History of Vernon County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens.

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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
State superintendent. Others have in part tried it. The difficulties in the way are numerous, but persevering teachers are overcoming them. The list of studies as prescribed by the State is as follows :
Orthoepy, orthography, reading, penman¬ ship, arithmetic, grammar, geography, United States history, civil government, and theory and art of teaching. In these, third grade ap¬ plicants are examined. In addition, for second grade, candidates are examined in elementary algebra, higher grammar, physical geography and physiology. For first grade, in addition thereto, higher algebra, geometry and natural philosophy or physics.
But few of the teachers have obtained first grade certificates, and of these few the males preponderate. A larger number obtain second grade, and these certificates are held almost wholly by females.
A teachers' association has been held at Ontario during the winter. The state of the roads and the distance to available points are such as to make such gatherings less frequent and more sparsely attended than they ought to be." It is to be hoped they will in time be more numerous and better attended than they are now.
Ray's and Robinson's arithmetics ; McGuf¬ fey's, Sander's and the Union readers ; Mon- teith's. Harper's, and Swinton's geographies; Kerl's, Harvey's and Swinton's grammars, have of late been  the  popular   text books  in  the
county : yet of late, too, Appleton's series, especially the reader, is working its way into the schools. So, also, is Fish's arithmetic and Olney's algebra. Evan's little work on geom¬ etry is growing into favor in the high and graded schools.
One thousand dollars and twenty cents has been expended in private schools during the year, the whole for teachers' wages. There are nineteen of these schools.
The expenditure over any former year in amount of outlay for teachers' wages is upward of $6,000 while that of amount total for school purposes is $10,000 to $10,500. The extra cost of school buildings the past year, excluding any other year, is some $6,000 to $7,000. The county having spent $11,322 for building dur¬ ing the last year.
GENERAL STATISTICS FOB 1882   TO   1883.
Whole number of children of school agre In county  9038
Whole nuniber who have attended school 6790
Whole number of days school has been taught 24U8
Number of teachers reqtuired to teach the flchools    160
Whole number of public American schools in county..   160
Number of private schools in county     19
Average wages paid teachers per month  $24,81H
Number of visits paid by the county superintendent.. 133 Number of addresses and lectures given on education 35 Number of districts which have adopted list text books    85
Percentage of enrollment of children of school age      78
Percentage of enrollment of children between 7 and 15    87M
Number of new school houses built during the year      13
Amount of cost of these school houses $11,323
Amount of outlay for teachers' wages $25,326
Total amount for all school purposes $38,168
Number of graded schools in the county         4
Number of high schools.         3