History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

CHAPTER XIV.
NEW SCHOOLS—DIVISION OF THE ADDITIONAL GRANT,
Schools Carefully NEITHER the excitemeiit of existing warxurtured.
f^pe iior tlie pecuniary embarrassments
caused thereby, were sufficient absolutely
to absorb the attention of the community. In the multi-
plicity of rapidly recurring events, when the military en-
grossed all other interests, the improvement and enlargement
of schools and school methods was not overlooked.
The citizens dealt generously by them, providing extra
teachers and establishing new schools in all sections, whenever
their need was made apparent. Laggard only in the
matter of heating, they were liberal and progressive in
every other respect. Yet the town was constantly endea^'^=^
oring to supply this defect. The reiteration of votes to
compel people to keep the schoolmaster's woodpile intact,
in this narrative, yet in
has almost become , burdensome
1746, it was found necessary again to act upon the matter.
This time it was ordered that every parent " sending a boy
to school," must follow him within ten days with a load of
wood, or pay a fine of 5s.
The Town Boards Another change for the better was adopted
the Schoolmaster, the uext year. Heretofore school-teachers
had paid tlieir board bills from their sal-
ary. Probably they "boarded round," at the homes of
their scholars ; and the parents paid a portion of their
school rates by that means ;
but now a new system was put
in practice. In 1747, the town assumed that expense. The
first item of that kind on the treasurer's account is a payment
of £14.7 to Moses Lyman for boarding Nathaniel
Taylor, who taught school at the center, from October to