\nDeke Parsons is gone — gone to j oi n those other great men of Keyes Fi b re., Dr. George Averi II and Marti n Keyes. Watervi I Ie has lost a noble, public-spirited citizen, a man who gave unse I fish I Y of his ti me and his ta lents to many worthy causes. [)eke Parsons was always giving of himself to help his fellow men. Thayer Hospital wi II miss him, Colby College will miss him, Maine Industries will miss him, and many an individual who, like myself, came to call him friend.<\/p>\n
Many tributes have already been paid to this man, and I can say little to add to them. But I do want to say a few words about one of his outstanding qua I i ti es, his abi Ii ty as an i ndustri a I manager to dea I peacefu I Iy and ami ab Iy with organized labor.<\/p>\n
Whenever a group of business men gets together, someone is almost sure to make -a sneering remark about the labor unions. When such a remark was ever made in Mr. Parsons’ presence, he let everyone know emphatically where he stood. He bel ieved wholeheartedly and unreservedly in the right of labor to bargain collecti ve Iy. He on Iy asked that the uni~ons accept responsi bi I ity as we II as privi lege. Labor, to Deke Parsons, was not a commodity like pulp and chemicals. The men at the machines were just as human and with the same kind of human problems as the men in the executive chairs. The women at the conveyor belts had the same human ri ghts as the gi rls at the computi ng mach i nes.<\/p>\n
I shall always remember the occasion of thi s program’s three hundredth broadcast when, a few months ago, I sat in this studio and asked questions of two men: one, the head of the union at Keyes Fibre; the other, the president of the company. And what did we ta I k about? The present and the future of a great i ndustri a I organi zati on. And what was the impress ion wh i ch every listener got from that broadcast? It was this: that one of the secrets of Keyes’ success is the way management and labor look upon each other, not as enemies, but as partners in a common enterprise. And that feeling prevails because a’man named [)eke Parsons be Heved that lasting business success comes not by the exploiTation of workers, but by the understanding of them as fellow men.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, down at the State House ,in Augusta, I asked about a dozen different persons in what year the State Board of Education first met. I rece i ved the un i form answer, 1949. My i nqui ry was made to persons we II informed wi th our sTate government and they knew that the present body known as the State Board of Education was authorized by the legislature in the spring of 1949, and held its first meetings that year. I found my informants thoroughly amazed when I tol d them they were more than a hundred years wrong.<\/p>\n
Even we who are members of the present State Board of Educati on were completely unaware that Maine had earlier in its history a body by the same name. The matter was ca lied to my attenti on by Mr. Ray Smart of Watervi lie, who has in hi s possessi on a state document entit led ITFi rst Report of the Board of Educati on of The State of Ma i ne, 1847″.<\/p>\n
Yes, it is true. A Board of Education in Maine was created by an act of the legislaTure on July 27, 1846. It held iTS first meeting in the Senate Chamber of the State House on December 16. So the answer to my question is, ‘TThe State Board of Educati on met 110 years ago I ast December”. That first State Board of Educati on was made up of 13 persons, one from each of Maine’s then 13 counties. The chairman was Stephen Emery of Oxford and the secreTary was Wi f I iam Crosby of Waldo. Among the other nembers were Benjami n Randa II of Sagadahoc, Wi II i am Savage of Aroostook, Aaron Hayden of Washington, A. F. Drinkwater of Hancock and David Worcester of Kennebec. As was usua lin a I J government off ices in those days, a II the board membe rs we re men. The mothers, so vitally concerned with our schools, had no representation at all.<\/p>\n
It is we I I to remember that in 1846 Ma i ne had no Commi ss i oner of Education, no State Superintendent of Schools, no Department of Education whatever. There was no supervisory body over al I public education in the state. The local school district, of which there might be as many as 20 in the larger towns, and seldom fewer than 6 in the sma I lest town, were almost completely autonomous. Even when money was rai sed by the town as a whole and a I lotted to the several school districts in the town, the district supervisory committee, or in some cases a single supervisor, decided how the money should be spent, how many weeks in the year the schools should be open, what text books should be used, and a I I other matte rs of schoo I adm i n i s trat i on.<\/p>\n
The result was chaos. One district in a town might have 24 weeks of school in a year, whi Ie another district had 30 weeks. One district might decide to cut its schoo I year short by two or three weeks in order to get abetter, hi gher paid teacher for fewer weeks. The n~ighboring district might prefer the reputat i on of lengthen i ng the schoo I year by getti ng a teacher at the lowest possible wage, regardless of competence.<\/p>\n
In 1846 no town provided free text books. If the district authorities were ready to face -thei r neighbors’ wrath for the sake of educati ona I progress, they would occasionally require one particular text for each level of each subject, but more often they pub I i shed lists of severa I acceptab Ie texts. As a result,\u00a0 the chi Idren in one school might have as many as six to eight different varieties of arithmeti c books, and the di fferent school readers were so numerous that in a school of 40 pupi Is in Gardiner in 1852 there were reported 14 di fferent readers. I-bw di ffi cu It it rmlst have been for the teachers, some of them inexperienced girls, to group those pupi Is into classes at all. To get any sort of organized work going in such a school taxed the ingenuity of an Edison and the patience of a Job.<\/p>\n
The mere statistics on Maine schools in 1846, as they are revealed in this first State Board report, are astounding. The Board fai led to get reports from al I the towns; so concerning the number of school districts in the state, they could only say: “The numbers of school districts in the towns and plantations from which returns have been received is 2,283. Regarding these as a fair specimen of the whole, there are in the state not far from 4,500 school districts.” The Board further reported: nit is apparent that population, area, and valuation furnish no data from which to form an estimate of the number of school districts in any town. Whi Ie one town with a population of 1,400 contains 27 districts, another with a population of 8,600 contains only five. Of two towns, each with about the same number of inhabitants, one contains eight districts and the other 22.”<\/p>\n
Now what interests me profoundly about this 110 year old report of education in Ma i ne is that that first State Board in 1846 was concerned about the same things which concern our State Board of Education today: first, consolidation of schools to provide more nearly equal educational opportunity for af I chi Idren; second, a supply of qualified teachers; third~ the State’s responsibi lity to train teachers; and fourth, decent and adequate school bui Idings.<\/p>\n
It is human nature for even the sma I lest neighborhood to want its own school. Even in this day when transportation is so easy and much less costly than maintaining separate, relatively inefficient schools, it is hard enough to persuade a town meeting to vote for a central, consolidated school and close up its one-room rural schoolhouses. But it has been done successfully in China, in Windsor, and in many other Maine towns.<\/p>\n
It may surprise you to know that consolidation was an issue 110 years ago, but listen to what that State Board report of 1847 had to say about it: “No greater error ever gained possession of the public mind than that the health and comfort of the child require that the schoolhouse shall be near at hand. Motion is the natural impulse of chi Idhood; to arrest it is a violation of nature; and it is a mistaken kindness to shorten the chi Id’s moming or evening stro I I. We must get ri d of the not i on that the schoo I house must be brought near to every man’s door. The evi Is attending the minute subdivision of school disTricts are obvious. The consequences are incompetent teachers, short terms, and di lapidated schoolhouses. By a multipl icity of small school districts we are increasing the number of poor schools.”<\/p>\n
Unti I I read this old report, , did not know that in 1847 it was the custom to pay men teachers by the month, but women teachers by the week. The report lists the average compensation in each of the 13 counties. The highest pay was in Washington County, where men got $21.30 a month and women got $2.08 a week plus board. The practice in many towns was to board the teacher around a week or two at a time within the district, and some of those teachers got preTty slim pickings. In other districts the teacher’s board was put up to the lowest bidder, and the lower a bidder was inclined to go, the surer he was to put the teacher on short rations.<\/p>\n
The report shows that the lowest pay was in Oxford County — $13.21 a month for men, and $1 .10 a week p I us board for women. The average for the whole state was $15.40 a month for men and $1.20 a week plus board for women. “These facts’1, said the State Board, “furnish abundant cause for the lack of competent teachers. The public should not be astonished that the number of properly quali fied teachers is annually diminishing, and the ranks are fi Iling up wi th the inexperienced and incompetent.”<\/p>\n
f-bw fami liar is the tone of the next paragraph’ in’the report! Doesn’t it sound just like what we a II know to be true today? Rea Ily, we haven’t leamed much about the financial operation of our schools in the past hundred years.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, fam iii ar as it sti II is, here is what the 1847 report sa i d: “Teachers are not requi red, nor shou Id they be expeoted, to make sacrJ fices greater than those made by other cl asses in soci ety. The i r time is money, as much as that of thei r employers, and they are just as much entitled to fair and honorable compensation. Actuated by the same motives as other human beings, they wi I I usually seek that employment which holds out the promise of pecuniary reward comparable with that to be found in other vocations. If they cannot get decent wages in the schoolhouse, they wi II seek it in fi e I d and forest, in workshbp, factory or counting-room. A continuation of the present short-sighted policy on teacher compensation wi II mean that those best qual i fied to teach wi II tum to some other calling, leaving their places to be filled by those whose qualif i cati ons a re on the same sca I e as the i r compensat i on \u2022 Trade, COITllle rce, the learned professions and the mechanic arts are inviting to thei.r embrace the energy and i nte Ilect of our state, and there is just reason to fear, un less we change our ways, our ch i I dren must ere long go uneducated, or seek for education from some other source than the public school.”<\/p>\n
So i ncomp lete were the 1846 statisti cs that no one knew hON many ch i I dren there were in Maine at that time who ought to be attending school. They knew only what The school census had always told them, the number of persons between 4 and 21 years of age. From the towns reporting to the State Board’s appeal for figures in 1846, we have already seen that only about half of the school d i stri cts:~ reported at a II. I n the reporti ng Towns the n umber of persons from 4 to 21 years of age was 121,992. Against this figure the State Board set the attendance figures for the summer and winter Terms of 1846, and came up with the shameful fact that of those nearly 122,000 chi Idren and youth, 65,000 did not attend the SUfl1Tler term and 60,000 were not en ro lied for the w inter term. Since the returns represented only half the state, the Ebard pointed out that in the summer term of 1846 as many as 130,000 young peop Ie in Mai ne, who were of schoo I age, were not in school. The Board recognized ThaT many absentees were, as the Board expressed it, nThose who have arrived at The age of 16 when, especially with the poorer class in the canmuniTY, a school educaTion usually TerminaTes”.<\/p>\n
But the Board insisTed, “AfTer making I iberal allowance for such youth, there are yeT thousands unaccounted for, whose interest and welfare demand their presence at the schoolhouse. Where were They — basking in the sunshine, loitering on the street corners or in the dram shops, studying The vocabulary of the profligate and the blasphemer, qualifying themselves for the poor house and The pri son? N<\/p>\n
How-were Maine schools financed in 1846? The STaTe law Then required each town to raise annually for The maintenance of public schools a sum nOT less than 40 cents for each inhab itanT. A II any town rece i ved from the state toward support of iTs schools was iTS modest share in The distribution of the state tax on banks. There was, to be sure, what was ca I led the npennanent Schoo I Fund n, estab I i shed by the leg is I ature in 1828. That act set apart 20 townships of land, TO be sold and The proceeds put aT permanent inTerest, and on I y the income to be di vi dad annua II y among the towns of the state.<\/p>\n
The little aTTenTion paid to the state educational statutes and their open flaunting in many instances provide sufficient evidence that the time had come when Maine needed a State Board of Education. Concerning the minimum of 40 cents per inhabitanT, which each town was required to raise for schools, the report says: “There are not a few towns in the staTe in wh i ch the amount raised for support of schools fa lis short of the minimum provided by law. Even a large majority of The towns are content with mere observance with the letter of the I aw or seek clever devi ces to avoi d it. That a Town shou I d not be wi 11- ing to support its schools at the rate of 40 cents per inhab itant is shameful and disgraceful. We need penalty legislation to require these towns to fulfi J I their obligations even if they do not have the common sense to see that ex- penditures for the school house diminish those for the poor house. n<\/p>\n
As for the distribution of the bank tax, the report said: “According to the statute, no town is entitled to a share in the bank tax unless its return of school figures, by the selectmen to the Secretary of State, is seasonably made. Many towns have neglected to make returns, but the legislature has chosen to take cere of those who were too negligent to care for themselves, by passing a resolve that in all cases where no return had been received for the current year, the last return made should govern the town’s share of the bank tax. Thus has inducement to neglect of duty been held out to some towns, and manifest injustice done to others.”<\/p>\n
The neglect of the provisions of the Law of 1828, creating the Permanent School Fund, is almost unbelievable. The report says: HThis fund now amounts to $86,000. It has been accumulating for many years, during which time the state has had the use of it without accounting for a cent of interest. This income be longs by I aw to the imp rovement of the pub I ic schoo Is, but after nearly 20 years since the law was passed, not a penny has gone to its designated lega I purpose.”<\/p>\n
We II, it appears that the State Board of Education had a crisis on its hands in 1847. Next week I want to tell you what that Board 110 years ago had to say about the supply, qualifications, and training of teachers.<\/p>\n
Year: 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #335, Broadcast March 10, 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}