Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-01-21

And, if had received all the rest Of the
cities into my table, the result would have
been the same, and this result is apparent.
If you compare the number Of children
reported by the several cities with those Of
our city, and determine our annual ex-
penses in the direct ratio of theirs, you
find, for instance, that if our expenditure
had been in the style of that Of the city Of
Racine, We should have expended SIG, 602,
or the city Of Madison Sl4,69l, GAINESVILLE
$4,000, La Crosse $l7,188, Oshkosh
$2l 800, Beaver Dam $l3, 435, Green Bay
SIS, $3.50, ETC., ETC., instead of 1859 which
we have expended the same year.
The question now arises, whence the
growing dissatisfaction of our citizens
with regard to our school budgets during
the past yeArs. The answer is easy. Ia
the first place, during the last three or four
years, more money, and indeed considera-
bly, more money, has been expended than
ever before. Let US see what our records
show the annual expenses Of the four last
years to have been. The last-if may
call it so--normal ear, find to have been
that of lS69-70, when the total c-pendit.
ure amounted to $l0,OsS; the records of
1870 to III show Sill, 773; those of 1871 to
~, ouO AHstlJS IuOSC VI ACiH W
'73, $l5,801. Adding the expenditures of
the last three years, you get the sum of
$40, 73l, to which you have to add still
about 5000, expended from the tuition
fund since January, 1871. This gives q
total of about $4,000, or $4,000 more
than the regular annual expense of $l0,-
600 year would have amounted to. Thus
we came to the sorrowful necessity of be-
| ing obliged to boob in our records of 1872
and '73, an old Indebtedness Of $6,4l2.51
| and what was still more sorrowful, We had
| to find the money to pay it. Thence the
| high taxes of last year, and thence the un-
| popularity of last years board, very little
deserved indeed, 1T least by those mem :
bers who, having been elected at the be-
| ginning Of the year, came to see them
selves under the necessity Of paying old
debts which they had never dreamed of
contracting, but which they felt them
selves in duty bound honestly to pay, in
the extra expenses above alluded to. But
those gentlemen concerned, will plead that
this surplus expense has been caused by
the necessity under which we were of en- :
larging our public school property and
indeed such has been the case. They
bought IN 1871, fine lot in the first ward
costing 81, 900; they built school house
in the sixth ward, costing, per contract,
| SIS, 1915; fence around it, $l48 they bought
new desks, costing $439; and made some
other improvements, the whole amounting
to more than $4,000. Besides that, they
had the misfortune of incurring some
losses and made some expenses which
afterwards proved useless, indeed, but
only they will say, because they were pre-
vented from carrying out their own plans
and designs. 81. .1aax o
# we admit the business of these plead
ings, how do we account for the general
dissatisfaction which, infer, once prompt
ed even the Superintendent OF the Board
of 1871 and ~ to tender his resignation,
because, have reason to think, he also to
a considerable extent, shared in that gen.
eral dissatisfaction.
My explanation of the phenomenon is
the following: The dissatisfaction COM
menced when the board Of 1871 com
menced to inaugurate system different
from the old traditional policy OF form er
boards, which had been adopted in the
year 1860, and faithfully carried out TO he
beginning Of the year 1871 During all
this time, our boards were prompted by the
noble ambition to raise our schools to a
rank equal to those of the best in our
State. How far they have succeeded, pub
lie opinion and high educational author
ity have amply told. To reach this noble
object, they have shrunk back from NO ex-
pense, but in all other matters they have