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

1749.] NEW SCHOOLS—DIVISION OF ADDITIONAL GRANT, 181
appointed "' to Consider witli respect to tlie Ijetter Regulation
of our School, to project Some way tliat our School
for the future may be more advantageous and profitable
for the Education of our Children." The following January
this committee reported as follows : —
''Th.at the Town Erect a new School House near Elisha Pomeroy's
trading Shop, that Shall be Ver}' warm and Convenient, for writers,
Grrammar Scholars, and Arithmeticians as its likely they may be in
Town to be Instructed, and tliat there be for the future, two Schoolmasters
maintain'd in Town in the Winter Season in the middle of the
one to which Grammar Scholars and Arithmeticians and
Town, viz : —
writers Shall be Sent, the other to which, the Readers, or English
Scholars Shall be Sent : and in the Summer Season, there be but one
School maintained, viz: — the Grammar School to which Scholars of
all Sorts Shall be Sent Untill the Season grows Cold & that then, there
be two again as afores'd ; & that for the future any provision for
Schools in the Remote parts of the Town be omitted."
The above Vote Tliis report was acccptcd, and Lieut. Noah
Rescinded. Wright and Mr. Ebenezer Hunt were added
to the committee, which was instructed to
consider what kind of a house should be built. This was
rather a one-sided proposition, both as regards the character
and location of the schools. It provided solely for the
enlargement of one department, and omitted the outlying
districts altogether. When the people in the outskirts
began to realize the true position in which they had been
Xilaced hj this decision, that they must either do without
schools or send their children to the center of the town,
they rallied, and at the following March meeting the
former vote was reconsidered and rescinded.
still further Changes Tliis agitatioii of the scliool qucstion
for t h e Better i n ^^Mle it failed to better the schools in one
section at the expense of those elsewhere,
resulted in good to them all. In 1750. an order was
adopted to provide
" some meet person to assist the Gramm'' school master in teaching
the Writers and English readers, And that English School masters
shall be provided for the 2'' Precinct and the Farms, and that the
school money already granted to the 2' Precinct be used for the paying
for the schooling of the youths of sd precinct."'
It was also voted to build a school-house in the second
precinct. The next year the same assistant was continued.