the clerk's report referred to.[1] Yet it could not be settled at once. Doubtless the severe strain of the university undertaking tended to postpone action upon it. At any rate it did not come up at the meeting of April, 1875, although a very definite plan of procedure had been published by Mr. Dorris in January.[2] This plan involved, (a) taxing the distring to complete one story of a building to cost about $8,000; (b) employing seven teachers nine months in the year to instruct all the pupils in the district; (c) grading thoroughly. Mr. Callison, in the clerk's report for 1875, says: "We need a good, substantial house, capable of accommodating five hundred pupils, and a well graded school, at least nine months in the year." This statement may be regarded as the platform of the school party during the next three years, or until their policy was adopted.
At the annual meeting of April, 1876, the proposition was overwhelmingly defeated, the vote standing one hundred and one against to eleven in favor.[3] Nothing daunted, its friends prepared for a vigorous canvass before the next meeting. The Guard said editorially (March 31, 1877), "That we need a new schoolhouse, we do not suppose anyone will dispute. The crowded state of the school for the past two years, and the discomfort to which the teachers and scholars have been subjected, are the very best evidence of the fact." The resolution presented at the meeting was, as indicated above, to levy a tax to raise $4,000 to build the frame and finish the first story of an $8,000 building.
- ↑ The old building consisted of a main room, 45×30 feet, erected in 1856; and two wings, each 30×16 feet, added on in 1869. Each of the three parts now forms a dwelling house.
- ↑ Journal, January 9, 1875. He shows that it will pay in dollars and cents to adopt the policy of educating all of the children of the town in the public schools.
- ↑ Journal, April 8, 1876. This vote cannot accurately represent the sentiment of the town. Possibly the school party were caught napping. The legal voting strength, by the school clerk's report for 1876, is two hundred and ninety-five. The one hundred and twelve votes cast, therefore, constitute less than one-half the total vote of the district.
