The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1877-06-27
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

We have received several commu-
nications from good and reliable per-
sons, heads of families, deeply inter
ested in our Public Schools, and res
tive under the slow progress our new
School Board are apparently making
towards opening the different schools
in the Parish. These eommunica-
tions were addressed to us in a pro-
per spirit, and though complaining
of the hardness of the duties of the
Directors, they plainly indicated that,
through the Democrat, they desired
information and enlightenment
Ready and cheerfulIy willing at all
times to come to the information res
cue of our people, particularly in the
present subject matter, which is to
us labor of love and expectancy, we
will give them plain school chat in
answer to their many communicated
favors.
Our new School Board, which take
it all in all, is a very fair one and
thus far whose willingness to do the
right thing and do it well, are appar-
ent to US, though they have been or.
ganized nearly two months, have not
been idle or negligent Of their duties.
Thus far they have busted them
selves asslduously to master their
new duties, become posted in their
scholastic intricacies, and worse than
all in the late financial muddle be-
queathed to them by the late defunct
and inefficient Board. This com.
bined purging and cleansing of the
old dirty Augean stable, the public
must task their patience to compre-
bend and must in all christian char.
ity due allowance make, and pause
and reflect before they condemn or
make up hasty and unfavorable
verdict against men, who as unpaid
officials are moving cautiously in the
attempt to make right beginning,
founded on the right, the law and a
purely cash and economical foun.
dation.
Though the Board Lave been rath.
er reticent to us, jealous leader in
our school movements, under our re.
form regime, and though we believe
we have been rather snubbed in this
vital matter, yet we are too consis'
tent and firm in our convictions oil
our whole and precious advocacy Of
our children's rights, to stop one
moment on the croaker's foot path,
and wall over some Of the sweet milk
split unnecessarily. Therefore, firm
in our faith and with full confidence
in the Board, we proceed plainly, as
far as we have been posted from an
outside standpoint, to answer oul
communicates and information give
to the people at large. After six
weeks of labor, and honest, hard
work, the Board have now arrived al
some understanding of the situation
and find that there was a debt legacy
willed to them by their defunct an
cestors of near three thousand dol
lars, and that by the time these lines
are peruseG by most of our readers
the Treasurer of the Board will have
in his till some twenty-five hundred
dollars, which will be at once paid
and parcelled out to the poor and pa.
tient school teachers, who have been
long waiting to receive their just
dues. Then, it is more than proba
BILE, nay almost certain, that the
Schools will not be opened before the
first day of next September. These
two important facts admitted, We
trust due allowance will be had in
the premises, and that the Board will
be applauded in their efforts to star,
right, particularly when we assert
that they are more or less guided by
the superior advice and sound judg
ment of Louisiana's competent ani
accomplished Superintendent, the
Hon. Robt. M. Lusher.