USA > Vermont > The Vermont lease lands > Part 31
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The court has expressed the view that the legislature did retain the authority to insist that the trusts created by the grants be properly car-
73. Caledonia County Grammar School v. Burt, 11 Vt. 632 (1839).
74. Andrews, "Grammar Schools," pp. 126-127, 150-151, 173-174.
75. Andrews lists 118 grammar schools and academies incorporated between 1780 and 1870. "Grammar Schools," App. H, p. 207.
76. One of the most extreme variations was in the case of the Londonderry Grammar School. Here it was provided that if the school failed to function, the grammar school lands in the town of Londonderry should go under the control of the selectmen for use of the common schools. Laws of Vermont, 1822-1826, 1822, p. 76. This contingency in fact eventuated.
77. The change from the original idea is particularly pointed when it is ob- served that in three counties of the state there are no grammar school lands. These counties include areas which were fully covered by Wentworth grants. Attention to this condition was drawn in the report of the Superintendent of Education of 1880. The Twenty-Sixth Vermont School Report, 1880 (Rutland, 1880), App. Bound in School Reports, Vermont, 1876-1880. Hereafter cited as Twenty-Sixth School Re- port. Mr. Stone said: "It is obvious that the original intent of these lands is per- verted and the state should take action to locate them, determine their revenue, and direct their funds into proper channels." Mason S. Stone, History of Education, State of Vermont (Montpelier, [1935]), p. 104.
288
VERMONT LEASE LANDS
ried out. There is no evidence that the legislature has done much of a constructive nature toward this end. The only action until quite recently was the resolutions in the late nineteenth century which resulted in the legislative reports in 1878 and 1882 on sequestered lands and the report to the Governor on grammar school lands in 1880.78 Hence, the question arises as to how well administered have been these grants. The evidence available in this research does not conduce to a favorable answer, but it must be admitted that the coverage here is not wide enough to justify a definite, all-inclusive judgment.79 There was opportunity to study in detail only relatively few of the schools or school records.80 In addition, the manuscript of a then unpublished book on the Town of Peacham was read.81
The records are not admirable as to the administration of the lease lands. They show in each case initial bursts of energy aimed at securing the lands and leasing them.$2 Thereafter, the effort slacks off, as was described in Chapter III. The minutes give less and less attention to the lease lands. Many years after the grants, one will find an occasional item respecting a desire to locate and secure lands still not under control. Schools in the early days were largely dominated by the clergy, and the minutes reflect much more concern for the moral welfare of the students than effective activity for the financial welfare of the institutions. These boards of trustees are those which most exhibited the tendency toward long tenure of office. The Orange County Grammar School minutes
78. Laws of Vermont, 1878, pp. 138, 296-310; ibid., 1882, pp. 338-352; Twenty- Sixth School Report, App. See App. G. and App. H.
79. The Vermont Educational Commission reported: "There was, however, a manifest reluctance on the part of certain of these academies, notably one of the largest, to make public the information desired; it was therefore determined to con- fine the detailed analysis to the high schools." Vermont Educational Commission, Report, 1914 (Brattleboro, Boston, 1914), pt. IV, p. 63. Hereafter cited as Ver- mont Educational Commission, Report.
80. In addition to the difficulty experienced by the Vermont Educational Com- mission, some of the schools whose records would be of interest here are no longer functioning, and their records have been lost. See supra, p. 85, for an incident of this nature.
81. This study, by Professor E. L. Bogart, has since been published by the Vermont Historical Society. It is reasonably exhaustive and thereby includes con- siderable data respecting the school at Peacham, which has become the Peacham Academy. See Bogart, E. L., Peacham: The Story of a Vermont Hill Toren.
82. In the case of the Randolph school the minutes of the first meeting are de- voted to this topic. It was not until after that, that the board took time to organize and adopt by-laws! Orange County Grammar School, "Records of the Trustees," 1806-1867, minutes for Feb. 23, 1807.
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extend from the incorporation in 1806 to the transformation in 1867 of the institution into a state normal school. During that period there were but three presidents of the board and but three clerks. The second clerk, one Nutting, functioned as such from 1823 until 1857 at which time he retired with the appreciation of the board for fifty years of service to the school. Information to be extracted from his records is slim indeed for the latter part of his tenure. Of even more interest is the fact that from 1827 on he also functioned as treasurer, and as collector of rents ! E. L. Bogart provides the supposition of similar conditions at Peacham, and the Washington County Grammar School records were of a piece with these. Mr. John C. Huden, Principal of the Castleton State Teachers College and secretary of the trustees of the Rutland County Grammar School, has informed the writer that he has encoun- tered the results of like practices in the past records of that board dur- ing his recent efforts to pull together the administration of the grammar school lands in that county. And the writer found that the Addison County Grammar School records, while considerably better than some of the others, still fell far short of a desirable standard and that even now there is a distinct possibility that the board of that school does not have under its control all of the lands which its grant might have in- cluded. There is reason to believe, from fragmentary information re- ceived from credible sources, that other schools would exhibit similar records.
Many of the grammar schools and academies have disappeared in the face of the rise of the public high school system. In such cases the legislature has provided that the grammar school lands shall be for the benefit of the high schools in the towns respectively,83 although it must be remembered that earlier acts, as in the case of Londonderry, occasion- ally provided for their devolution to the benefit of common schools.84 Edward Conant, State Superintendent of Education, commented vigor- ously on this fact.85 He was charged with making the investigation and report of 1880. He pointed out strongly that the grammar school right had been in contemplation of secondary education and that it constituted a perversion of the purpose of the reservation for the benefit to go to common schools.86
83. P. L., ch. 179, sec. 4297.
84. Laws of Vermont, 1822-1826, 1822, pp. 76-77.
85. Twenty-Sixth School Report, App., pp. 5-6.
86. He also spoke urgently on the educational inadequacy of some of the sec- ondary schools receiving the benefit of the lands, as well as on the failure of ". . .
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VERMONT LEASE LANDS
A few of the old schools persist, the oldest in continuous existence being the Peacham school. In three instances, the grammar school rights have been diverted upward a notch in the educational scale to the col- legiate level : the Orange County Grammar School at Randolph became the State Normal School, and still later a State Agricultural College ; the Rutland County Grammar School evolved into the Castleton State Teachers College; and the Lamoille County Grammar School at John- son likewise went that road.
There is still another type of evolution which deserves special atten- tion as it most forcibly demonstrates the inflexibility and persistence of the effects of early grants, even in a perverted form. This form of de- velopment is at present represented by the Washington County Gram- mar School at Montpelier and the Addison County Grammar School at Middlebury. In these cases the "school" consists of no more than the Board of Trustees and the real property which they control. In each in- stance, with the rise of the public school system, there came a time when the grammar school made a deal with the community to join with the school district and pool resources. The grammar school had to offer, be- sides its income from the lease lands, a school site and building, plus what equipment was on hand. To a small Vermont community this was enticing. The price, however, has since proven high.
In each instance, the grammar school exacted, in return, the privilege of membership on the district school committee. As a consequence both of these communities now find themselves with a school committee com- posed partly of members elected by the community and partly of mem- bers chosen by, and from, the board of the grammar school, which is self-perpetuating. Direct personal contact by the writer with members of both of these grammar school boards has brought out distinctly that they feel they have an important function-one might call it a "mission" -to perform in exerting influence on the affairs of the public school. A president of one of these boards went so far as to say to the writer that the grammar school representatives on the school committee served to keep things on an even keel and prevent the public from accomplish- ing anything "too radical." It is a singularly undemocratic arrangement, and dissatisfaction with it appears from time to time in each of the com- munities. In fact, the course of the present study being known of, the writer was appealed to in one of the communities as to whether there the laws by which money is granted without care to secure a proper return." Ibid., App., p. 6.
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were no way in which "the grip of the grammar school board could be broken." The answer was not satisfactory to the inquirer.
To bring the arrangement to an end the community would have to reimburse the grammar school for what it has put in, including the land on which the school building now sits, and this would be prohibitive. The Franklin County Grammar School at St. Albans was of this type for a number of years, but more recently it abdicated and contents itself now with administering the lease lands, turning over the avails for the use of the school. There appears to be no such inclination on the part of the boards at Montpelier or Middlebury. The legislature is incapable of touching the corporate status of the boards. The court has noticed this mode of "conducting a grammar school" and condoned it.87
An attempt to evaluate the financial aspect of the grammar school right leads to various possible conclusions. At first glance, the sums available to a given school are found to be so small as to seem ridiculous.88 One receives an impression that the benefit of the right has been so dis- persed as to have had its usefulness nullified. This is, of course, espe- cially true in those counties in which the avails came to be distributed be- tween several schools.89 But then, one recalls that in the early period during which the grammar schools and academies flourished90 the level of educational expenditures was not what we know today. A secondary institution might well manage to operate on an annual budget of $500 to $600.91 For such institutions, except for popular subscriptions for build-
87. Franklin County Grammar School v. Bailey, 62 Vt. 467 (1889).
88. In the Twenty-Fourth Vermont School Report, which was the first re- port of the State Superintendent of Education made to the legislature, in 1876, re- ports are included on the normal schools. The Randolph Normal School is found to have an income from the lease lands of $120.00, and the Johnson Normal School reported income from that source of $159.00. The Twenty-Fourth Vermont School Report, 1876, (Rutland, 1876), pp. 77, 86. Bound in School Reports, Vermont, 1876- 1880. Hereafter cited as Twenty-Fourth School Report.
89. Edward Conant, State Superintendent of Education, remarked on this and felt that the cause of education would be better served by one really good school per county in place of a cluster of poor, weak schools. Twenty-Sixth School Report, App. p. 6.
90. For our purposes these terms are interchangeable. At first, during the 1820's this was not so, and there were instances, as at Thetford, where the name of an institution was revamped in order to assure eligibility for a grant of grammar school lands. Later, the legislature came to make the grants just as readily to in- stitutions going under the designation of academies.
91. In discussing the Orange County Grammar School, Andrews says :
Apparently the school was not as pressed for funds as the one at Mont- pelier, for . . . after Mr. Nutting's salary of $400 had been paid, it was
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VERMONT LEASE LANDS
ings and repairs, the only important sources of income were tuitions and the land rents. It is evident from early records that the rents in some instances provided the essential margin for continued operation, slim though the sum of the rents might be.92
Another aspect to be remembered is that the possibility of a grant of the lands was sometimes a stimulus in the establishment of a school. One cannot but feel, at times, that this interest was not altogether ad- mirable.93 Nevertheless, the result was the creation of schools and the provision, thereby, of educational opportunities which otherwise were non-existent. Although the system of education which these schools provided has passed and was open to some serious criticisms, it did fill the gap in the early period and, no doubt, was a stimulus in turn to broader later educational development.
Herein, the relevant criticism is in respect to the grammar school lands. Three adverse evaluations are available. The first is that the scheme effectuated by the legislature, in making the grants, produced inequities of opportunity and of public benefit as between different areas of the state. The second is that the scheme has made for inflexibility-for an inability to adjust the use and benefit of the grammar school reserva- tions to social and educational changes. The third is that, assuming the merits of the purpose, no adequate provision was made for careful ad- ministration of the lands.
So much of the reports made to the legislature in 187894 and 188295 as pertains to county grammar school lands is presented here :
1878
Acres
Income
1882
Acres
Income
Addison
1130
$ 71.00
1230
$ 89.50
Bennington
Caledonia
3965
419.54
3320
427.63
Chittenden
503
37.50
Essex
1142
68.50
1142
105.22
·
·
...
found at the end of the year that with the tuition (amounting to $206.11) and the income from the Grammar school lands, they had paid all bills and had a balance to carry over of $129.21. Accordingly they voted to re- duce the tuition to $1.50 a term.
Andrews, "Grammar Schools," p. 166.
92. Cf. ibid., pp. 150-151.
93. An instance which illustrates this is the competition of petitions to the legislature from Middlebury and Vergennes for the Addison County grant. Ibid., pp. 132-133.
94. Lazes of Vermont, 1878, pp. 296-310. See App. G. for complete tables. 95. Ibid., 1882, pp. 338-352. See App. H. for complete tables.
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Franklin
1715
140.99
1851
143.39
Grand Isle
Lamoille
3351
310.90
2818
261.79
Orange
2131
452.17
2234
478.67
Orleans
5459
632.82
5261
546.72
Rutland
1319
124.00
1387
134.76
Washington
2686
380.77
2545
356.66
Windham
473
84.46
479
79.06
Windsor
1183
179.29
1083
161.29
24,554
$2,864.44
22,853
$2,822.19
Several points are apparent. The disparities between the two col- umns are distinctly noticeable. It is to be remembered in this connec- tion that such differences are found between reports only four years apart and that both reports came at a time long after the administra- tion of the grammar school lands could be expected to have been sys- tematized. No explanations accompany the reports to cover the changes between the two. Perhaps the most interesting item is the appearance in the 1882 report of 503 acres in the Town of Huntington, in Chitten- den County. The report of 1878, as well as the 1880 report to the Gov- ernor, represented both that town and county as containing no grammar school lands.96 The inequalities existing as between counties in the dis- tribution of the grammar school right appears. And so, also, do the dif- ferences in the handling of the lands-the income per acre varies widely. The variations in the reports demonstrate, too, what confronts the in- dividual who would go into the study of the subject of the lease lands far enough to know the true situation respecting individual parcels, or even any given class of lease lands.
The year 1914 saw publication of the report of the Vermont Educa- tional Commission, which undertook to make an exhaustive investiga- tion and report thereon respecting all aspects of education in the state. Its remarks respecting the grammar schools and the grammar school lands merit quotation :
COUNTY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS AND GRAMMAR SCHOOL LANDS Mention is made, in an earlier part of this
96. Ibid., 1878, p. 299; Twenty-Sixth School Report, App., p. 3. The 1878 and 1882 reports to the legislature covered all classes of lands sequestered for public, pious and charitable uses, in breakdowns by classes and by towns and counties. They were in simple tabular form with footnotes covering individual idiosyncrasies. The 1880 report did not include fiscal data, but was intended as a critical analysis of the utilization of the benefit.
294
VERMONT LEASE LANDS
report, of the county grammar schools incorporated as private institutions in nearly every county in the state, largely within a third of a century after the adoption of the Constitution of 1786, to some or all of which several corporations the General Assem- bly granted the lands situated in the same county, reserved in town charters to the use of county grammar schools. Though this Commission does not deem matters relating particularly to these county grammar schools and the lands granted to them, to be within its province, yet it ventures to call attention to them. The Commission understands that most if not all of these county grammar schools ceased to operate years ago, though in some and perhaps in most instances the corporate entity still exists ; and that by force of legislative enactments or otherwise, the income from the grammar school lands now goes to the use and benefit of other educational institutions, public or private. The Vermont school report made by the state superintendent of education in 1888, states that such lands in the state aggregate 23,853 acres, appraised at $173,557, and that the rent received therefrom was then $2,800. Regarding the present rent and the use made of it, the Commission has no adequate information; nor has the Com- mission sufficient information upon which to base any opinion concerning the reserved power of the General Assembly, if any it has, to act in relation to the lands or the rents and profits de- rived therefrom. It seems, however, that these lands and the use of them are of such consequence to the state, educationally, as to justify the appointment of a commission to investigate and report relative thereto, and relative to the county grammar schools to which the lands were granted, to the end that so far as it has power, the legislature may take action, looking to a more general distribution of the rents and profits to the public schools in the several counties in the state.9
Here, in the case of the grammar school right, is to be seen an ex- ample of the apparent relation between the degree of decentralization of administration and the frequency of law suits. The grammar school right has been involved in a disproportionate amount of litigation, com- pared with the two rights, the analysis of which has preceded this.98 It is seen that there are two general lines of conflict underlying these ac-
97. Vermont Educational Commission, Report, p. 34.
98. Orange County Grammar School v. Dodge, Brayt. 223 (1817) ; Caledonia County Grammar School v. Burt, 11 Vt. 632 (1839) ; Orleans County Grammar School v. Parker, 25 Vt. 696 (1853) ; White v. Fuller, 38 Vt. 193 (1865) ; Jamaica v. Hart, 52 Vt. 549 (1880) ; Franklin County Grammar School v. Bailey, 62 Vt. 467 (1889) ; Caledonia County Grammar School v. Kent, 84 Vt. 1 (1910) ; S. C., 86 Vt. 151 (1912) ; Huntley v. Houghton, 85 Vt. 200 (1911) ; Powers and Peck, Admr. for Judevine v. Caledonia County Grammar School, 93 Vt. 220 (1919).
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tions. The principal cause of them was attempted redistribution of the lands. The other cause was poor administration of the lands and efforts to recover therefrom. And it will be recalled that the position of the court has been to protect and maintain original established relationships and rights. The grammar school litigation is preeminent in illustration of the rigidity of the lease land system as a social and legal institution.
TOWN-ADMINISTERED LANDS
The towns have been responsible for several classes of lease lands, which fall into the two general fields of education and religion. So far as this study was able to be extended, the report in this area of the lease lands is largely negative, as was anticipated in Chapter III. Little in- formation is available, short of the most exhaustive research in each of the almost 250 towns, and it is highly doubtful that even so extensive an effort could be guaranteed to produce accurate data. The condition of both land records and town financial records, in many instances, would nearly, if not quite, preclude assurance of absolute success. The writer's own experience in visiting the offices of a number of town clerks and treasurers verifies this statement, and it is further supported by the findings of others.
The Vermont Educational Commission was emphatic in its remarks respecting data pertaining to school affairs. For example :
The superintendent reports 64,518 pupils in the public schools,- 32,524 boys and 31,195 girls. This last figure should be 31,994. This total probably includes the pupils in the secondary schools, variously given as 5653 or 5496 in the high schools, and 1421 in the academies. These discrepancies are characteristic of the super- intendent's reports; the returns to his office are frequently inac- curate The total 5496 does not correspond with the sum of the pupils by years, 5451 ; or by courses, 5287.99
As a generalization, the Commission concluded :
A large part of the material from which much had been expected proved, when subjected to careful scrutiny, to be untrustworthy. The statistics contained in the biennial school reports are fre- quently of this nature a mass of uninterpreted statisti- cal detail having little practical value . The data are gath- ered through well-worn channels from various sources, chiefly from the clerks of the towns Where the returns should
99. Vermont Educational Commission, Report, p. 25.
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VERMONT LEASE LANDS
correspond with those from other sources there are wide discrep- ancies . . . occasionally the results are wholly misleading
It is impossible from such data to construct accurate comparative statistics.100
This stricture applies to the Commission's experience with both gen- eral school records and financial records :
During the last weeks of March the town clerks were asked to send the registers of the school year 1911-12 to the secretary of the commission. The registers from 202 of the 246 towns and cities were so forwarded.101
An additional complication was found: "There are some towns in which no minutes are kept of the meetings [of school directors] that are held."102 And, further : "In many towns so little attention is paid to this [mandatory] school census that the federal census for 1910 showed several thousand more children than were reported by the school clerks.103 Another element of the problem was recognized: "There is, however, no uniformity in these records, and consequently much confusion arises when comparisons are made. Each superintendent tends to have his or her own way of recording data, and in many cases does not use the system employed by his predecessors."104
As to finances, the Commission said :
The most practical improvement suggested by this study . is that a uniform method of accounting should be adopted by the towns . . The blanks on which the towns supply their data to the state are at present uniform, but the accounting methods and results are variable . . . The essential object of the method of accounting should be an exhibition of the true revenue and expenditure . . . of the town . Instead of the true revenue and expenditure, most of the town reports contain merely a summary of the actual receipts and payments, and these · are cast in such variable forms that no two of them are alike , The absence in most town reports of statements giving the real resources and liabilities .. . has produced a divergence of practice in regard to the funds.105
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