USA > Vermont > Washington County > Waitsfield > History of the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, 1782-1908, with family genealogies > Part 14
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Benches for the pupils ran around three sides of the room, and at the end nearest the fireplace stood the master's desk. The benches next the wall were for the larger pupils. In front of these there ran a rude desk, then another row of benches for the tots, although in some school-houses there was a double row of desks and three rows of benches. This type of school-house prevailed throughout Vermont until about 1850, when considerable agitation on the part of state and county superintendents of schools brought about an improvement in many quarters.
In 1850 the Northwest District appointed a committee to remodel its school-house, and the building was entirely recon- structed on broader and better lines, but. upon the old location. This is the building now used for school purposes in that section of the town, although like all our other school buildings it has been furnished with modern furniture.
In the Village District (No. 6), also, it was found necessary to provide other quarters for the schools. The old building evidently fell into a bad state of repair at an early day. In 1836 we find that it was in such condition that it could not be used, and the district voted that school for the ensuing winter should be held in "A. Rider's shoop," and at the same meeting James Chipman, Ziba Rice and Roderick Richardson were elected a committee to see about building a school-house and to provide a location. Nothing could be agreed upon, how- ever, and in 1840 the district voted "To repair the old school- house in a cheap and convenient manner for the present winter."
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
In fact this matter of a new school-house in the Village District was not settled for nearly ten years. Committees were appointed nearly every year, and each committee reported favorably some location for a school-house, but each time the district refused to accept the report and placed it on the table. Finally, how- ever, on February 4, 1847, it was voted to build a new school- house, and "Locate the same on the east side of the road south of Horatio Fullerton's adjoining to the road or path that leads to the Burying-ground," and Roderick Richardson, George D. Rice and Charles Newcomb were appointed a committee to erect the building. Two days later the present school-house lot was purchased of Dan Richardson.
The district also voted to construct the building of brick, provided the brick could be obtained for $3.00 a thousand, but the brick-maker evidently was not in the market at this price, for the building erected in that year was a two-story wooden structure, with a belfry, well remembered by those of the present generation who attended school there. One room of the build- ing was occupied for the first time in the winter of 1847-48, but not until 1850 was the building finally completed. Numer- ous pupils from other districts attended this school for more advanced work, the district having voted "to divide the school so as to have the more advanced scholars occupy the upper room in the school-house."
Those whose school experience begins earlier than 1880 will remember the condition of the desk tops in this building. The names of former occupants were elaborately engraved thereon, and channels down which shot and other substances were rolled in school time were plentiful. This work seems to have begun at an early day, for in October, 1852, we find the district voting "that the committee of the district be instructed to call the attention of the teacher of the High School to the injury to the desks and the writing about the front doors, and that the teachers now and hereafter be held responsible for all damages done to the premises and for the necessary expense of keeping said school well washed."
Such regulations secm not to have been uncommon, as witness the following adopted by the District No. 2 upon the completion of a new school-house in 1867:
"Whereas we-legal voters in School district No. 2, in Waits- field, deeming it desirable that the school house in said district
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سيبادلي
1.53
EDUCATION.
should be kept and preserved in as perfect order and condition as possible-Therefore we hereby adopt the following rules and regulations
Ist Any scholar who shall wilfully or intentionally break, mar, or injure in any manner said house shall be subject to be publicly reprimanded at the discretion of the Teacher, and shall pay a fine for each and every offense of not less than twenty five cents, and not exceeding five dollars, said fine to be assessed by Prudential Committee or, punished otherwise as the law may direct at the discretion of Committee
2nd Any scholar carelessly or accidentally breaking or injuring said house, shall make the injury good by repairing the same, or paying the damage done to said house
3d No scholar can select and appropriate to their own use a seat of higher grade, to the exclusion of an older Scholar- but the School shall be seated with reference to hight of desk and age and size of Scholar
4th It shall be the duty of the Prudential Committee to see that the house is kept securely locked at all hours except 'when in actual use for School, or public purposes-It shall be his duty in connection with the Teachers to see that the fore- going regulations are faithfully executed and carried out
5th It shall be the duty of the Clerk in said district to furnish a copy of the foregoing regulations to the Teachers at the commencement of each succeeding term of school, the same to be read before the school
Lucius D. Savage
Dist. Clerk
To Miss Jones Teaching winter term of 1868 and 1869 L. D. Savage
Dist. Clerk"
For some years no schools were attempted except in winter, a man being employed to teach for three months during the cold weather. It was the custom to have this winter school begin about Thanksgiving. In fact, the general custom is well shown by vote of 1800 to the effect that "a school shall be begun as soon as may be after Thanksgiving, and continued till the money raised be expended."
Not until 1800 do we find any mention of a summer school, generally called in the records a "woman's school" because of the fact that a female teacher was employed. These summer schools usually continued from May to September, and were attended by the small children and the girls.
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
The expense of summer schools was slight as compared with that of the winter schools, although neither would be deemed expensive at the present time. For example, the summer school of the year 1800 in the Northwest District cost Sro and the winter school in the same district the sum of $30. The funds for summer schools seem to have been raised for a considerable time by an assessment in proportion to the number of children sent, and not in proportion to the grand list, show- ing clearly that it was then considered as an extra. After a time an effort was made to have the cost apportioned on the list, but in several instances the full step could not be taken at once, and a compromise was made under which a portion of the expense was levied on the list and a part in proportion to the number of children sent.
For many years the general scale of expenses for district schools did not vary greatly, except that the more populous and wealthy districts were accustomed to expend a somewhat larger sum of money than did the smaller ones. Here is a treasurer's statement of the Waitsfield District No. I for the year 1838, of interest for purposes of comparison with modern standards of expense:
L. Durant-for washing schoolhouse $ 1.50
Eliza Jones-for teaching summer school
15.00
Interest
.06
Postage of three letters
. 30
12 lights of glass .
.42
Repairing windows
.58
One broom
.25
C. Matthews for wood
4.00
Mr. Taylor, for teaching school
57.00
J. S. Wilder for building fires
1.34
J. S. Wilder for banking schoolhouse
. 50
$80.95
A total expenditure for the year of $80.95 covering the cost of a year's schooling for more than fifty pupils.
A few years before this time the surplus revenue of the national government had been divided, and the share of the town of Waitsfield was invested, and proceeds used for the benefit of schools. This district received in the year in question $16.59 as its share of income from that source. It received in cash from the selectmen-presumably on account of revenue
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from leased lands and other similar sources, $34.66. It received on account of collection of a note due the district, $5.84, and cash for the sale of its old stove, $5.60, leaving as a balance to be raised by the district the sum of $18.66, on account of which a tax of 1} cents on a dollar of the grand list was levied. In 1841 the tax in District No. 2 was but six cents on the list. Indeed small taxes for school purposes were common until the development of state supervision led to larger expenditure to secure greater efficiency.
Of course the teacher boarded around, as was the custom at that time, although after a few years we find a growing tendency to have the teacher boarded at some one place, the privilege being put up at auction and struck off to the lowest bidder. For example, in the year 1848 the board of the teacher for sixteen weeks in the summer was bid off at 66} cents a week, and board for the male teacher in the winter at 73 cents a week.
The curriculum was a simple one. Under the early statutes a mastery of the first principles of the "three R's" was all that was demanded, but as time went on grammar, geography and history were added, and in a few of the districts logic, algebra, and the elementary principles of natural philosophy and chemis- try were occasionally taken up and at rare intervals a student made a beginning in Latin. In September, 1812, we find one of the Waitsfield districts voting, "to have three months' school the ensuing winter, and that the committee be instructed to procure a teacher capable of teaching reading, writing, arithme- tic, grammar and geography, provided such a one can be pro- cured for any other pay than money."
One of the chief drawbacks to progress in the schools, was the great diversity in text books. The report of the Com- missioners for town schools submitted to the legislature of Vermont in 1828 deals especially with this, and recommends a list for use in the common schools of the state as follows:
"For Young Pupils,-Franklin Primer, Worcester's Primer: -Spelling Books-Marshall's Spelling Book, Hazen's do. Emerson's National do :- Reading Books-Leavitt's Easy Les- sons, Boston Reading Lessons, Pierpont's National Reader, Murray's English Reader, New Testament, without note or comment :- Geography -- Goodrich's Outlines of Modern Geo- graphy, Woodbridge's Geography :- English Grammar -- Mur- ray's Grammar, Nutting's Grammar, Greenleaf's Grammar Simplified :- History-Goodrich's History of the United States,
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
Hale's do. Whepley's Compend, Tytler's Elements of History, Worcester's do .- Arithmetic-Smith's Practical and Mental Arithmetic, Adams' New Arithmetic, Thompson's New Arith- metic."
Waitsfield had not waited for this action, however, as we find a vote recorded in 1827 to the effect that the Visitors of Schools "be requested to make a selection of school books such as they would recommend for the use of the schools and post up a catalogue of the same seasonably, in different parts of the town."
In spite of the wide publication of these recommenda- tions, little progress was made. The first superintendent of common schools in Vermont in his report for the year 1846 laid especial stress upon the unfortunate situation in regard to text books. More than fifty different books are specified as being in use in the schools of a single county, and others besides these are said to have been used more or less in the same schools. Indeed, as he says, "the caprice of successive teachers, the convenience or profit of book-sellers" were the only guides to choice.
In consequence, the number of classes was extremely large, the time given to each extremely small, and it was not until a system of state supervision of schools, with state, county and town superintendents, had been long in force that a reasonable efficiency along these lines was obtained. This system was organized in 1845, and in 1846 Waitsfield elected her first town superintendent, James T. Phelps, who served two years. After him came James M. Richardson, 1848; Joel Foster, 1849; Rev. Charles M. Duren, 1850-51 and 53-54; Rev. Andrew J. Cope- land, 1852; Richardson James Gleason, 1855; George N. Dale, 1856; Rev. C. C. Thornton, 1857-58; Rev. Nathan W. Scott, 1859; A. V. Spaulding, 1860; H. F. Thomas, 1861; Rev. Alfred B. Dascomb, 1862-66; Hiram Carleton, 1867-71. Beginning in 1871 the town has had a board of six school directors, serving three year terms. The members of the first board were Hiram Carleton, Edward Anson Fisk, Cornelius Emerson Joslin, Jacob Boyce, Ira Richardson and R. Rush Leach. The chairman of this board served as superintendent, and as such Hiram Carle- ton continued from 1871 to 1875. After him came Walter Alonzo. Jones, 1876-1886; Clarence Jean Allen, 1886-89; Henry Newton Bushnell, 1887-1891; George L. Walbridge, 1891-1892;
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EDUCATION.
Henry Newton Bushnell, 1892-1895; John W. Gregory, 1895- 1899; Henry Newton Bushnell, 1899-1901; Mrs. Lucia Joslin Bisbee, 1901 ~.
During the "forties," and especially after the construction of the two-room school building in the village, select classes were conducted in some of the higher and more polite branches of learning. In fact, we find occasional reference during the "fifties," and early "sixties" to the upper room in the village school as the High School. Gradually, however, these select schools disappeared, and the two rooms in the school-house were utilized merely for a division of the grammar grades, although occasionally the presence of an older class of students would result in a class in Latin or other more advanced studies. In general the Waitsfield schools have for many years maintained a high standard of efficiency in the subjects generally found in the more advanced schools of that grade, and beginning with the year 1906 the town has maintained a High School providing for the first two years of college preparatory course in accord- ance with the provisions of Vermont Statutes.
The standard of efficiency among the teachers employed in the town has been at all times high, although the compensa- tion awarded in early years was very small. Ten dollars a month to a male teacher for three months' work in the winter was at first deemed ample, while the woman who conducted the summer school received less than $1.00 a week.
Nor was there much advance in the standard of compensa- tion for teachers for many years. In 1850 the average pay for male teachers throughout the state was only $13.55 a month, and for female teachers, $5.63 a month, although Waitsfield took very high rank among the towns in the state in respect to compensation thus paid, her average payment for male teachers being $15.91, and for female teachers, $7.20 per month.
During the winter some of the districts attempted to supply their schools with students from Middlebury College or the University of Vermont but for the most part teachers were drawn from the bright young people of the neighborhood. They were very young, and a great drawback was that few of them saw long continued service. Indeed Horace Eaton, the first Superintendent of Schools for the state, exclaims in his report for the year 1846, "few, if not evil, are the days of teachers in Vermont," and the report of the Commissioners of 182S refers
158
HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
to the great necessity for skilled teachers in the following language:
"That an experienced, is better than an inexperienced, teacher, is a proposition to which no man will refuse his assent. And yet how frequently does it occur, that, in procuring a person to take charge of a school, this distinction is wholly disregarded, and he who is not qualified by experience or study, is preferred to one who enjoys the advantages of both, solely because he will undertake to teach for some $8 or $ro per month!"
This advice was sadly needed, for until 1846, when a state system was adopted, the employment and examination of teachers as to their fitness was wholly in the hands of the Pru- dential Committee for each district.
The teachers' desk in the old North District school-house had a hinged lid, and it is said that the first teacher duly in- scribed his name upon the under side of this cover, and his successors followed suit. In course of time this desk top fell into such a state of decrepitude that Mr. Ithamar Smith, at. the request of one of his daughters, replaced it with a new one, and took the old one to his home, where it was preserved for many years on account of the autographs which it contained. That would be an interesting relic if it could be found today, and it would be yet more interesting if we could know something of the personality of each of the men and women who have labored in our schools since their inception; but there is now no way of gathering up the list. The memory of our oldest people cannot go back to the beginning, and the records of the various districts are either wholly lost, or very defective, and any record that can now be made is at best fragmentary.
Of the first teacher in Waitsfield we have already spoken: Mr. Salah Smith was born in Deerfield, Mass., and received such education as the schools of that town afforded. He was throughout his life a leader in church and town affairs. His penmanship was beautiful, and the records kept by him as town clerk might almost be mistaken for old copper plate engraving.
His son Ithamar began teaching in 1804 at the age of seventeen, and took an active part in educational matters for many years. His advantages were limited, but he was a man of ability and scholarly attainments. Cicero and Virgil were
.
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EDUCATION.
mastered by him in middle life without assistance. He was also an advanced thinker along religious lines, and was the original anti-slavery man of the town. In his teaching he was thorough, and in his demonstrations practical. It is said that he studied a long time to find some way to bring home to his pupils in a convincing way the proof of the proposition that the area of a circle is equal to that of a parallelogram the length. of which is one-half the circumference and the width one-half the diameter, and finally hit upon the following: taking a pie to school for his dinner, and cutting it into very small pieces, he laid them together "crust to point," thus building up before his pupils' eyes a parallelogram that fulfilled the terms of the rule-at least to their reasonable satisfaction.
Another very early teacher was Luther Leland, who taught a few terms, during his course at Middlebury College, from which institution he graduated in 1806. After serving for a few years as preceptor of the Essex County (Vt.) Grammar School, he was ordained to the Congregational ministry and preached at Derby, Vt., from 1809 until his death, November 9, 1822.
Rev. Harvey D. Kitchell, a graduate of Middlebury in 1835, and president of the college from 1866 to 1873, was a teacher in the "North" district in the early "thirties." In fact, for many years this district levied heavy tribute upon Middlebury students to teach the winter school. Among them may be noted:
John L. Burnap, Middlebury, 1819, a native of Windham, Vt., who for some years after his graduation served as a home missionary; John Spaulding, of Mason, N. H., Middlebury, 1825, Andover Theological Seminary, 1828, who became secretary of the Western Educational Society, 1833-7, and secretary of the American Seaman's Friend Society, 1841-57; Charles Whipple, of Hardwick, Vt., Middlebury, 1827, who after.teach- ing in the East for some years finally settled in Menasha, Wis .; John Stocker, of Danville, Vt., Middlebury, 1830, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1831-2, who became a minister and had charges in various towns in New York, Indiana and Iowa, the last in Muscatine, Iowa, where he died March 17, 1848; Bela Fancher, of Verona, N. Y., Middlebury, 1831, Andover, 1835; a teacher and preacher in Ohio, New York and Michigan, re- siding in Homer, Mich., after 1855 (he found his wife among the girls of the district, and is elsewhere spoken of); Clarendon F. Muzzey, of Dublin, N. H., Middlebury, 1833, Andover, 1836,
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
who went as a missionary of the American Board to India, 1836-1857, and subsequently preached in various towns in Ver- mont, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. He died at Amherst, Mass., 1878.
Enoch Cobb Wines taught for some time in the Northeast District, and was a frequent visitor at other schools in town. He is remembered by one or two now living as a fine orator. and an acceptable teacher. In later life he became a noted philanthropist, engaging especially in prison work, in connection with which he became founder of the National Prison Associ- ation and first president of the International Prison Asso- ciation.
Rev. Amariah Chandler taught for several winters in the Northeast District during the "twenties," and brought to the work the qualities that made him a leader in the ministry.
John Chandler Wilder, of Burlington, a student in the University, was another early teacher. He was a grandson of Daniel Witherbee Wilder, and later entered the ministry.
Cyren Burdick was a local man who turned his hand to teaching in the winter when the duties of his farm did not claim his time so closely.
Among other Waitsfield men who figured in our schools are Charles Smith Carpenter, who, after graduating from the University of Vermont in 1838, made teaching his profession with marked success, until his death in 1846; Horace Skinner Jones, in later life a prominent man in Orleans County; Cornelius Emerson Joslin, oftentimes a teacher in the Centre District; John Nelson Phelps; Lucius Stearns Shaw, who entered upon the practise of law at Lawrence, Kan., but. lost his life during the Civil War; Ira Bushnell, a graduate of the University of Vermont in 1856; Hiram C. Skinner; Edwin Alonzo Jones, who became a successful physician but died before reaching the age of thirty; Cyrus Skinner, merchant and town clerk during the "forties" and early "fifties"; Norman Durant, a brilliant young lawyer, who died at an early age.
Matthew Hale Carpenter, then a law student in the office of the elder Paul Dillingham at Waterbury, and later United States Senator from Wisconsin, served a brief apprenticeship in the Northwest District during the winter of 1846-7, and it is said of him that while he made the bullies toe the mark in all things with true West Point precision, the school was
EDUCATION. 161
finally broken up because so many left in preference to yield- ing to his discipline.
Henry Ballard, well-known as a successful practitioner of the law, a graduate of the University of Vermont in 1861, taught for a time, during his college course, in the little red school-house of District No. 7.
Rollin Warner and his sister Susan kept a select school in the village in 1848, and Colonel Andrew C. Brown, now of Montpelier, with his sister Mary, were the teachers of a similar school in 1849 and 1850, as was B. W. Bartholomew in 1858; Jennie F. Quimby and Mary R. Carpenter in 1860; and C. A. Bunker, for many years principal of Peacham Academy, in 1862.
Among other teachers of these and later years may be named Dr. Gershom N. Brigham, A. W. Barry, F. D. Hemen- way, William Skinner, Harvey S. Clapp, Thomas Slade of Northfield, C. J. Guernsey, C. C. Bliss, L. M. Tuttle, H. W. Fuller, Justin P. West, O. R. Leonard, Ezra Jones of Claremont, N. H., A. O. Edson, Edson J. More, and Alfred Wheeler.
In later years there have been fewer male teachers, and from the first many noble women have labored in our schools. No attempt can here be made to even name them all, but among them may be mentioned Lucinda Washburn, of Montpelier, who later went as a missionary among the Cherokee Indians; Joanna Barnard, who became the wife of Anson Fisk; Esther Jones, daughter of Ezra Jones; Olive W. Skinner; Sarah A. E. Walton; Julia Skinner and her sisters Celia M. and M. Jane, daughters of Col. Orson Skinner; Betsey M. Clapp; Abigail H. Smith, daughter of Ithamar Smith, and later Mrs. Charles Caverno of Lombard, Ill .; Mary E. Holden (Mrs. Orcas C. Wilder); Mary A. Jones (Mrs. Orville M. Tinkham); Julia A. Richardson, daughter of Dan. Richardson (Mrs. Nelson A. Taylor); Susan McAulay; Fanny Joslin; Susan Griggs; Marion Childs, daughter of Rufus Childs; Mary A. Brown, sister of Col. Andrew C. Brown; Mary J. Folsom, who began teaching in our schools as early as 1852, and now rests after practically half a century spent in the schools of this and other towns; Harriet F. Chapman; Deborah Mayo; Rhoda Griggs; Zilpha B. Dewey, who became the wife of David Martin Phelps; Lovina Richardson (Mrs. Carlos E. Richardson); Mary E. Prentis (Mrs. Alden Ladd); Lydia A. Bigelow, and her older sister,
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