The Portland daily press., 1873-01-28
A Bad Beginning.

Admirers OF the nrSt ana greatest OF the
Bonapartes were accustomed to say that the
clock Of the world was put back fifty years by
the battle of Waterloo. Educational reform
ers must feel as if our little State time-piece
was set back some years by the action of the
House on Thursday in recommitting to the
committee on education the dill providing for
school supervision by some authority inter-
mediate between the State Superintendent
and local school officers. 1t is not so much
the virtual defeat of this special measure that
is calculated to give rise to gloomy apprehens
sions, as the spirit disclosed in the course of
the two days debate on the bill. In the pub
lished accounts of the very animated debates
which we have carefully read, there is an en-
tire absence of any but the most trivial objoc-
tons to the theory of some intermediate
supervision. Yet the House utterly refused
to accept the bill however modified or howev-
er anxiously guarded by the friends of educa-
ton against the alleged defects pointed out in
the details of tn measure. There was mani
tested, indeed, marked impatience of the
whole subject; desire to be rid of it in any
shape, and though this desire finally found
expression in a recommitment instead of in
definite postponement, the former was gener
ally understood to be equivalent to the latter
The committee is required to galvanise
corpse.
We say that the objections to the principle
of the bill were trivial, and the mere recital of
them will justify us in saying so. The partial
failure of one system of county supervision
was made to weigh down this new effort to
raise Maine from its position as the twenty
ninth State in point of educational rank. The
unrefecting legislator did not stop to think
that in spite of the acknowledged failure of a
few of the county supervisors to perform the
duties of their Office with success, the work
of other single members of the board was
worth to the State all that the entire system
of supervision cost. The actual value of the
work of school officers cannot be measured by
the number of miles travelled and the mum.
Der of towns or schools visited. The true
measure of value in such cases is the improve
ment of the school system and the education
al progress due to the efforts of the agents of
the State. To say that ignorance is the pa
rent of crime and pauperism, is too trite
thing to say here. But who can estimate the
pecuniary loss to the State direct and indirect,
due to a single criminal? Certainly, if we
take into account the injury inflicted by the
criminal act, the cost of the prisoners trial,
his withdrawal from industrial pursuits, the
frequent necessity of aid to his dependent
family, his maintenance and safe-keeping in
Jail or prison, he does not cost society less
than thousand dollars year. And, judging
from our past experience, is it extravagant to
say that even a partially unsuccessful system
of supervision, by the concert of action it pro-
duces among educators, by the new zeal it in
spires, by the dissemination of correct meth
DDS among teachers, has tendency to dimin-
ish pauperism and crime in very consider
able degree? Destroy ignorance. and you lift
from the State its heaviest burdens. In the
presence ofsuch considerations the ten thous-
and dollars which supervision would
cost seems but trife. No year passes but
the State absolutely throws away much larg-
er sums. Why does money seem so precious
when the proposed expenditure of it promises
the largest returns?