Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-02-18
County SUPPLEMENTARY.

t1clldlol htAOlllldtk, Oh AaElOll
county, has bill pending in the
Senate which restricts the compensa-
ton Of the County Superintendent of
Schools to $500, takes away the visi-
tatlon OF schools as a part of his
duties, and makes of this office a
mere tigurc-head.
We sincerely trust that the bill of
the Senator from Marion may receive
little countcnance from the Legisla-
ture; the members from Davis county
will surely be found among those who
will oppose its passage.
In the first place the compensation
is inadequate The Senator desires
to pay a public officer for q years
labor, the same compensation which
he himself receives tor three months
service in the Councils Of the State.
No one will claim that the duties
performed by the Senator in that
length of time are more arduous than
the average duties of a County Super
intendent, for the same period. We,
ourselves, know that the hours of
service rendered by the County Super
intendcnt Of this county, in the per-
tormance of his official duties, daily,
will exceed those given the State by
the honorable Senator from Marion.
Of the quality of that service, it i'll
becomes us to speak, for the author
Of the bill under review is one having
authority, and we have a reverence
for authority. We may say this,
however, that the work done by an
earnest laborer in the cause Of the
public schools will not suffer in com
parison with that performed by any
one who is State Legislator.
The duties are insufficient No
man with any sort Of talents above
those required by the trundling of a
dray, or the saving Of cord wood,
would take the office, and give his
whole time to it. If he did not give
his whole time to the office, but only
such shrods Of time as he could spare
from other vocations, he would be de-
trauding the State, whose officer he
is, and who has right to expect his
whole service.
The kernel of the County Snperin-
tendency is the supervisory function
exercised over the schools. Without
this, the Office is nothing but a sine
cure, if lily paid. To take away the
supervisory function Of the Office is to
invite to the place immature minds
possessed by law or medical students,
or persons Of that ilk, to whom the five
hundred dollars appears as a happy
means whereby their board bill may
be iightensd, OF their wardrobe IN
creased.
The State OF iowa spends over
eight millions Of dollars yearly in the
support of her common schools. The
Senator proposes to have this vast
sum expended under the supervision
of cheap Johns, whose services, he
himself estimates, is worth one dollar
and fifty-ninc cents per day, When
the State wishes to eNpend half
million yearly in the erection of a
State House, a thing of stone and
mortar, the highest talent procurable,
either in trout of the State, is secured;
but when the outlay is sixteen times
greater, and the structure to be built
the growing characters Of the three
hundred and fifty thousand children
OF the State-then, says the Senator
from Marion, the talent, or rather the
lack of talent represented by Il cash
value for services of one dollar and
fifty-nine cents per day, must be taken
to oversee the work.
We look to the friends of progress
sive, common school education in tho
Legislature to put out of sight this i'll
contrived plan of Senator McCor-
mack. Its enactment into law
would put our common schools far
behind the age, and relegate them to
the condition when the " deestrict
committeeman" was the sole control
ing power over the education of the
country.-BioomfeM Democrat.