The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-08-20
For the Ashland Uniun.1


MR. EDITOR Being o2- of the tax
payers IF this Union Sch. District, l
claim the right to inVos; gaze the CON
duct uf our Teacher aad Doari of Euu-
cation. 1t has ever seemed to lac that
they have labored more to build up q
1=2 reputation abroad for this Scaool
and lis Principal, han to advance 90
interests of the children of the legitl-
mate Taxpayers, who have been taxed
20 heavily, and that, too, without a mur-
mur, that they might have q School
which would advance their own children
in education, free from Sectariauism CT
Political FanaticisTn, as well as an honor
to the town and State. But it is q To-
torious fact that Foreign Scholars have
been induced and urged to attend this
School, and lave absorbed a great por-
ton of the time and attention of our
principal Teacher, 20 the disadvantage
Of our W large scholars, and to the
almost entire neglect of the scholars
in the Primary Departments, many OF
whom lave been trudging to school for
the last four years, and are to-day no
further advanced than they should have
been in a proper, select or we'll govern
ed school in one year.
We are paying our Superintendent,
Mr.. BARBER, a large salary, and he has
devoted the principal part of his time
to a few favorites, mostly from abroad,
and the remainder of his time to lectu-
ring On abolitionism and concocting un-
demanded, dark-lantern schemes for
the Advancement of ono of the Literary
Societies. We have, week before last,
a set of resolutions published in the Ash-
land Times, purporting to come from
the Board of Education, to govern and
control the two societies, making Mr..
BARBER the sole judge of the different
questions and the kind of literature they
shall be permitted to introduce into their
discussions and exercises.
Now, in the first place, as I under
stand it, these Societies are entirely free
and Independent of either Mr.. BARBER
or this Board of Education, and that
the only possible reasons there can be
for saying that they are connected with
the school are, that they meet in the
school building and are in part made up
of members Of the school. But in the
second place, if they were not independ-
ent, the question arises, is Mr.. BARBER
the kind of a man that these Societies
would want to have appointed over them,
with the privilege of exercising such ar
bitrary and ~despotic powers? Has his
past conduct been of a character so in
spire the confidence of this Board of Ed
%ucation and this community, to guaran-
tee them in delegating such unbounded
discretionary authority over these Soci-
cites? Ifso, perhaps they have done
right. But I think a majority of the
citizens of this town are firmly convin-
ced fl om what they know of Mr.. BAR
BER's course heretofore, with these two
Societies and his extreme prejudice,
manifested on more than one occasion,
that he is not a safe man to intrust with
such unbounded power, and the Socie-
ties must be the veriest sycophants in
the world, if they tamely submit to it.
Who that has any d~iscernment cannot
discover that these resolutions are not
the production of the Directors, but the
offspring of that underhand