If it be necessary to startle the reader into an appreciation of Vermont's place in education, I can bring up the fact that the state has contributed two important factors--that it "invented" the professionally prepared teacher and the school blackboard. What school could operate today without such essentials?

Charles Edward Crane, “Let Me Show You Vermont”

I drive into Royalton (South Royalton, strictly speaking, which along with North Royalton and Royalton Village make up the town of Royalton, in true confusing Vermont fashion) on my meandering way home from an errand. "I need to get that Vermont blog going again,” I remonstrate with myself as I’m driving the byways of my beautiful state, and myself answers, "Yes, get on with it!"—which I am happy to now be doing.

In looking up the history of Royalton, I came on this information:

"The Vermont Charter reserved five lots of land: one each to support a seminary or college, a County Grammer School, the settlement of a Minister of the Gospel, churches in town, and town schools...Proprietors had to plant and cultivate five acres of land and construct a house on each share of land or the land would revert to the Freemen of the State...it also reserved, for the benefit of the state, all pine timber suitable for a navy."

So I wonder what those patriotic Americans of today who are against every tax levied and every government decree would think about this town charter of our founding fathers? It certainly put the good of the many above the desires and profit of the few. Something to ponder upon, no?

Also worth pondering is South Royalton's interesting Queen Anne architecture, and spacious town green with gazebo, memorial arch, and Civil War soldier. Fronting the green is a substantial brick business block, where a hungry wayfarer or peckish law student can find an ice cream parlor, bar and grill, or natural foods coop.

South Royalton is the only town in Vermont that needs to cater to the sensitive stomachs of law students as it's the only town with a law school. Fittingly for a state where residents love the outdoors, Vermont Law School is ranked as having the best environmental law program in the country.

South Royalton also has a very nice train station, and Amtrak's Vermonter still runs by. VLS students also used to run by the train station on their way to happy hour at the Crossroads Bar and Grill (as one law student wrote on the bar's website, "the scar on my left knee from tripping over the train tracks to get to your doors will forever remind me of all the good, the bad, the ugly times had therein.") The Crossroads has closed, unfortunately, but Chelsea Station can meet your burger and beer needs.

I need to get back to Royalton soon, both to have that beer and to take a look at the other two parts of town. But if I am going to keep this blog going, I need to move on up Route 14 while I still have gas in my tank, and some lingering light in the 9:00 pm Vermont summer sky.