UP TO DATE. 



D'O 



which enlarge very much the extent of our religious 

 activities. 



But none of these gains in religious life have been made 

 by the town acting as a municipality ; they have been 

 secured through the efforts of private individuals and 

 groups of individuals. 



On the other hand, our public schools are known to be 

 in their up-to-date development a function* of the town's 

 administration. 



We quitted the narrative of our schools at the year 1840, 

 when they had got established firmly in the three divisions 

 of primary, grammar, and high. For ten years the high 

 school was fostered only during the four winter months; 

 but in 185 I it began its career for the full school sessiort 

 of a year. After the removal of the old academy * in 

 1857, in which the feeble infancy of the high school was 

 spent, the present town hall was built the same year, with 

 rooms for the high school in the lower story. Here it 

 flourished for thirty-four years, when in 1891 it was trans* 

 ferred into the new Osgood School. 



Of primary schools there were five in the town by the 

 year 1880, and there were four grammar schools with two 

 mixed and one intermediate. These were all con- 

 ducted in the old methods intimated in a previous 

 chapter, but the time for a great change came about ten 

 years ago. 



As early as 1885 the old system of pulverized school 

 administration was condemned by some of the more pro- 

 gressive citizens who desired to see instruction bettered 

 by bringing a large number of pupils into one building 

 where a half-dozen teachers might be used with greater 

 efficiency. There were eight schools then kept in five 

 different houses in the central village of the town. The 

 buildings were crude things, in great need of repairs, with 

 no ventilation but their drafty windows and doors, no 



* It was moved over to Beach Street and changed into a dweUing house. 



