5 I 6 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T. 



seemed to some conservative citizens absurd, since the 

 town had thrived with very good health in the old primi- 

 tive schoolhouses for many generations. 



Furthermore, the expense of the new proposal was a big 

 item. The advocates tried to whittle down this fact by 

 promising a less expense for running the central building. 

 Only one janitor and one fire would be required, and the 

 committee promised various other trifling advantages which 

 proved afterwards to be false anticipations. The advocates 

 also urged the gain of money by selling the old properties, 

 so that the net cost of the new building they said would 

 be but eight thousand dollars. They traveled to Beech- 

 wood and to Jerusalem, and held mass meetings whenever 

 they could, trying to gain votes by every argument, sound 

 or otherwise. 



At last the town voted at its March meeting in 1890 to 

 buy a suitable lot of land and to build a central school- 

 house costing twenty thousand dollars, according to the 

 plans drawn by Edward Nichols, who had been formerly a 

 Cohasset schoolboy. Instead of eight thousand dollars as 

 first represented, a debt of twenty thousand was thus re- 

 quired. 



To impart to a new generation the flavor of the bitter 

 opposition endured by the committee who advocated this 

 new and costly enterprise would be impossible. Folly 

 was the least of the charges hurled at them. Many par- 

 ents threatened to boycott the new building by keeping 

 their children at home, or at least in the little old school- 

 houses. The prophecy was freely made that the building 

 would be empty in a short time and thus its uselessness 

 would be proved. To aggravate the case, when the cellar 

 had been dug, the estimates for the building were so much 

 larger than anticipated that twelve thousand dollars more 

 were called for. The request was refused at a special 

 town meeting August i, 1890, but the committee pro- 

 ceeded with the work, and the money had to be voted. 



