a township should be divided, for certain specific purposes, into sub-districts or not. But it is fully settled that if a township is thus divided, the lines of the sub-districts should not in the least interfere with the proper classification, gradation and supervision of its schools.

"It is thought by some that to provide the same amount of means and facilities for educating those who reside in the poorer and less populous portions of a township, as for those in the wealthier and more thickly settled portions, would deprive the latter of their rights; just as if the taxes for the support of schools were levied upon sub-districts, and not upon the State and townships.

"If all the property of the State and of the townships is taxed alike for the purposes of educating the youth of the State, there is no principle plainer than that all should share equally, so far as practicable, in the benefits of the fund thus raised, whether they reside in sparse or populous neighborhoods."

I trust I have adduced an array of facts, experiences, and authorities that are well calculated to carry great weight with them. Suppose, then, the County Superintendency, and County Examining Board, should be adopted, and the district system abolished, what would be the necessary Township school officers ? A Town Superintendent, a Town School Treasurer, and a Town School Clerk, would be sufficient, and would form the Town Board of Education; at the first election, the Clerk to be chosen for one year, the Treasurer for two, and the Superintendent for three years, and thereafter each officer for three years, thus giving experience and stability to the Board. They should have the entire control of the school-houses, their sites, erection, repairs, supply of fuel, &c.; should personally attend the examinations of the County Examining Board in their town, and acquaint themselves with the scholastic fitness and qualifications of the several teachers who should obtain certificates, so as to judge their respective adaptations to the several schools for which they would be employed, and to which assigned; and the Town Board should alone employ the teachers for all the schools of the town. They should also serve as overseers or inspectors of the schools, and unite with the County Superintendent in his visitations of the schools of the town; and have the control of the Township School Library. They should make the annual report of the statistics and condition of the schools of the town to the County Superintendent, and furnish any educational information desired of them by either the State or County Superintendent. Appeals from their action should be the privilege of any person or persons aggrieved, to the County Superintendent, if made within a reasonable time; and

also from the action or decision of the County Superintendent to the State Superintendent.

Such a system of Township school government, with the abrogation of the district system, would produce, among others, the following beneficial results, viz:

1. The provision of the Constitution of our State, which requires "the establishment of district schools as nearly uniform as practicable," would, by constituting the Township as the district, be more fairly carried out; and hence the State School Fund income would be much more equally distributed than it now is.

2. Taxation for school purposes would be better equalized, for, under the present district system, the people of some districts, owing to the smallness of both their numbers and taxable property, pay two or three times as much as their neighboring wealthier districts, and get no more-often much less in quantity and value, for it; and in joint districts, the several parts composing them, are, from the necessity of the case, very unequally taxed.

3. All the primary schools of the town would be held the same length of time, thus producing an equality of school privileges which does not, and cannot, exist under the old district plan; for instances are not wanting in our State, where a poor and weak district, with great difficulty, and heavy taxation, manages to maintain a three months' school, and that kept by a cheap and perhaps almost worthless teacher; while the adjoining wealthy district, with comparatively light taxation, easily sustains a ten months' school, with an able and successful teacher. This is exceedingly unequal, and bears heavily and unjustly upon the poor, and fails to carry out the heavenly injunction, "Bear ye one another's burdens."

4. By the Township plan, there would be a juster distribution and equalization of teachers, suitable to the several localities; and less of the favoritism practised, as under the present district system, in employing relatives to teach the schoolsfor in a Town Board of only three members, there would be less opportunity of practising it than by the present half a dozen to a dozen District Boards in the town.

5. There would be more uniformity and adaptation in schoolhouses; for they would be built economically, by the lowest and best bidder, and not, as is now too often the case, by one or more members of the District Board, on pretty much his or their own terms; and such localities as now neglect to provide good, comfortable school-houses, would have them provided for them, and the children of such stingy, miserly souls would no longer suffer for a suitable place in which to acquire an education, which would be worth vastly more to them than all the

wealth, without it, which their ignorant and niggardly parents could ever heap together.

6. It would not only be a far better, but a far cheaper system to maintain, lopping off the weak, inefficient and worthless schools, and dividing the larger and unwieldy ones; lessening the number of officers, as the Town Board of three officers would perform all the necessary school duties of the town, and do it cheaper and better than the half a dozen or more local Boards of at least six times as many officers; and instead of selecting eighteen or more persons in a township, as is now the case, for these local boards, the people would select three of the very best and most efficient for the Town Board. would be a great saving of expense, and the objects sought more equally obtained, better in quality, and far more useful to the people.

Here

7. By abrogating the district and joint district system, we should be doing away at once with one of the most fruitful sources of troubles, wranglings, contentions, and petty jealousies, incident to the district system; and would, at the same time, put an end to that greatest bane of the system, the constant ensmalling of districts, to gratify whims and caprices, and oftentimes to adjust an angry controversy, thus steadily lessening the ability of such dismembered districts to either employ a good teacher, or maintain a school even the legal requirement of three months.

8. It would give to the people all over the State the perfect freedom, while taxed in their own town, to send their children to any public school, without regard to district, township, or county lines thus, in the enlightened spirit of progressive legislation, doing away with an oppressive restriction already too long and too patiently borne by the people, and which has only been productive of inconvenience, injustice and inequality, and deprived many a worthy tax-paying family of invaluable school privileges.

9. And lastly, but not least in importance, while the primary schools generally cannot well be graded, and but little effected in the way of properly calssifying the pupils, yet under the Township system, each town containing a specific number of inhabitants, or a certain amount of taxable property, or both, could have its Central Graded High School, free to all of a certain age, say between ten or twelve and twenty years of agethis Central School to be kept in session at least ten months in each year. With such a Graded School in each town, for the more advanced youth, the accruing benefits would be of so decided and general a character, that the plan could not but meet with the most universal favor.

GRADED SCHOOLS.

So important do I regard a Central Graded High School for each town in Wisconsin, that I shall venture to cite a few experienced authorities upon their necessity and value:

"In the Fourteenth Report," says Dr. SEARS, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, "I have endeavored to show how difficult it is, even for a good teacher, to give a thorough and systematic course of instruction in a school made up of scholars of every diversity of age and attainment. In a mixed district school, the classification of the pupils is necessarily imperfect, and the number of classes must be altogether too great for thorough instruction by one teacher. During the past year, teachers have been found in some of our public schools having at the rate of thirty-six recitations a day. In graduated schools, a few large classes may be formed, to pursue all their studies together, and the teacher having no others under his charge, will have a much greater amount of time for each. But where nothing of this simplicity and order exists, and teachers are changed, or liable to be changed, every term, the best methods of instruction are of but little avail; for they could not be successfully introduced, even if a good teacher were employed. There is not time enough in the daily exercises for thoroughly teaching each class, nor is the ordinary term of service long enough to lay the foundations of knowledge, and to rear a fabric which shall prove the hand of a master. The teacher feeling compelled to win a reputation, and secure the good opinion of his employers before the term expires, or is even far advanced, seeks to create a sensation, and adopts methods which the character and organization of the school will best allow, and which, at the same time, will make the speediest show of progress. Only in this way can he hope to be re-appointed, or to be recommended to another school. Thus the district system tends to check that improvement in modes of teaching which it is the object of the State to promote.

"Let it not be supposed that these evils, resulting from the district organization, can be remedied by grading the schools of the several districts. There are but few districts that admit of different grades of schools. Large and compact districts are usually divided into two, after which they cannot be associated together for the classification of their schools. A district may be too large for one school, and not large enough for two. Two adjoining districts may both be in this condition, and yet the line which divides them will effectually prevent any mutual arrangement for the accommodation of both. It is an iron system, that admits of no yielding to circumstances, whereas its

opposite is like vulcanized India rubber, which may adjust itself to ever varying cercumstances, by contraction or expansion. If the impassible boundaries of districts did not preclude the enlargement or curtailment of the schools of a town, it would be easy, in most cases, to organize them in such a manner as to equalize the number of children in each school, and to distribute them according to their ages and attainments. But now it is exactly as if a tailor, instead of having whole pieces of cloth from which to cut his garments, had nothing but remnants, sometimes too large, and sometimes too small, and rarely or never exactly fitted for his purpose. Suppose the different wards of our cities were to constitute so many school districts, each having its own schools, is it not evident that more schools and more school-houses would be necessary than upon the present plan? There would be a liability in each ward to have a remnant for which no provision could be made without over-crowding the schools, or establishing smaller ones at a disproportionate expense. In the rural towns, it often happens that parts of three or four districts need be taken off and united to form one new school. All such changes in districted towns are effected only after long delays, and with infinite trouble; and even then they are not accommodated to graded schools, as they result in simply adding one to the number of the same kind of districts. If the districts were abolished, the School Committee could, from time to time, according to circumstances, unite small schools and divide large ones, and adapt them to the wants of the pupils, and then adapt the teacher to both.

"The resort to union [or joint] districts is a poor relief from these embarrassments. However urgent the necessity which leads to it, the arrangement is an inadequate one, and the operation of it exceedingly inconvenient. The best union district is that in which all the districts of the town are united into one. Then there is an effectual relief from one class of difficulties without plunging into another. In general, union districts are a perpetual source of trouble and of contention. They make confusion worse confounded. The two districts remaining distinct for certain purposes, while they are united for others, add to the complexity of the system, not merely by adding one to the number of incorporated districts, but by introducing a joint jurisdiction. The points on which differences may arise are multiplied. The choice of a site for the union school, the dimensions, style, and expense of building, and the appointment of the teacher, are matters in regard to which each party will be likely to have its own preferences. When we consider that neighborhood feuds and district jealousies are the vultures that most frequently gnaw at the vitals of our rural schools, it will