It wasn’t even that much of a hug – except in intention. She was so tiny that her shoulders were only about the height of my hips, and she was clutching a half-eaten pecan sandy cookie in one hand; so it was kind of a down-low, one-armed squeeze. But it meant a lot.

I’ve had occasion to visit two small Vermont schools this year, and found the visits to be moving experiences, as well. I felt I was looking at the end of a unique rural phenomenon, one that has helped shape Vermont ever since the state led the nation in establishing public education.

Years ago, when I was traveling New England attempting to spread the gospel of experiential education under the aegis of Outward Bound and with the funds from a Title III federal grant, I visited dozens of schools. After a while I found that, just walking into the entry hall, I could virtually smell the morale of a place. It’s impossible to define it exactly, but there were happy schools and unhappy schools; open, welcoming schools and cold, suspicious schools; schools in which the teachers and students clearly liked each other, and others in which it appeared that only strict discipline maintained order; schools in which I was permitted to talk only to the principal or headmaster, and others where I could chat with the teachers or students.

We had some great experiences. Winter bushwhacking and bivouacking in northern New England’s second-growth forests may not sound like much fun, but it was. Both teachers and students returned with a wealth of shared experiences and a greater understanding of each other and themselves. From time to time I still meet survivors of those expeditions. They bring their grandchildren to meet me (you want to feel old? Try that!) and tell the kids how much fun they had shivering around a fire in a snow pit with the stars twinkling and the aurora throbbing overhead during long, icy January nights.

I’ve never walked into a small school, especially a one-room school, without feeling energy emanating from the place like warmth from a space heater. They’re usually noisy – rather like the sound of a starling migration rousing from the trees at sunrise – but it’s happy noise. And there’s a way to stop it when necessary. At the start of the school year, everybody has agreed on a signal for silence: maybe, for example, two fingers in a V at the end of an upraised arm. When you see it, you raise your own arm and close your mouth and look around for the person who wants to make an announcement. There’s an important difference – and a message – between being silenced by an authority figure and cooperating in creating your own opportunity to listen.

I had the chance to visit the one-room school in Granville, Vermont, last spring. It was a very brief visit, to film the students at work and lament mildly that the town has voted to close the school and bus the kids to a centralized location. We were seeing the last of a disappearing tradition. You could see the reasons just in the condition of the building. Recent repairs and a new roof failed to mask a loss of will (and money) to keep fighting off consolidation.

There’s little doubt the kids will benefit from improved facilities at a larger school, whichever it is; but another rural community, perhaps already weakened by the need to commute to jobs outside the town, will lose another common bond.

This past week I visited a slightly larger school, almost up on the edge of the Kingdom, and was blown away by the enthusiasm and happiness of the place. Seven grades and only 53 students; it’s one of those schools that state-level planners are bound to target in the current push to consolidate in the name of efficiency.

But the planners should not just crunch numbers; they should spend a day there. The teachers ran their classes with the magical skill I used to remark in the drivers of six-horse teams. We all sat in the gym together. The sixth-graders looked incredibly young – surely I was taller and more sophisticated than that at their age! – and the kindergartners so much younger, I couldn’t believe they could sit so quietly in a group to listen to a story. But they did. And when afterward the cook and some assistants fed everybody a chunk of cornbread with warm maple syrup on it, the principal asked the sixth-graders to “buddy up” with the kindergartners. And they did! – each of them taking a kindergartner under his wing, shepherding the little ones through the chow line, and then sitting down side by side to snack. The sense of family and community was palpable.

After the plenary session, at which I read the story of Favor Johnson and his famous injured dog, Hercules, I went with the youngest kids to their classroom. Eight of them; the teacher expects only four next fall. The room was clearly for them a place where they did exciting things; where they formed a class that, if undisturbed, would be together for nine more years; where each of them was known by their teacher; where they could feel absolutely safe. They’d read a picture book of mine and divided the book into eight scenes. Each had painted one. They presented me the book with some ceremony, and we went through it page by page. (They’re Abstract Impressionists.) I’ve saved it, of course. Then we shared what they’d discovered were my favorite cookies, pecan sandies, and when it came time to leave, I got a round of down-low hugs. When Vermont decides schools like this are too costly, it will have given up something precious and utterly irretrievable.