The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-03-03

party has dared to take single advan-
ced step in school legislation since the
enactment of rhe Akron school law of
tine State at large, nearly thirty years
ago; no one daring to affirm that the
county schools have improved since
that time. Meantime, plucky Kansas
and Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wis
consin; the great States of Illinois and
Pennsylvania; New England; the great
intelligent rural regions of New York,
have carefully improved their school
systems, and the people of these regions
have steadily and reliably supported this
action. Does this paper know that the
rapidity Of these developments Of which
it speaks, has been in proportion to the
constantly tmprO0ing methods applied to
our industries2 And have any newspa.
pers been found in Ohio to publish for
argument against these improvements,
such puerile swash as is contained in the
J. M. Case letter, which you present for
argument against the Dial bills2 Pass
that letter around, gentlemen, we want
to see it again.
Seriously there may be objections to
these bills, which are now laws in many
of the most enterprising States, which
have been perfect in their working, by
years of watchful painstaking labor, Of
earnest practical men, and which are
therefore, no longer experiments. Many
the men who have sent in their names,
and their arguments in favor of these
bills, have carefully studied our country
schools. They do not indulge in bonn.
bastic generalities regarding them one
way or the other. Comparing the schools
among themselves, and with the schools
Of other States, they see that while good
teachers make very good schools almost
anywhere, there are many who do very
poor wotk, and who will always do so
without some person of wisdom and ex>
perience to afford them kindly guidance.
The opponents Of these bills have,
strangely enough, assumed that while
country Boards of Education are invari~
ably wise in selecting teachers, these
same men will as invariably appoint as
County Superintendents, bulldogs or
porcupines.
The writer did two terms of teaching
without superintendency. He taught as
we'll as boys now teach under such cir
cumstances, and thought% boys now
think, that he was swimming in sea of
glorious success. 1t was his good for
tune the third and forth winters of his
teaching to be near that enthusiastic,
veteran, McGregor, who was pleased
to take personal interest in him. The
writer now knows that another month
of his teaching under this kindly and in
telligent guidance, was worth any three |
of his previous months of service in the |
schools, and such has been his observa-
ton of things ever since. Again, any
one who knows anything about it knows
that in ninertenths of the district schools |
the records are so kept that the new
teacher Of each year knows nothing of
the last years work, or of the advance
ment of the pupils, The upper classes
habitually go over and over the middle
parts of their books without advancing
one-fourth as far as they might do, and |
Boards of Education do not make the
systematic effort to correct the loss of
time this occasions to the tens of thou
sands of youth possessed of very good
talent in these schools, and who have
attained an age when they can be most
benefited by good teaching and the
proper employment of their time.
The writer is parent, and has been
for many years Superintendent, and
he knows that whole years are lost to
apt and capable pupils by the loose work
alone. In Pennsylvania and several
other States these years are largely saved
through the cooperation of county Su
perintendents with township boards of
education and with teachers, in improv-
ing the records and in utilizing the in
formation which they furnish, by the es-
tablishment in connection with some
central school of higher classes free to
those pupils in each neighborhood,
who can no longer attend these more
primary schools.
A few young men and women are self
poised and possessed of extraordinary
ambition, and they succeed under the
worst circumstances. Many of these
would educate themselves, as Lincoln
did, and as other extraordinary men
have done, without any schools. But
cts edNcati0H forms the common mind,
and the common mind must have good
means of education or it does not secure
education.
The writer pays taxes on home and
a little besides, and he is as much inter
ested in keeping taxes low and in pro-
noting the wealth of the State as the
average citizen. He believes that the
way to keep down the expense of any
business is to have that business well
done. The farmer does not find it econ
omical to chop with dull ak in order to
save the expense of grinding it. The
costliest blowing is that cheap plowing,
which without the farmers supervision
or instruction, leaves balks and cuts and
covers the soil. AS whole season is
lost by such irretrievable botch-work, so
the work of unguided, uninstructed nov
ices in teaching loses to the State of
Ohio thousands and thousands of years
of intelligent, effective labor in the long,
er time reqnired to secure a given
amount of education, and more still in
the inferior quality of this education.
Supposing that only one hundred thou
sand Of her over seven hundred thou.
sand thus spend year longer in her
schools than they ought at only fifty dol
lars year, this amounts to a loss Of FIVE
millions of dollars. Besides this, at only
ten dollars year for the added years
tuition, we see loss of million more,
All this is apart from the added expense
consequent on small districts, &C., here
tofore referred to.
A good school is as much better than
a poor school, as a good railroad is bet
ter than poor one. The interests in
volved are as sacred. The State under>
takes to run the schools for the individ-
ual. We can not, we do not expect that
her agents will do less than give this
subject their careful and unbiased com