.€hap. 8. 



EDUCATIOxN AND LITERATURE. 



141 



FIRST ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS. 



PRESENT SCHOOL LAW. 



Librarian, $7.5 



Superintendent of state prison, 500 



Adjutant and inspector general, 250 



The President of" the senate receives 

 four dollars per day, the Speaker of the 



house, three dollars, and the Senators and 

 Representatives, one dollar and fifty cents 

 per daj', while attending the general as- 

 sembly ; and they receive for travel each 

 way ten cents per mile. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



EDUCATION AND LITERATURE IN VERMONT. 



Section I. 



Common Schools. 



Few of the early settlers of Vermont 

 enjoyed any other advantages of educa- 

 tion than a few month's attendance at pri- 

 mary schools, as they existed in New 

 England previous to the revolution. But 

 these advantages had been so well im- 

 proved, that nearly all of them were able 

 to read, and write a legible hand, and had 

 acquired sufficient knowledge of arithme- 

 tic for the transaction of ordinary busi- 

 ness. They were, in general, men of 

 strong and penetrating minds, and, clear- 

 ly perceiving the numerous advantages, 

 which education confers, they early di- 

 rected their attention to the establishment 

 of schools. But for many years there 

 were obstacles, in addition to those inci- 

 dent to all new settlements, which pre- 

 vented much being done for the cause of 

 education. Tiie controversies in which 

 the}'- were involved and the war of the 

 revolution, both of which threatened the 

 annihilation of Vermont as an indepen- 

 dent state, and the ruin of many of the 

 Bottlers by robbing them of tlieir farms, 

 employed nearly all their thoughts and all 

 their energies, previous to their admission 

 into the federal union. 



The first general law in Vermont on the 

 eubject of primary schools seems to liave 

 been passed on the '2'2d of October, 17i!:'2. 

 This law provided for the division of 

 towns into convenient school districts, 

 and for the appointment of trustees in 

 each town for the general superintendence 

 of the schools. It also provided for the 

 election of a prudential committee by the 

 inhabitants of each district, to which com- 

 mittee power was given to raise one half 

 of the mono}' necessary for building and 

 repairing a school house and supporting 

 a school, by a tax assessed on the grand 



list, and the other half, either on the list, 

 or on the polls of the scholars, as should 

 be ordered by a vote of the district. 



By the same act, the judges of the coun- 

 ty courts were authorized to appoint trus- 

 tees of a county school in each of their 

 respective counties, and, with the assis- 

 tance of the justices of the peace, to lay 

 a tax on the same, for the purpose of 

 building a county school house in each 

 county. The part of this plan relating to 

 county schools seems never to have been 

 carried into effect; but that in relation to 

 town schools, was gradually introduced 

 and improved, till schools, which may be 

 called free, were established in all the or- 

 ganized towns in the state. 



The several towns in this state are at 

 present divided into school districts of 

 convenient size, and the selectmen of each 

 town are required by law annually to as- 

 sess a tax of three cents on a dollar of tho 

 lists of the town for the support of schools 

 within the same. One fourth part of tho 

 sum thus raised, together with one fourth 

 of the avails of tiie deposit money, is re- 

 quired to be divided equally, on the 1st 

 of March, among the school districts with- 

 out regard to the number of children in 

 each, and the remainder, among the dis- 

 tricts in proportion to the number of chil- 

 dren they contain between the ages of 

 four and eighteen years ; provided that no 

 district shall be entitled to a share in such 

 money, which has not during the prece- 

 ding year, kept a school, at least two 

 months, with other moneys than thoso 

 drawn from the town treasury, nor unless 

 tlie moneys so drawn shall have been 

 faithfully expended. The several school 

 districts have the powers of a corporation 

 and are authorized to raise money within 

 the same, for the support of schools, either 

 upon the grand list or upon the polls of 

 the scholars. 



