leave them in the hands of their eminent successors.
Although in their labors of the past year in behalf your schools, you have significantly told your late Committee that they have not merited your approval ; although you have stamped their doings with the impressive seal of your dissatisfaction ; yet, in reviewing the transactions of the year, they are consoled by the conscious- ness, that, in the execution of the manifold and often perplexing duties devolving upon them, they acted " with an eye single" to the welfare of your schools. Their measures might not have been the most judicious; others might have done better, and been more satisfactory ; but they acted according to the "light" which they
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possesed, and if they erred, the error was one of judgment, not of purpose.
With this Report cease the services and the duties of your late Committee. The high trusts which, one year ago, you kindly placed in their unworthy charge, you have properly withdrawn, and in- trusted to stronger and abler hands ; you have done right. You have exercised a power which none more respects and honors than your late Committee ; and they rejoice and thank Heaven that they live in a land, where this power exists. They willingly lay at the feet of their worthier successors, the mantle of brief authority with which you clothed them ; but they sincerely regret that their pub- lic efforts in the management of your schools, were not deserving of your approbation. And although they cannot expect to hear the pleasing, gratifying welcome, "well done good and faithful ser- vant," they thank the Lord, that their lot was cast in a land of Freedom, and Common Schools. The Common Schools! Schools for the people! The nurseries of Freedom ! O, sustain your Com- mon Schools. Cherish them-improve them. They are the guardians of your liberties, the safety of your beloved land.
LEANDER HOLBROOK, LYMAN MAYNARD, SCHOOL
WINSLOW BATTLES, COMMITTEE.
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