346
��EDUCATION IN HOPKINTON.
��More than this, the six districts men- tioned have 258 pupils, and receive $1035.70, while the remaining 15 have 220, and receive $1471.82. This arrange- ment, therefore, incurs an expense of $436.12 more for teaching 38 scholars less. Again, last year, the six districts with more pnpils and less money had 20 weeks of instruction on an average, while the 15 with less pupils and more money had only 17 weeks. Thus we have an illustration of a rule that works too im- perfectly to deserve to be tolerated by an intelligent community. There are sever- al ways to improve this condition of things : First, by a concentration of school districts ; second, by the adoption of the optional law, putting the school matters of the town in the hands of a board of education with power to locate schools where they are most needed; third, by a distribution of money accord- ing to the length of the school term, and so directly with reference to the expense of holding it uniformly throughout the limits of the town. We are indisposed to enter into lengthy discussion here, but, in reference to the third resource pointed out, we affirm that if it is a fact that edu- cation is a public necessity, and popula- tion is uniformly taxed for its support, each child in town should be entitled by law to all the advantages implied in a uniform length of all the common schools.
In too many instances we need better school buildings. We have no space to discuss this subject. We only wish the law forbade any school district to draw its portion of the public funds until it had supplied itself with a school house ac- ceptable to the educational authority, and in which the comfort, health or life of a scholar could not be endangered. We also need better opportunities for in- struction in high branches. We need a local high school, to which pupils can re- pair for preparation to teach if they are so disposed. So long as things remain generally as now, we shall have to de- pend largely on our local population for instructors. If these have no advantages derived from a local high school, the common schools must materially suffer.
Said Confucius of China : u Let the
��public schools be maintained, and, above all, let youth be instructed early in the duties of life and formed to good mor- als." We cannot afford to overlook the uses implied in a good system of practi- cal education. Statistics, it is said, can not lie. Exact computation shows that of 50,000 persons at one time confined in the jails of the State of New York, 30,- 000 were illiterate. It was also found that of all the illiterate persons residing in that State one in three had committed some crime; while of all the educated only one in twenty-seven had been found guilty. It has been further proved that education reduces criminals from 33 in 100 to 3 in 100. Such and similar facts no doubt have weight in the estimation of not only Germany, but Holland, Nor- way, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt and Australia, all ot which have or are adopting compulsory education in their borders. That these facts need practical contemplation is evident from the reduction of our State school popula- tion to the number of 112". in two recent years, that the average ages of children attending school materially decreased, and that the number of children living and moving in defiance of the compul- sory law increased by 484 in the same time.
The essential qualities enabling us to aspire and improve are inherent, but they need education and culture to make them effective in the highest degree. Persons of good natural endowments will assert their better powers without books or schools, but trained discipline and skill are required to make them true lords of society. What is asserted in the follow- ing lines is as true of man's intellectual nature as of anything else :
IN THE ROUGH.
The marble was pure and white,
Though only a block at best, But the artist, with inward sight, Looked further than all the rest, And saw in the hard, rough stone The loveliest statue the sun shone on.
So he set to work with care,
And chiseled a form of grace— A figure divinely fair, With a tender, beautiful face; But the blows were hard and fast That brought from the marble their work at last.
So I think that human lives
Must bear God's chisel keen, If the spirit yearns and strives For the better life unseen ; For men are only blocks at best, Till the chiseling brings out all the rest.
�� �
