DAIRY MEETING. I5I 



Children are the wards of the State for the purpose of educa- 

 tion. 



When these town schools were founded, population and 

 wealth were distributed throughout the entire area of the state 

 quite evenly, for no railroads existed, and no inequality of bur- 

 den was put upon the people. But when the steam horse awoke 

 the sleeping energies of the East and the West, and centralized 

 men in great townships, withdrawing the wealth and culture 

 from the country towns, an immense disparity of burden grew 

 up. In Hillsboro county, New Hampshire, which has 34 towns, 

 there is only one town, I believe, where the wealth per child 

 does not exceed two thousand dollars. In about one-half of 

 them the wealth per school child exceeds four thousand dollars, 

 and some of them pass the five and six thousand dollar mark. 

 In the rural county of Grafton, joining your own State on the 

 east, with seventeen towns, only two towns in the w^hole county 

 reach the sum of four thousand dollars per school child ; some 

 are as low as thirteen hundred and most of them under two 

 thousand. In other words, under these changed conditions, 

 growing up since the constitution was formed, the burden of 

 supporting the country schools is four fold more upon some 

 towns than it is upon other towns. And worse than that, in 

 those rural towns the schools have dwindled down to four and 

 five and ten students. They are not graded, and one teacher 

 hears the entire round of studies for the district, from A, B, C 

 up to the final work in mathematics, so that but a very few 

 moments can be devoted to each class ; while on the other hand, 

 the sum raised in cities provides graded schools, charts and eye 

 methods of teaching, secures teachers fitted for each department, 

 affords a large number of students in each class and a long 

 period for each lesson. Many fold the time can be devoted to 

 each subject that can be devoted to it in the rural school. In 

 the rural school the pay is so low that no one makes a profession 

 of teaching. In my own school district, where I have lived ten 

 years, since returning from the West, I believe but once has the 

 same teacher taught twice, and the children begin each term at 

 the foot of the declivity they tried to climb the term before, 

 study becomes a mechanical routine, incentive loses edge and 

 ability to concentrate the mind becomes weakened and habits of 

 studv irresolute. Better one vear of clear thinking under the 



