Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-08-29
District Number Two.

Our neighbors i'll East Olympia
are deserving Of almost as much
sympathy as the people of Memphis;
not that fell disease has settled down
upon them, but, if possible, on &C.
count of greater calamity. A short
term of years ago, about the time
that the town was divided into two
school districts, the good people |
over there expressed desire for q
new school building commensurate
to their growing needs. Neat, but
not gaudy, something that the peo-
pie could build and pay for and not
an elephant; simply school-house
and nothing more, was the senti-
ment expressed by everybody whose
heart was in the matter. Estimates
were made and the work was about
being commenced when 10, an ora
Gle came from Delphi which said
Let us rear unto ourselves an
academy A what - asked some
of the more lowly minded conserva-
tives, 4" An academy" repeated the
Oracle. We have severed the UNI
bilcal card that identified US with
Olympia proper, and now we will
show our friends on Tie aristocratic
leninsula how to DO business as is
business. Well, like the Noach-
lars, on the PLAINS of Shinar, they
burned bricks, made slime pr and
built an imposing editice I'll but
finishing. For the first year, all
went n!errily and the people of that
little burg were tremendously proud
of their achievements. But, as poets
and big books say, change came
over the spirit of their dreams and
things got considerably mixed up.
Poor people began to sigh for the
good, old-fashioned district school,
but high-toned people didn't want
any of the district school in theirs.
The three select men who nominally
had the thing in charge were uncer-
tain as to whether they were district
school directors or regents of big
university. In fact, they were both; ;
they were anything and everything
to all men. They were running a
district school or an academy, just
according to the social creed of their
customers. Indeed, the district
school was with the academy, the
academy was with the district school,
and, like the niggers rake and hoe,
they were both together. If poor
people who, for years, had been ac-
customed to the free school system
erowled about their high "tuition"
bills, they were told to hush up, they
were sending their children to a
heightened school, presid ed over by
heightened teachers; there was where
the honor came in and they ought to
60 into quiescent state and be sat
isfed. It did not work worth cent
to Christen the affair Union Acade-
my" There was no union about it,;
but, all was on the side of the ad-
vance classes, for those who came
from abroad with no show for the
children. Webelieve we are express
ing the unqualified opinion of nine
tenths of the parents of Olympia
when we say that Union Academy
has, thus far, proved failure. The
immediate incentive to this article is
the fact that, after all has been said
and done, the present directors of
district number two are now adver-
Using for district school to COM
mence on the Sth of September in
the same miserable lumber pile that
was thought unfit for a school room
five years ago. Thus it will be seen
that history repeats itself, and even
school directors are glad to go back
to first principles. 1t now remains
for the stockholders of Union Acad-
envy TO sell their certificates for what
they will bring and then so to work
aud build what every hamlet should
possess, district school house and
nothing more.
A GOOD many letters appear in con-
spicous places at the Post Office, de-
! tnined for the renui. ito amount of