CORTLAND MILK DEPOT AND THE POOR DISTRICT SCHOOL

Hotel Brunswick, Cortland, N. Y.

Cortland Standard, Semi-Weekly Edition, Tuesday, January 28, 1896.

CORTLAND MILK DEPOT

IS NOW LEASED TO H. A. ARNSTEIN OF NEW YORK.

J. B. Haug Has Left Town and Owes the Farmers $1,900. Mrs. Haug Says They Will All be Paid Soon.

   Monday morning there was a rumor on the streets that Mr. J. B. Haug, manager of the Cortland milk depot, had failed in business leaving an indebtedness of about $2,000 to the farmers for milk. At the station a reporter was informed that Mr. Haug was in New York and that the business was in charge of Mr. H. A. Arnstein. Mr. Arnstein was found at Hotel Brunswick and stated that it was true that he was in charge of the depot as lessee and that he would become responsible for the pay for milk brought to the depot from Monday morning forward.

   Mr. Arnstein’s address in New York is 405 East 76th-st., and he is the owner of the stations at Cuyler and Afton. Mr. Arnstein stated that he was ready to guarantee the payment for all milk brought to the station after Monday and if the farmers were willing to bring their milk to him he would probably purchase the station.

   The farmers were very much exasperated that morning to learn that Mr. Haug had left without paying them for their December milk and there was considerable talk that they themselves would build a depot of their own, but how that can be will be told later.

   It was learned that Mrs. Haug was in town and a Standard man called upon her at Hotel Brunswick, to whom she made the following statement: "A year ago last July we sold our retail milk business in New York and, moving to Cortland, went into the business which we have continued ever since. The change was made because we wanted to move into the country, where we could educate our three children. We purchased a house on East Main-st. We have now, however, moved to New York and have repurchased our old store and expect to be on our feet again."

   Mrs. Haug stated that the present state of affairs was due to the hard times and slow collections from jobbers to whom they sold the milk in New York. They had always been able to raise sufficient money, however, to pay off the farmers the twentieth of each month, sometimes running over a few days. There is still due the farmers for milk about $1,900 and Mrs. Haug stated that if the farmers would be a little lenient she thought they would be able to pay every cent in a short time, as soon as they can make collections which are due from customers in New York. The house and lot have been placed in the hands of Davis, Jenkins & Hakes for sale and from this they expect to receive something to help them out.

   Mrs. Haug stated that she was at the depot Monday and when the farmers were talking of building a depot of their own she offered to sell them the present structure and deduct from the price all that is now due them.

   It is to be hoped that the matter can be straightened up at once and the farmers can receive their pay.

   A meeting of the patrons of the Cortland milk station was held in Fireman’s hall at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Over twenty farmers were in attendance. Frank Sears was elected chairman and Manly Kinney secretary. Mr. Arnstein was invited to come before the meeting to state the manner in which he proposed to purchase the milk in the future. He stated that he would pay the full market price at all times and that his times of payment at other stations were the twentieth of each month for the preceding month. As an accommodation he said he would vary the time in this instance and pay them Feb. 1 for the five days in January, March 1 for February, April 1 for March and thereafter on the twentieth of each month. This seemed to be satisfactory to the majority, although a few were of the opinion that pay day should come twice each month.

   No action was taken toward attempting to get the back pay from Mr. Haug.

A close estimate shows that Mr. Haug owes the farmers about $4,000 in all for milk from Dec. 1 to the present time.

Election Ballots.

   Town and village clerks having charge of the printing of election tickets for town meetings and for charter elections will find The Standard job office the best place in the county to get the work done. The Standard has the most and the fastest presses of any office in the county. It has eight numbering and perforating machines to number and perforate the ballots as required by law. It has plenty of help and can get out everything in this line on very short notice, but the ballots under the new law are so complicated and require so much labor in composition that it is important to get them in at the earliest possible moment. Save time, trouble and expense by having your tickets printed at the Standard office.

"Daily Standard only 10 cents a week."

BREVITIES.

   —The Cortland Savings bank was Friday connected with the telephone exchange.

   —A movement is on foot to establish a conservatory of music in Cortland. Particulars will be given later.

   —At a meeting of the Binghamton city teachers in that city Saturday morning Mrs. M. L. Eastman of the Cortland Normal school gave a talk on “Gumption.”

   —Every one interested in the liquor question should read the very full summary of the provisions of the Raines' liquor tax bill which we publish on our editorial page.

   — Senator Wilcox has a bill to change the date of the city elections in Auburn from March to November, to take effect immediately. If the bill becomes a law the present officeholders will stay in place until the 1st of January, 1897. This change is expected to save the city $5,000 a year.

   —The Wesson-Nivison Mfg. Co. has received a large order for bicycles from Los Angeles, Cal. On Saturday twelve wheels were shipped by express and the others will follow by freight. They are shipped in crates painted red, white and blue and stenciled, "Loyal bicycles, manufactured by Wesson-Nivison Mfg. Co., Cortland, N. Y."

The Poor "District School."

(Written for The Standard.)

   Through the overwhelming influence of the Normal and High school systems, as established in our towns, the common and district schools—especially those of the country districts, to which we now refer—are left but barely visible as a poor, flickering twilight glow, which may well be called the (expiring light of other days.) This fact at no very distant time, must attract the serious attention, not only of the educators of the land, but of the common people as well. What was once a glowing and brilliant light in the educational horizon, fervent and bright as a central sun, is now by external influences dwindled and dwarfed into such a pitiful state of fitful, shadowy, existence as to be almost contemptible.

   As one looks, retrospectively, over the country at large, and sees the old-time district school, once so magnificent in its proportions, so far reaching in its influence, and commanding the respect and admiration of all people, now sunken so low in form and degree that no one can be found to do it reverence, it would seem that some occult and mysterious power had worked, in these passing years, to bring about such dire distress, such almost complete overthrow. Still, the cause is plain enough to be seen, even he who runs may read, if he will but glance at the marks upon the mile posts as he passes. The conclusion is then forced upon one that the whole seeming great truth lies in a nutshell and can be stated in a word: THE TOWN HAS OVERWHELMED THE COUNTRY, swallowed it up, as it were, in all its entirety, and in all its originality, and with all its educational pride and instincts.

   In these latter days, even the farmer, he who above all others should cling to his own hearth and home, if only because of the traditions of the past, and should be the last of his kind to be suspected of the remotest desire to go abroad seeking after strange gods, even he must needs send his children away to be schooled in the town; away from his own district school, the oldest and, under proper management, we still think, the best educational institution in the land, for the first years of the mental and moral training of the child. The result is now but too self-evident; the country school is left in the hands of a slight miss in her early teens, or is voiced by the downless lip of an ambitious boy just out of knickerbockers; with just enough of scholars on the benches to make an infantile baseball team—to get up a football team there must needs be a borrowing of a boy or two from a near-by town school.

   The question now confronting the mass of American parents to-day, those living in the country and rearing their families, is fast-resolving itself into this: Is this abnormal condition of things desirable? Is the good of "Normal methods" sufficient to outweigh the evils of the present abnormal situation? Is it best for parents to send their boys and girls, many of them still in tender years, and in the most formative period of their lives, out and away from the restraining influences of a healthy home, country life, to meet the temptations and more than doubtful influences of the town? Shall we leave the educational, and necessarily with it, more or less of the moral care and control of the farmer’s boy, the most promising seed of a country’s growth to what may well be called strangers in a strange land, so far removed are they from the boundary lines of the old farm and the old home? And all this, indeed, because parents are seeking—and all so praiseworthy too on their part—what they reverently hope and undoubtedly believe to be a "higher" and "better" education. But is it truly so?

   Ah, there is the gravest room for doubt. And with a doubt there comes a halting time of consideration. It should be thoughtfully considered whether the district school, properly maintained, is not of the first importance, and should not be kept in touch with the highest and best educational instincts of the day, and whether its decadence should not be a subject of most profound regret to the yeomanry of the land.

   There is much to be said upon this subject. To the Grangers, especially, it should be a theme of eternal solicitude, far above the too ordinary one of "where shall we hold our next picnic?" Its apparent utter neglect by them, is most unaccountable. It is full time that these great organizations of farmers were awakened to a realizing sense of their duties—to say nothing of their rights—in this respect; and, as there is much reason to believe, in many other important respects, as well.

   "R."

   Cortland, Jan. 10, 1896.