184 H. F. PERKINS 



VIII. Home and Community Life 

 IX. Recreation 

 X. Medical Facilities 

 XI. Educational Facilities — Subcommittees on 



1. Elementary Education in Rural Schools 



2. Colleges and Normal Schools 



3. Libraries 



4. Social Agencies Affecting Education 



5. The Service of Secondary Schools 



6. Adult Education 



7. Financing Education 



XII. Care of the Handicapped. Blind and Deaf, Crippled, Tubercular, Feeble 

 Minded, Insane, Paupers 



XIII. The Vermont Foundation 



XIV. Rural Government 



XV. Citizenship— The use of the suffrage — citizenship training — education 

 XVI. Religious Forces — Making the churches more potent instruments for raising 



the tone of rural communities spiritually, morally and socially. 

 XVTI. Traditions and Ideals. With divisions on Vermont Biography, Poetry, 

 Prose Writing, Songs and Ballads. 



The strictly industrial topics such as manufacturing, taxation and trans- 

 portation, were left out because they were being covered by commissions or 

 other organizations. 



The range of these subjects is ambitious. The researches were carefully 

 planned and extended back in time through the years to the early history 

 of the state. The plans of the towns and of groups within them were looked 

 over as well as the established practices and institutions, with an eye to their 

 prospect of achievement in line with the raising of the levels of human living. 

 The work done and the plans for future work of the state departments and 

 of the private statewide organizations were evaluated. 



In spite of the smallness of Vermont, a good deal of narrow provincialism 

 exists and the excellent methods operating in one community in agriculture, 

 schools, or recreation were not known even to their nearest neighbors. Lo- 

 cal pride has been responsible for inefficient and feeble efforts as well as for 

 much wholesome progress. Clubs, granges, and libraries are the most im- 

 portant agencies of adult education but local pride hampers the cooperation 

 of adjacent communities which alone would enable many sections of the 

 state to operate really good libraries and to hold regular, interesting meetings 

 with enough people present to supply mutual inspiration. 



Right here let me give evidence of the baselessness of the prediction that 

 this was "just another survey" and that the printed report would end all 

 practical value for the enterprise. Let us take the village library as an ex- 

 ample of the opposite condition. The library situation is being attacked 



