CLINTON RURAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION. 115 addition to the attractions of your picturesque and historical old town, furnished by gentlemen from without the State, one of them from the other side of the continent even, shall excite and even shame our own people into a larger public spirit and better efforts to redeem from negligence our rural homes and villages. Nearly all our towns are full of objects of natural beauty easy of development, and very many of them rich in legendary and historical associations. What is greatly wanted is something more of rural art and adornment. Something which shall beautify our country villages, educate public taste, make the homes of the fathers dearer to their sons and the local associations of childhood dearer to old age, and thus turn back, in part at least, the tide of migration from the rural towns, and make the city seek the country life and make it what it used to be in our own State, and what it still is in the oldest and most cultivated nations of the world. I beg to remain with the highest respect, Your obedient servant, R. D. HUBBARD. CLINTON RURAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION. As calls are often made for a plan for Village Improvement Societies, I insert that adopted in Clinton. 1. This Association shall be called "The Rural Improvement Association of Clinton." 2. The object of this Association shall be to cultivate public spirit, quicken the social and intellectual life of the people, promote good fellowship, and secure public health by better hygienic conditions in our homes and surroundings, improve our streets, roads, public grounds, side-walks, and in general to build up and beautify the whole town, and thus enhance the value of its real estate and render Clinton a still more inviting place of residence. 3. The officers of this Association shall consist of a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and an Executive Committee of fifteen, six of whom shall be ladies. 4. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to make all contracts, employ all laborers, expend all moneys, and superintend all improvements made by the Association. They shall hold meetings monthly from April to October in each year, and as much oftener as they may deem expedient. 5. Every person, who shall plant three trees by the road side, under the direction of the Executive Committee, or pay three dollars in one year or one dollar annually, and obligate himself or herself to pay the same annually for three years, shall be a member of this Association. 6. The payment of ten dollars annually for three years, or of twenty-five dollars in one sum, shall constitute one a life member of this Association. 7. Five members of the Executive Committee present at any meeting shall constitute a quorum. 8. No debt shall be contracted by the Executive Committee beyond the amount of available means within their control, and no member of the Association shall be liable for any debt of the Association, beyond the amount of his or her subscription. 9. The Executive Committee shall call an annual meeting, giving due notice of the same, for the election of officers of this Association, and at said meeting, shall make a detailed report of all moneys received and expended during the year, the number of trees planted under their direction, and the number planted by individuals, length of side-walks made or repaired, and the doings of the Committee in general. 10. This constitution may be amended at any annual meeting by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting. The attention of School Visitors is again respectfully called to the requirement of the law that their Annual Reports should be forwarded to the Secretary of the Board of Education by the 15th of October. As the State Report should be completed in December, and ready for distribution at the opening of the General Assembly-four months earlier than formerly-there is a manifest necessity for the UTMOST PROMPTNESS in forward ing the returns required by law. While most of the School Visitors are to be commended for their promptness, the inexcusable delay of a very few has caused needless embarrassment in completing the required statistics, and made it impossible seasonably to complete the Report of the Board. Hereafter the Report will be printed promptly, embracing the returns so far as received, and giving the names of the delinquent towns or School Visitors. The completeness and value of the whole will be greatly lessened by the omission of a single town. The responsibility for such deficiency must rest upon the delinquents. The towns that may be posted on the tardy list, are invited hereafter to elect School Visitors who can come to time." While plain words are merited by a very few, the great body of the Acting School Visitors of our State deserve our special thanks for their earnest and intelligent efforts to advance the cause of public instruction. Our statistics furnish important lessons, and form the basis of wise school legislation, but they can be of little value to the Legislature unless promptly on hand. The evidence of the practical value of these tables is manifold, comprising, as they do, facts and figures which include every school and every pupil and teacher of the State. HON. ALFRED COIT. Judge Alfred Coit died on the seventeenth of January, 1879, at the age of forty-three years. He was graduated at Yale College in 1856 and at the Law School of Harvard University two years later. Soon after admitted to the bar in New London, he devoted his life to the active duties of the legal profession of which he was regarded as one of the leading members for that section of the State. Prominent and active in political life, he represented New London several times in the General Assembly. Elected as Senator for the Seventh District in 1868, he discharged the difficult and laborious duties of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee with characteristic ability and fidelity. He was active in originating the State Board of Education in 1865. Indeed the plan was first suggested by him, and the Act constituting this Board and repealing the Act that made the Principal of the Normal School ex-officio Superintendent of Common Schools, was drawn up by him. He was appointed one of the members of the Board of Education at its first organization and was one of the School Board of New London at the time of his death. In the last interview it was my privilege to have with him, he expressed in strong terms his deep and growing interest in the progress of the schools of his native town. He was an earnest advocate of our Free School Law and exerted a strong influence in the Legislature and elsewhere for its support. The Report of the State Board of Education in 1868 was from his pen. His early and lamented death gives emphasis to his timely views therein expressed, as will be seen from the following extract from that Report. "In a democratic community like ours, the best, in fact the only safe course for the State to pursue, is to educate the children of all, without reference to their station in life. We solemnly protest against the opinion of some among us, who believe that it is dangerous for the children of the richer and more intelligent portion of the community to attend school with the more ignorant and less cultivated portion. Our boys and girls are to be trained for the positions which they are to fill in after life. Becoming men and women, they must meet other men and women of different positions in life on terms of perfect equality. It will be a poor preparation for this intercourse, if our children are educated in class schools and are taught that for any cause, it is not proper for them to associate with other children either richer or poorer than themselves. Prejudice will spring up quite soon enough without being planted there by parents and teachers. All classes of children will be benefitted by this association. The poorer classes will learn to be less jealous of the rich, and the richer classes of the poor and all will learn, that there is a common bond of humanity which unites them so closely together that the artificial circumstances of riches or station cannot separate them. Not only the man who has children, but every man who has property, or position, has an interest in maintaining good schools, because every man is interested in having the masses of the people made intelligent and virtuous, rather than suffered to become or, to remain, ignorant and vicious.” These sentiments are the more creditable to Judge Coit, because reared in affluence, he was himself educated in private schools. Elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1877, "he proved himself an able and upright judge and discharged his. judicial duties to the entire satisfaction of the bar and the public. He was for many years a communicant and a prominent and consistent member of the Congregational Church. In the social circles in which he moved and indeed among all classes of his fellow citizens he gained many warm friends, and his sudden death, in the prime of life and when he had opening out to him a career of honor and usefulness, is regarded as a public calamity." HOME SCHOOL FOR MUTES, MYSTIC. Report for the ninth year of the school, ending June 26, 1878. Secretary B. G. NORTHROP— Dear Sir:-During the year for which this Report is rendered twenty pupils were admitted into the school, seven of whom were residents of Connecticut. General good health has prevailed. Only two cases of sickness worthy of mention occurred. One death has occurred. Walter N. Pennell of Pennsylvania, while sliding on the ice where he had gone without the consent or knowledge of his teacher or attendants, broke through and was drowned, February 17th, 1878. In the educational department very satisfactory progress was made. Male. Female. Total. Number of pupils in attendance during year, 16 4 20 Present at close of school, ... Connecticut State beneficiaries, New Jersey State beneficiaries, Possessed no knowledge of speech on entering school, With sufficient hearing to aid in learning to talk,.. 12 4 16 Died,. Respectfully submitted. ZERAH C. WHIPPLE, Principal. |