190 



HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



and the other for the North End. But the two " arms," 

 Beechwood and Jerusalem, begged in vain for new school- 

 houses. 



In the last year of that century, 1799, it was thought 

 best to disintegrate the school management still further 

 by appointing separate committees of three for each of 

 the four "districts." There had been hitherto one com- 

 mittee with representatives from the four parts of the 

 town, but now the committee was broken into four sepa- 

 rate committees. Whatever wisdom or authority a single 

 committee for the whole town might have had was now 

 broken into bits. The following were the several district 

 committees in 1799: — 



r Aaron Nichols. i Ambrose Bates. 



North. \ Zenas Lincoln. Beechwood. X Joseph Whitconib. 



(_ Captain Levi Tower. ( John Wheelwright, Jr. 



5 Caleb Nichols. i Joseph Nichols. 



Samuel Pratt. Jerusalem. \ Ephraim Lincoln. 

 Christopher James. ( Frost Hudson. 



They had only three hundred dollars to divide between 

 them according to their number of scholars, so that there 

 seems little need to have appointed so many to spend it. 

 But school politics are queer affairs, and it used to seem 

 necessary for every little faction of public sentiment to 

 have a representative on the committee. The next year 

 the unity of the school system was still more broken up 

 by appropriating one quarter of the school money to 

 dame schools, which were already in existence scat- 

 tered in every neighborhood of the town. They may have 

 been valuable adjuncts of the public schools, but the latter 

 were already too meagerly supported to admit of one 

 quarter of the funds being scattered in these little 

 dame schools. 



Two years later, 1803, the three hundred dollars appro- 

 priation seems to have remained intact for the public 

 schools, because no mention is made of the dame schools. 



