USA > Vermont > The Vermont lease lands > Part 27
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In order to make this condition clearer in its detailed characteristics, certain items from the appendix have been selected.
The requests for special acts of incorporation for Whitingham and Corinth academies were referred to the Committee on Education. The report of that committee is significant :
Your committee learn that one reason why individuals, wishing to establish such institutions, apply to the Legislature for a special act of incorporation, instead of associating agreeably to the pro- visions of the general law, is an apprehension, in case the State should hereafter see fit to bestow pecuniary aid upon our literary institutions, that those incorporated under the general law would not be viewed with the same favor and consideration as those
66. The writer's own town of Weybridge offers an extreme illustration of the survival of such local thinking. The town, for geographic reasons, has three schools, of which two are at present in use. With a total town population of around 500, there are two separate Parent-Teacher Associations, attached, respectively, to the two schools, the one "on the hill" and the other "in the valley." In fact, the opera- tion of the two schools, in view of the existing and functioning school bus service, is significant. One of the schools has recently provided education for the children of no more than five families !
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incorporated by special act. But your committee see no foundation for such a suspicion.67
The petitions were reported unfavorably.68 While the tenor of this report throws the onus on those wishing to establish schools, the present writer regards the report as a clear indication of the failure of the legis- lators. A study of the record of legislation strongly supports the con- tention of the petitioners.
The legislative record respecting Orleans County is startling, to say the least, and merits exposition here. To begin with, it is admitted that the Orleans situation is extreme in its complexity. However, that in Orange County came close to rivalling it. And numerous others do, also, although on a less spectacular scale because they involved less widespread matters. Between 1812 and 1912 no less than twenty-four acts were discovered, all of which, in one way or another, are of con- cern to the public rights reserved in Orleans County for the benefit of grammar schools! The story commences with the incorporation of two schools-one at Brownington, the other at Craftsbury. The "funds arising from the lands granted for the use of County Grammar Schools in said county, shall be equally divided between said corporations."69 Such was the way in which the situation was initiated. The boards were each given powers to lease the lands, etc., but nothing was said to show which parcels were to be administered by which board. There was no saving clause for future legislative action.
This did not become effective because the towns failed to act, even though the time limit was extended. In 1820 a committee was established to locate an Orleans County Grammar School, and the same act provided its incorporation. This school was to have the benefit of all the lands in the county. The act, however, included complete saving clauses, allow- ing for redistribution both within the county, and outside it, to other schools.70 The school was to be located by July 1, 1821, and there was a three-year limit for action by the town selected. Yet five years later
67. Journal of the Senate, 1841, Oct. Session, App., p. 36.
68. It is interesting to note that the Corinth school did receive special incor- poration five years later ! Laws of Vermont, 1845-1848, 1846, p. 53.
69. There is a suggestion in this act that pulling and hauling in the county was already rife. The act not only locates the two schools, but specifies that the county buildings should be located at Irasburgh. Laws of Vermont, 1811-1814, 1812, pp. 65-71.
70. Ibid., 1819-1821, 1820, pp. 37-40.
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an act authorized Ira Allen to call a first meeting of the board of trus- tees.71
In 1829 the Craftsbury Academy was incorporated, but there was no grant of public lands.72 However, in 1836 an act is found by which the lands were divided, town by town, between this school and "the county grammar school at Brownington."73 (One can only suppose that the school provided for in the 1820 act had finally been located at the latter town.) The act included full provision for action by future legislatures.
A further redistribution took place twelve years later. Derby Acad- emy appeared on the scene, and a three-way split was made of the lease lands.74 That is, each school was allotted the lands in a list of towns. This did not last long. In 1852 the Orleans Liberal Institute was incorporated at Glover.75 And in 1855 a new, general redistribution occurred.76 This act had an interesting point in it. The Glover incorporation did not say anything about the public lands, but this next act went on the assump- tion that it was in control of some of them! (A careful search has re- vealed no intervening act.) The 1855 act also involved still another new school, the Barton Academy, and it introduced a new technique for dis- tribution :
All income, rents and profits derived from the grammar school lands . . . shall hereafter be equally divided between the Orleans County Grammar School at Brownington, the Craftsbury Acad- emy, the Derby Academy, the Orleans Liberal Institute at Glover, and the Barton Academy ; and each of the four institutions first named shall hereafter pay to said Barton Academy one-fifth part of all such sums as they may receive . . . so that they shall all share alike.77
It is easy to perceive that this left much to be desired from the adminis- trative viewpoint.
Evidently, this was pointed out to the legislators. One finds another act on the same subject.78 In fact, this second act carries the next serial
71. Ibid., 1822-1826, 1825, p. 107.
72. Ibid., 1827-1831, 1829, pp. 68-69.
73. Ibid., 1835-1837, 1836, p. 149.
74. Ibid., 1845-1848, 1848, pp. 16-17.
75. Ibid., 1852-1854, 1852, pp. 129-130.
76. Ibid., 1855-1856, 1855, pp. 70-71.
77. Ibid. This clause illustrates the fact that the legislature came to ignore completely the nomenclature of institutions in granting grammar school lands.
78. Ibid., 1855-1856, 1855, pp. 71-73.
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number after the one quoted above and was passed the same day. Here one discovers that the Barton school was dropped from consideration, the benefit being granted only to those at Brownington, Craftsbury, Derby and Glover. Furthermore, arrangements between these four were revised. Each was granted the lands in a specified list of towns. But then the following was provided :
Each of said corporations shall be allowed to retain, of the moneys received ... one fourth ... and no more; and in case at the end of one year . . . or any year thereafter, either of said cor- porations shall receive . . . more than one-fourth part of all the rents received by all of said corporations, the same shall be equal- ized among said corporations. . . . 79
Legal action was authorized for recovery of any such surplus.
The germ of further change was planted that same day by the in- corporation of still another school-the Missisquoi Valley Academy.80 And the change occurred two years later in another redistribution act.81 This involved a general overhauling as still other schools were now represented in the act. Besides those already named, there were the Westfield Grammar School and the Albany Academy.
The provisions of this act are somewhat involved. To begin with, "all income, rents and profits, derived from the grammar school lands . . . shall hereafter be equally divided between. . . . " Brownington, Craftsbury, Derby, Glover and Barton. Then, "the four institutions first named shall hereafter pay to. . . . " Barton, Westfield, Albany and Missisquoi "to each of them, one-eighth part . . . so that they shall share alike."82 (The Albany and Westfield schools had been incorporated just a few days previously.)83 This act, like the first of those in 1855, failed to provide enforcement procedure.
However, the act was not long effective. In 1859 a new effort was made to untangle the problem.84 This time the legislature tried a differ- ent scheme and purposed to transfer the responsibility for satisfying the schools to other shoulders. The act is relatively simple in form, but
79. Ibid., p. 72.
80. Ibid., 1855-1856, 1855, pp. 172-173.
81. Ibid., 1857-1858, 1857, pp. 52-53.
82. The inclusion of Barton in the first list would appear to have been an error of engrossing or of printing. However, that is how the act appears in the Laws. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 1857-1858, 1857, pp. 130-132.
84. Ibid., 1859-1860, 1859, pp. 50-51.
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how simple it might have been in operation is something else. It removed from the several boards of trustees the administration of the lands and gave the whole responsibility to the selectmen of the towns where the lands lay. They were then to pay over the rents and profits to whichever school should be determined on by a majority vote at the annual March town meeting. If the voters failed to make a choice, the choice was then the responsibility of the selectmen, by a majority of them. This at least has the merit of leaving local quarrels to be settled locally. This arrangement was modified in 1870.85 Now the trustees were restored to authority of administration of those lands which lay in the towns in which the respective schools were located, the selectmen retaining au- thority over lands in the remaining towns of the county. A further change provided that any school could proceed in court against select- men who failed, or had failed since 1859, to pay over the avails to any school. Such school, upon a recovery, should cover the costs of the ac- tion from that sum and then distribute the remainder equally among the schools in the county.
This may be regarded as the high point in the situation. The next action found in the Laws dealt with two schools in a contrary trend. The first was in Newport where the Newport Academy and Graded School District was established and was granted the benefit of the gram- mar school land in that town. The other saw the ending of the Barton school as an independent institution.86 The act in question combined the Barton Academy and Barton school district number one into the Barton Academy and Graded School District. It essentially concluded the cor- porate life of the old Academy by establishing a new and differently formed board, by transferring to the new corporation the assets and liabilities of the old and by providing that the Barton selectmen should pay to the new corporation the avails, accrued and to come, from the grammar school land in that town.87 The system established in the 1870 act broke down, further, by another act of the 1886 session.88 By this,
85. Ibid., 1870, pp. 519-522. In the meantime the act of incorporation of 1820 had been "revived." That is, the life of the corporation was extended. Ibid., 1867, p. 101. Supra, p. 248.
86. Ibid., 1874, pp. 152-157 ; ibid., 1886, pp. 128-131. These acts are typical of the arrangements established by the legislature in the numerous instances where such action occurred.
87. This leaves open the question of why the selectmen should have been ad- ministering such land, under the terms of the 1870 act.
88. Laws of Vermont, 1886, p. 213.
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the Craftsbury Academy was authorized to take charge of, and admin- ister, the land in the town of Greensboro and keep the avails. This same school was later reorganized as to the composition of its board of trus- tees.89
The year 1906 included an act which is exemplary of the sort of ill- defined matters which prevent positive conclusions about the lease lands, short of exhaustive research into individual situations.90 It authorized a school bond issue for construction of a new building. The school con- cerned is the Barton Landing Academy and Graded School District. Whether this is the same school as that organized by the 1886 act is not clear. Geographically, it would seem improbable-the villages of Bar- ton and Barton Landing are five miles apart. On the other hand, there is no earlier mention, legislatively, of a separate school at Barton Land- ing, but it would appear that a school had existed previously if they were to build a new schoolhouse. It may be a different school, or the school may have moved with a change in population distribution, or it may sim- ply be a legislative vagary of nomenclature. The possibilities offer a variety of results as to disposition of that town's grammar school lands.
The final item in the story refers again to Brownington.91 That school was authorized and directed to convey land, and the Orange County Grammar School building thereon, to the selectmen of the town. This, together with the next section of the act, would indicate that the Brownington school had ceased operations. It directed disposition of the receipts of the sale in accordance with No. 46 of the Acts of 1908.92 The latter provided for disposition, by the selectmen, of income from grammar school lands which were not already granted to a particular school or use.
One distinguishing characteristic of the Orleans situation is that all of the acts provided a saving clause for future legislation, except the first one, which went by default. In many other instances the legislation either failed to do this, or was limited in its effect. (The Orleans story almost tempts one to conclude that things were perhaps better off-at least more stable-where the saving clause was neglected.) In fact, a study of the variety of such clauses would make a story almost as com- plex as that related above. The arrangements varied, in degree, from the
89. Ibid., 1906, pp. 590-591.
90. Ibid., 1906, pp. 592-593.
91. Ibid., 1912, p. 487.
92. Ibid., 1908, pp. 45-46.
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one extreme set in the grant of the lands to Thetford Academy, where complete future legislative discretion was saved,93 to the other extreme, to be found in the establishment of the Addison County Grammar School.34 Here, there was not only no saving clause, but the property of the school was exempted from taxation "forever." Another interesting variation is that in some instances grammar school lands were granted at the time of incorporation, while in the case of other schools the grant followed after some lapse of time.
A further variant, or one might say, aberration, is first found to have occurred in 1823.95 Here, the legislature granted the grammar school land in Jamaica to the use of the common schools in that town. This was clearly contrary to the terms of the charter reservation. Such action is not found to have occurred extensively until in the 1860's, and later, when there were a number of instances, an example being the case of Northfield.96 Later in that decade, and in the 1870's and 1880's, the custom changed and the pattern became general, which was illustrated in the case of Barton.97 That is, the move to endow the public schools with the benefit of the grammar school lands was accomplished by a corporate junction of a previously existing school corporation with a public school district. The change in technique may have occurred after some question was raised as to the constitutionality of giving such lands to the common, or graded schools, as well it might have been in view of the court's close adherence to the letter of the wording of charters.98
In any case, whereas the period from the 1840's to the 1860's wit- nessed the great increase in privately incorporated secondary schools, from the 1860's and 1870's on the movement was under way toward public school development. In 1874 the State Superintendent of Educa- tion was empowered to require "correct answers to statistical inquiries" addressed to the academies and grammar schools.99 And by 1902 one finds provision for general establishment of public high schools, with a
93. Ibid., 1819-1821, 1820, pp. 161-162.
94. Ibid., 1796-1798, 1797, pp. 36-38.
95. Ibid., 1822-1826, 1823, p. 10.
96. Ibid., 1882, p. 41.
97. Supra, p. 251.
98. It will be recalled that White v. Fuller, 38 Vt. 193 (1865), was decided in 1865. This opinion, as has been remarked, was rich in dictum respecting the public lands and has since been influential. The grammar school right figured in the action.
99. Laws of Vermont, 1874, pp. 58-62.
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requirement that they be established in all towns of more than 2500 population.100 Clearly, the heyday of the county grammar school was ended.
But it cannot be said that land situations created in that era had ended, as well. The act of 1908, discussed above,101 and revisions of it since then, have undertaken to set up a modernized scheme of admin- istration of the lands of the grammar school right by making it a func- tion of the local public authorities, but much debris inevitably remains from those grants made to schools where the school corporation, at least, still exists to maintain its claim to the right granted long ago. Many other things could be written respecting this topic of legislation. The main theme has been demonstrated-the legislatures of the past cannot be proud of the discharge of their responsibility for disposal of the gram- mar school lands.
TOWN SCHOOLS
The acts compiled here on town school matters by no means exhaust the field, as may be found in the Laws.102 Among those acts listed are some covering such matters as school district organization, changes in district boundaries, finances, attendance, terms, etc. These, however, are only representative selections of the whole of the legislation which was enacted. Some of the mass included general school acts and some ap- plied to local situations. As with the grammar schools, the legislative record is tremendous on the topic of town schools. In fact, a full com- pilation for the latter would completely overshadow the dimensions of the grammar school legislation.
One thing should be seen in this connection, however : here, there is a higher proportion of acts which were designed to apply more or less generally (in contrast to acts of special legislation) than was found in the case of the grammar schools. To this extent, the legislature, in regard to this topic, can be credited with an attempt to develop policy. The effort was vitiated in two ways, however. One was that, concurrently with the acts designed to create general policy, many special acts were being passed, dealing exceptionally with individual localities. The other adverse influence was the almost constant fluctuation in the policy itself. Much of the legislative backing and filling was due to pressures from
100. Ibid., 1902, pp. 38-40.
101. Supra, p. 252.
102. App. B, sec. 20.
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the towns themselves, some of this being expressed through the town representatives in the General Assembly. But this is a slight excuse for the failure of the legislature to assume a real leadership in policy develop- ment.
And the end is not yet. The criticism just laid, is valid even now. At the present time, for example, there is ferment and milling around with respect to the provisions for state aid to the towns, and the relation- ship of this to the possibility of encouraging consolidation of small school districts. Those acts selected for compilation are only so many as were thought adequate to present the nature of the situation. In a study of any particular town school situation, in relation to the use of lease land income, a further examination of the legislation would be neces- sary. But in the case of this topic, the legislative indices and the titles of acts are reasonably reliable and useful. All acts encountered which contained specific provisions of any sort respecting the lease lands are included here.
As early as the 1830's one finds a great quantity of variegated legis- lation respecting schools, and it is not too censorious to say that as early as that, and even before then, the whole business had become a mess. Vermonters were having a terrible time supporting and administering common schools. Poor attendance, inadequate school terms, incessant quarrels over money matters, and so on, mark the entire period up to 1880, at least. Law after law was passed attempting to create some sort of workable system and trying to force the towns to support their schools adequately.103
In this latter respect, one finds resort to a device which also figured in the acts distributing lease land benefits to the grammar schools. The method was to provide that any school failing to maintain a prescribed minimum term of school should suffer exclusion in the distribution of funds. In at least one case, however, the legislature tried more extreme measures. One act listed in the appendix was so drastic as to establish procedure by which grand juries, annually, were required to inquire into the school finances of each town.104 If it were found that legislation on the levy of the school tax, or the proper expenditure of school reve- nue, had not been complied with, the whole town was to be indicted and
103. This is the sort of matter which supports the speculation indulged in earlier that there was not a real effective early interest in religious and educa- tional activity, to the probable detriment of the lease lands. Supra, pp. 73-74.
104. Laws of Vermont, 1819-1821, 1821, pp. 90-91.
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tried in the county court! Penalty provided was fifty-percent of what the inhabitants would have paid on the school tax if the latter had been complied with. The penalty sum was to go to the county treasurer for county use. The act further provided requirements, with penalties, for proper action by clerks of school districts.
The acts listed are sufficient to cover adequately the picture of the principal types of local organization of education which have appeared at one time or another. The earliest arrangement was the creation of school districts which were the ultimate in local government organiza- tion-distinctly "neighborhood" affairs. They had no necessary relation to town lines. It was, in fact, normal for towns to contain several dis- tricts and, conversely, districts might cross town lines.105
An act of 1866 established the West Rutland Centre School.106 This ushered in the so-called "incorporated school," as distinct from the ordi- nary school district for conduct of common schools. The following year saw authorization of central districts for administration of "higher" (i.e., secondary) education.107 Here is the initial move of consequence toward the public high school system. And during this same period pro- vision was made for organization of "graded school districts," which were essentially unions of the older districts. A little later, in 1870, the so-called "town school system" was authorized.108 Under this plan a town could eliminate all its local districts and administer its schools on a town-wide basis.
These are the patterns of importance (with the addition of that described under the preceding topic whereby there was a junction of a private academy with a public graded school), and they all are repre- sented even today. Localism had sufficient influence to include provisos in all of the new plans whereby they were voluntary in effect and those places so wishing could retain the older plans.109
The list likewise contains all of the various acts designed to provide administration of education for children living in unorganized areas. In view of the dominant place of the town in Vermont school affairs,
105. As early as 1847 there were 2616 school districts in existence. Vermont, State Superintendent of Common Schools, Report, 1848 (St. Albans, 1848), p. 10. 106. Laws of Vermont, 1866, pp. 101-103.
107. Ibid., 1867, pp. 22-24.
108. Ibid., 1870, pp. 38-44.
109. The act of 1888 compiles most of the existing school laws in a comprehen- sive way and makes a few changes. It covers most of the picture up to that date and is a useful summary reference. Ibid., 1888, pp. 9-52.
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this matter presented a special problem. The acts referred to also, of course, cover those provisions enacted respecting the administration of lease lands, and the income therefrom, in such places. Briefly, the basic solution was to set up a plan whereby adjacent towns would educate such children on payment of certain fees.110 (This plan has also been available as between organized towns in cases where one town was not justified in maintaining a school or where geographic convenience indi- cated that the children in some parts of a town could be educated more inexpensively in the adjacent town.)
Some of the legislation, pertaining to the lease lands, deserves atten- tion. One finds two sharp contrasts, which serve, too, to characterize land subsidies, as different from money subsidies. One contrast is seen in the more or less constant effort to assure equalization of benefits re- ceived by school districts. Whenever there has been any distribution of funds, whether from the town, or the state, to school districts, one or another device, such as a per pupil ratio, has been used to this end. The one source of revenue in which there has been a different tendency has been the avails of the lease lands. It is true that some legislation has re- quired the selectmen to divide such avails among schools. But this could only be partially successful because of various lands being committed to particular schools.
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