The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-12-24
The FREQ school System.
DECEMBER, 2lst 1865.
Editors .Insclligcneer:

Editors IntelLi0cncer:
Your article in last Saturdays issue
Is certainly to the point.
Any one acquainted with the work
inSs of our present School system;
knows that we do not have perfection,
1t is very lame in some respects. Yet
much of the i'll workings arises from
its continual change. We cannot learn
to operate it before II is re. enacted.
1t seems we are to have 1t changed
again. AS one who has had some ex-
perience i'll the working Of onr Free
School system, and who will yield
to no one in point of interest
taken in schools, we would like 10 pro.
pose radical change in our school
law.
Where the necessity OF school law,
creating an independent set of officers.
Let us do away the entire class, and
throw their duties upon others, of
which we have such a ''swarm."
a Slate Superintendent liz indispena-
bio. But let some other officer OF the
State perform his duties, which need be
nothing more than to act rs n head to
which the School Department may re-
port.
Let us see five cannot simplify this
thing further down, cut away some of
this useless "swarm of officers" Take
out some extra wheels from the govern
Ing machinery.
Here is a township with ten school
districts. How many officers in this
small township: Supervisor, Clerk
Treasurer, Overseer OF tho Poor; two
Justices, three School Commissioners,
three School Trustees to each district,
four Road Surveyors, two Inspectors
of Elections, and two COnstables, to
arrest the outside wOrld-Rnd the Regis
tTar-forty-ei eight in all to rum a lit
tie township. Why, imagine we have
townships in the State that cannot ill
all their offices, unless some man is
generous enough TO hold two.
1t is true the most of them get no
Day, and here the dcmd1O0Mc'S cry
of "swarm of officers" falls TO the
grOund-who is lamenting because he
is not one, and because he is not re.
ceiving tho "tax" which he tells you is
going into the pockets of these officers.
1t Is true they are no expense, use no
oil in the mRchinery-but the great
beauty of n machine is its simplicity.
When we can run our machine with
less, only the foolish or the ignorant
use more.
Let each school district elect one man
to act us director, trustee, or what.
ever he may be called. These ten con-
stitute Board OF Nisitors-direct the
schools, roads, assessments, &C., in a
word, the entire public interests of the
township.
Let this board elect a President, Sec
rotary, Treasurer. or any general officer
they may need 10 be laid down in
the statute; appoint some one of
their own number or any other TO ex-
anime their school teachers, some one
to act as Justice of the Peace, or the en-.
tire board constitute court. The
President is TO be supervisor of the
township, and, as now we. shall have Il
board OF supervisors, let each director
guard we'll the interests of his own dis
trict, each supervisor the interests of
his own township, and then with two
inspectors of election are all the town
ship officers that are needed. The half
to constitute quorum. The Treasurer
collects the funds, county, State or
township.
The Inspectors, with a clerk, consti-
tute board ofregistration, TO see that
only voters vote. The clerk to regulate
assessmenIs-and here, in the workings
OF the present law, something is terribly
wrong-aud something which can be
made self-re regulating: but OF this in
further communication, If this should
prove acceptable.
Although writing just now in haste,
these are no crude conceptions of "a mo-
ment-but thinkings OF many an hour
in trying TO bring simplicity out of our
present completely OF laws, and before
pen has been put to Paper-we think we
brought against our work of simplify
ing the governing machinery. This
problem OF government, is not SO intri-
cate we imagine rs some of our "consti-
tutionnl lawyers" would have us be
lipYp, nS5D