RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND TEMPERANCE.
Being almost wholly of New England origin, the settlers of Vermont and
their descendants were in the main a religious people, and held to
church-going when there was no place for public worship but the
schoolhouse and the barn. In such places the members of the poorer and
weaker sects held their meetings till within the memory of men now
living. This was particularly the case of the Baptists and Methodists,
who were viewed with slight favor by the predominant Congregationalists.
This sect organized the first religious society in Vermont at Bennington
in 1762, and first erected houses of worship. These structures were
unpretentious except in size, and for years were unprovided with means
of warming. When the bitter chill of winter pervaded them, the
congregation kept itself from freezing with thick garments and little
foot-stoves of sheet-iron; the minister, with the fervor of his
exhortations. Folks went to church with no display of apparel or
equipage. Homespun was the wear, till some ambitious woman aroused the
envy of her kind by appearing in a gown of calico, or some gay gallant
displayed his many-caped drab surtout of foreign cloth. The sled or
wagon that served for week days on the farm was good enough for Sunday
use, when its jolting was softened with a generous cushioning of buffalo
robes for such as did not go to church on horseback, or on foot across
lots.
Late in summer, after the earlier crops were gathered, the Methodists
were wont to congregate in the woods at camp-meetings. These meetings
were celebrated with a fervor of religious warmth, and whether by day
the white tents and enthusiastic worshipers were splashed and sprinkled
with sunlight shot through the canopy of leaves, or lit at night by the
lateral glare of the pine-knot torches flaring from a score of scaffolds
set on the tree-trunks, the scene was weird and picturesque beyond what
the fancy can conjure from the modern fashionable camp-meeting, with its
trim cottages and steadily burning lamps and unmoved throng, and one can
but think that another fire than that of the old pine torches burned out
with them.
There were few Episcopalians, though the royal charters had given them
two glebe lots, and two for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts, and there were so few Roman Catholics that no priest of that
faith established himself in the State till 1833. In parts of the State
there were many Friends, commonly called Quakers, who, by reason of
their non-resistant principles, were exempted from military service.
The state grants gave in each town two lots of two hundred acres each to
the first settled minister of the gospel, of whatever persuasion he
might be. The rental of all these grants, except that of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, now goes to the support of public
schools, with that of a similar grant originally made for that purpose.
The schoolhouse was one of the earliest recognized necessities, when the
settlement of the State was fairly established. The pioneers built the
schoolhouse of logs, like their dwellings, and its interior was even
ruder than that of those. Rough slabs set on legs driven into
augur-holes furnished the seats, and the desks, if there were any, were
of like fashion. In winter, when the school was largest, if indeed it
was held at all in the busier seasons, a great fireplace diffused its
fervent heat through half the room, while a chill atmosphere pervaded
the far corners. Among such cheerless surroundings many a Vermonter of
the old time began his education, which was completed when he had
learned to read and write and could cipher to the "rule o' three." Many
of the scholars trudged miles through snow and storm to school, and the
master, who always boarded around, had his turns of weary plodding with
each distant dweller. The boy whose home was far away was in luck when
he got the chance of doing chores for his board in some homestead near
the schoolhouse. Increase of population and of prosperity brought better
schoolhouses, set in districts of narrower bounds.
As early as 1782, nine years before the admission of the State into the
Union, provision was made by legislative enactment for the division of
towns into districts, and the establishment and support of schools. It
directed that trustees for the general superintendence of the schools of
each town should be appointed, and also a prudential committee in each
district; and empowered the latter to raise half the money needed for
the support of the schools on the grand list, the other half on the
polls of the scholars or on the grand list, as each district should
determine.
At one time the school fund, derived from the rental of lands and from
the United States revenue distributed among the States in 1838, was
apportioned among the heads of families according to the number of
children of school age, without regard to attendance, or restriction of
its use to school purposes. This singular application of the funds could
not have greatly furthered the cause of education, though it may have
stimulated the increase of population, for to the largest families fell
the greater share in the distribution of the school money.
In 1827 the legislature provided for the examination and licensing of
teachers, and for the supervision of schools by town committees; and
also for a board of state commissioners, to select text-books and report
upon the educational needs of the State. These provisions were repealed
six years later, and there was no general supervision of schools till
1845, when an act provided for the appointment of county and town
superintendents, but the first office was soon abolished. In 1856 a
state board of education was created, empowered to appoint a secretary,
who should devote his whole time to the promotion of education. J. S.
Adams, the first secretary, served eleven years, and by his earnest
efforts succeeded in awakening the people to a livelier interest in the
public schools. During his service, normal schools were established, for
the training of teachers; and graded schools in villages, with a
high-school department, became a part of the school system.[99]
In 1874 a state superintendent was appointed in place of the board of
education; while in 1888 a system of county instead of town supervision
was introduced, which after an unsatisfactory trial was abolished in
1890, and the town superintendent was restored. He now has a general
charge over the schools in his town, but the teachers are licensed by a
county examiner appointed by the governor and state superintendent.
The common schools are now supported entirely at public expense, and are
free to every child between the ages of five and twenty, and in all
large villages there are free high schools, so that it is now rare to
find a child of ten or twelve years who cannot read and write, and a
fair education is within the reach of the poorest.
By the act of 1782, already referred to, the judges of the county
courts were authorized to appoint trustees of county schools in each
county, and, with the assistance of the justices of the peace, to lay a
tax for the building of a county schoolhouse in each. In most of the
townships granted by Vermont, one right of land was reserved for the
support of a grammar school or academy; but as less than one half of the
towns were so granted, many of the schools derived little aid from this
source, and in fact the establishment of county schools was not
generally effected; and though there are many grammar schools and
academies in the State, few of them are endowed, but depend on the
tuition fees for their support. The Rutland County grammar school at
Castleton was established in 1787, and is the oldest chartered
educational institution in Vermont. This school, together with the
Orange County and Lamoille County grammar schools, became a State Normal
School in 1867. These three institutions are under the supervision of
the State Superintendent of Education, and the State offers to pay the
tuition of one student from each town, thus encouraging the better
preparation of teachers for the common schools.[100]
The union of the sixteen New Hampshire towns with Vermont brought
Dartmouth College within the limits of the latter State. After the
dissolution of the union in 1785, Vermont, upon application of the
president of the college, granted a township of land to that
institution in view of "its importance to the world at large and this
State in particular,"[101] and, encouraged by this success, the trustees
asked for the sequestration to their use of the glebe and society lots
granted in the New Hampshire charters, and of the lands granted by
Vermont for educational purposes, promising, in return, to take charge
of the affairs of education in the State. This gave rise to an agitation
of the subject which resulted in the establishment of the University of
Vermont at Burlington, for which purpose Ira Allen offered to give,
himself, L4,000. A bill incorporating the university was passed in 1791.
Three years later land was cleared, and a commodious house built for the
president and the accommodation of a few students. Ten years later the
erection of the university building was begun, and so far completed in
1804 that the first commencement was held in that year. During the War
of 1812 the building was used for the storage of arms, and as quarters
for the soldiery. President, professors, and students retired before
this martial invasion, and collegiate exercises were suspended till the
close of the war. This building was destroyed by fire in 1821 and
rebuilt in 1825, the corner-stone being laid by General Lafayette. The
medical department of the university was fully organized in 1822, and a
course of lectures was kept up for eleven years, when they were
suspended, but resumed later. The department is now flourishing and of
acknowledged importance, and occupies a fine building erected especially
for its use. Large endowments and valuable gifts, made by generous and
grateful sons of the university, have erected handsome new buildings,
notably the fine library edifice, and improved the old to worthy
occupancy of the noble site.
Upon the suggestion of Dr. Dwight, who visited Middlebury during his
travels in New England, a college charter was obtained of the
legislature, but all endowment by the State was refused. The institution
was immediately organized with seven students, and held its first
commencement in 1802. The first building, erected four years before, was
of wood, but the college now occupies three substantial structures of
limestone.
A military academy, under the superintendence of Captain Alden
Partridge, was established in 1820 at Norwich. Some years later this was
incorporated as Norwich University. It was removed to Northfield in
1866. Its distinctive feature is the course of instruction in military
science and civil engineering. It contributed 273 commissioned officers
to the Mexican and Civil wars,[102] and many, especially in the latter
war, served their country with distinction.
The first course of medical lectures in Vermont was given in Castleton,
by Doctors Gridley, Woodward, and Cazier in 1818, and laid the
foundation of a medical academy at that place, which in 1841 was
incorporated as Castleton Medical College. This, and another medical
college established at Woodstock some years previously, no longer exist.
The State now gives thirty scholarships to each of her three colleges,
which pays the tuition and room-rent of a student. These appointments
are made by the state senators, or by the trustees of the colleges.
Though there is much interest in all these higher institutions of
learning, as well as in the normal schools and academies, many of which
are prosperous and important, yet the common schools more particularly
engage the attention of the people and of the successive legislatures,
resulting in a complication of school laws scarcely balanced by the
improvement in the school system.
The early inhabitants of Vermont, though, for the most part, they were
rough backwoodsmen, were imbued with a strong desire for useful and
instructive reading, and this led to the formation of circulating
libraries in several towns, almost as soon as the settlers had fairly
established themselves in their new homes. This was notably the case in
Montpelier, where a library was begun in 1794, only seven years after
the first pioneer's axe broke the shade and solitude of the wilderness.
Its two hundred volumes were well chosen, being histories, biographies,
and books of travel and adventure, while all works of fiction and of a
religious nature were excluded, the one class being deemed of an immoral
tendency, the other apt to breed dissension in the sparse and
interdependent community.[103] In many other towns similar libraries
were formed; though perhaps not with like restrictions, yet, as far as
one may judge now by the scattered volumes, they were of excellent
character. A rough corner cupboard in the log-house kitchen, or a closet
of the "square room," held the treasured volumes of gray paper in
unadorned but substantial leather binding. What a treasure they were to
those isolated settlers, to whom rarely came even a newspaper, can
scarcely be imagined by us who are overwhelmed with the outflow of the
modern press.
It is a pathetic picture to look back upon, of the household reading of
the one volume by the glare of the open fire, spendthrift of warmth and
light, eldest and youngest member of the family listening eagerly to the
slow, high-keyed words of the reader, while between the pauses was heard
the long howl of the wolf, or the pitiless roar of the winter wind. Yet
it is questionable if they were not richer with their enforced choice of
a few good books than we with our embarrassment of riches and its
bewildering encumberment of dross. In 1796 an act was passed
incorporating the Bradford Social Library Society,[104] the first
corporate body of the kind of which there is any record. Similar
associations in Fairhaven and Rockingham were incorporated soon after.
In recent years several large public libraries have been instituted,
such as the libraries of St. Johnsbury, St. Albans, Rutland, and
Brattleboro, the Norman Williams Library at Woodstock, the Fletcher Free
Library at Burlington, and others, founded by wealthy and
public-spirited Vermonters. The library of the Vermont University
comprises forty thousand volumes, including the valuable gift of George
P. Marsh. This now occupies one of the finest edifices of the kind in
New England, the Billings Library Building. Such a wealth of literature
as is now accessible to their descendants could hardly have been dreamed
of by the old pioneers, even while they laid its foundation.
The first printing-office in Vermont was established at Westminster in
1778 by Judah Paddock Spooner and Timothy Green,[105] the first of whom
and Alden Spooner were appointed state printers. The enactments of the
two preceding legislatures had been published only in manuscript, a
method of promulgation which one would think might have curbed
verbosity. Judah Spooner and his first partner began the publication of
the pioneer newspaper of the State, the "Vermont Gazette, or Green
Mountain Post Boy," at Westminster in February, 1781. It was printed on
a sheet of pot size, issued every Monday. Its motto, characteristic of
its birthplace, was:--
"Pliant as Reeds where Streams of Freedom glide,
Firm as the Hills to stem Oppression's tide."
Its publication was continued but two years. "The Vermont Gazette or
Freeman's Depository," the second newspaper of the State, was published
at Bennington in 1783, and continued for more than half a century. About
this time George Hough removed the Spooner press to Windsor, and in
company with Alden Spooner began the publication of a weekly newspaper
entitled "The Vermont Journal and Universal Advertiser," which was
continued until about 1834. The fourth paper, "The Rutland Herald or
Courier," was established in 1792 by Anthony Haswell, and is still
continued in weekly and daily issues, being the oldest paper in the
State. William Lloyd Garrison edited "The Spirit of the Times," at
Bennington, not long before he became the foremost standard-bearer of
the anti-slavery cause, with which his name was so intimately
associated. In 1839 "The Voice of Freedom" was begun at Montpelier, as
the organ of the anti-slavery society of the State, and was afterward
merged in "The Green Mountain Freeman," published in the interest of the
political Abolitionists or Liberty Party. The publication of "The
Vermont Precursor," the first paper established at Montpelier, was begun
in 1806, and soon after changed its name to "The Vermont Watchman." For
more than fifty years this paper was conducted by the Waltons, father
and sons, and is still continued. In 1817 they began the publication of
"Walton's Vermont Register," which is issued annually, bearing the name
of its founder, and is a recognized necessity in every household and
office in the State. Eliakim P. Walton, one of the sons, also rendered
his State most valuable service in editing the records of the governor
and council.
A majority of the newspapers have displayed with justifiable pride the
name of the State in their titles. A number have had but a brief
existence, scarcely remembered now but for the names of their founders
or their own strange titles, such as the "Horn of the Green Mountains,"
"The Post Boy," "Tablet of the Times," "Northern Memento," and "The
Reformed Drunkard." The Spooners seem to have been intimately connected
with early newspapers and printing in the young commonwealth, for at
least four of this name were engaged in such business. The famous
Matthew Lyon edited for a while "The Farmer's Library," and Rufus W.
Griswold the "Vergennes Vermonter;" D. P. Thompson, the novelist, "The
Green Mountain Freeman," and C. G. Eastman, the poet, "The Spirit of the
Age," and "The Argus."
The dingy little papers of the olden time, with their month-old news,
the brief oracular editorial comments, their advertisements of trades
and industries now obsolete, their blazoning of lotteries and the sale
of liquors, now alike illegal, were welcome visitors in every household;
and the weekly round of the post-rider was watched for with an eagerness
that can hardly be understood by people to whom come daily and hourly,
by mail and telegraph, news of recent events in all quarters of the
globe. To those old-time readers of blurred type on gray paper, scanned
by the ruddy glare of pine knots or the feeble light of tallow-dips, the
tidings of foreign events which had happened months before came fresher
than to us what but yesterday first stirred the heart of Europe.
Now, every considerable village in the State has its weekly paper, the
larger towns these and daily papers. When Zadock Thompson published his
"Vermont Gazetteer" in 1840, there were thirty papers published in the
State, where now are, according to Walton's Register for 1891, sixty-one
daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals.
For many years liquor-drinking was a universal custom, and a householder
suffered greater mortification if he had no strong waters to set before
his guest than if the supply of bread and meat was short. The cellar of
every farmhouse in the apple-growing region had its generous store of
cider, some of which went to the neighboring still to be converted into
more potent apple-jack, here known as cider-brandy. This and New England
rum were the ordinary tipple of the multitude, and the prolific source
of hilarity, maudlin gabble, and bickerings at bees, June trainings, and
town meetings. Drunkenness was disgraceful, but the limit was wide, for
a man was not held to be drunk as long as he could keep upon his feet.
When he fell, and clung to the grass to keep himself from rolling off
the heaving earth, he became open to the charge of intoxication, and
fit for the adornment of the stocks. Many a goodly farm, that had been
uncovered of the forest by years of labor, floated out of its owner's
hands in the continual dribble of New England rum and cider-brandy.
The signboard of the wayside inn swung at such frequent intervals along
the main thoroughfares that the traveler must be slow indeed who had
time to grow thirsty between these places of entertainment. The old-time
landlord was a very different being from his successor, the modern hotel
proprietor. Though a person of consideration, and maintaining a certain
dignity, he received his guests with genial hospitality, and at once
established a friendly relationship with them which he considered gave
him a right to their confidence. Ensconced in his cage-like bar, paled
from counter to ceiling, the landlord drew from his guests all the
information they would give of their own and the world's affairs,--their
whence-coming and whither-going,--while he dispensed foreign and
domestic strong waters, or made sudden sallies to the fireplace where
lay the ever-ready flip-iron, blushing in its bed of embers. Good old
Governor Thomas Chittenden was a famous tavern-keeper, and as
inquisitive concerning his guests' affairs as other publicans of those
days. He used to tell with relish of a rebuff he got from a wayfarer who
stopped to irrigate his dusty interior at the governor's bar. "Where
might you come from, friend?" the governor asked.
"From down below," was the curt reply.
"And where might you be going?"
"To Canada."
"To Canada? Indeed! And what might take you there?"
"To get my pension."
"A pension? And what might you get a pension for, friend?"
"For what you never can, as I judge."
"Indeed! And what is that?"
"For minding my own business."
Temperance began to have earnest advocates, men who, for the sake of
their convictions, suffered unpopularity and persecution. A Quaker
miller refused to grind grain for a distillery, and the owners brought a
suit against him to compel him to do so. After a long and vexatious
suit, the case was decided against him, but he persisted in his refusal,
and the distillery was finally abandoned. Some would no longer comply
with the old custom of furnishing liquor to their help in haymaking and
to their neighbors who came to give a helping hand at bees, and by this
infraction of ancient usage made themselves unpopular till a better
sentiment prevailed.
There were zealots who cut down acres of thrifty orchard, as if there
were no use for apples but cider-making. Through moral suasion and the
honest example of good men, a great change was wrought in the sentiment
of the people, till at last temperance became popular enough to become a
matter of politics. Moral suasion was in the main abandoned, and the
old workers dropped out of sight.
Vermont followed the lead of Maine in legislation for the suppression of
the liquor traffic, and in 1852 passed a prohibitory law. Each
succeeding assembly has legislated to increase the stringency and
efficiency of the prohibitory statutes. Yet the fact remains that, after
forty years' trial, prohibition does not prohibit, and presents the
anomaly of an apparently popular law feebly and perfunctorily enforced.
It is a question whether the frequent and unnoticed violations of this
law, and the many abortive prosecutions under it, have not made all laws
less sacredly observed, and the crime of perjury appear to the ordinary
mind a merely venial sin.
FOOTNOTES:
[99] Conant, _Geography, History, and Civil Gov. of Vermont_.
[100] Conant, _Geography, History, and Civil Gov. of Vermont_.
[101] Thompson's _Vermont_.
[102] Conant, _Geography, History, and Civil Gov. of Vermont_.
[103] _History of Montpelier_, by Daniel P. Thompson. D. P. Thompson is
best known as the author of _The Green Mountain Boys_, _The Ranger_, and
other tales that picture quite vividly early times in Vermont.
[104] _Governor and Council_, vol. iv.
[105] _Vermont_, by Zadock Thompson, an invaluable history.