The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-06
THE PROPOSED NEW HIGH SCHOOLS.

udlU 10 IU8 SCnOOl DOdItl OIL Jn6 Guy III more
matters than one. In the first place,
as to the proposed hgh-school build
ing: The board has now large floating
debt, and to this the proposition is to
add 800, 900 more for new high-school build
ing on the site of the present one, corner of
Michigan and Pennsylvania streets The con-
sideration of this important matter brings up
the whole question Of high-school education,
and its relation to the 80 per cent. Of
the children who never reap the slightest
benefit from it. The city of Indianapolis is
naturally, as well as artifcially, divided into
two sections, the northern and the southern.
There have been, through all the years, we'll
grounded complaints about the inaccessibility
of the present high-school site to children on
the South Side entitled to the benefits of the
higher education. These complaints are well
| founded, and if the high-school is to be per-
petuated in it's present form, there is no ques-
ton that building must be erected on the
South Side, manned by corps of professors
and degree, as that furnished by the
school on the North Side. This Just
demand cannot be much longer ignored.
One high-school building will no
longer answer the physical or intellectual de-
mands of Indianapolis, if the existing grade of
high-schOol education is to be kept up. So,
new high-school building on the North Side
means a companion on the South Side it
means an expenditure of at least 5000, 900 in
| stead of 800, OO0 and an increase in the tut
tional expenses of the school system of $15, 900
year for staff of professors for the high
school south of Washington street.
Curiously enough, concurrently with this
demand for new high-school buildings, is the
cry for more room in the lower grades; and
this is constant, and will be constantly-in-
creasing, demand from the necessities of the
case, because of the increase of population
and the increasing per cent. of school attend
ance keeping pace with the development of
school accommodations in the grades which
the larger per cent. OF children both need and
avail themselves of. Now, which of these
two demands shall be answered. Shall the
ornamental, top-loftical high-school course
which but or 6 per cent. of the children can
OF do take-a course of instruction from
which the thought of practical people is turn
ing away, and which has been largely en-
broidered upon the common school system by
educators who, in their thirst for refinement,
have largely refined the real heart and pur-
pose of free education out of their thoughts
and plans-shall this embroidery and elabo1a,
ton be continued and enlarged at the expense
of tie necessities of the lower grades9 Shall
one child be educated into high school gradua-
ton, in order to appear before a crowded au-
dience in public hall at commencement ex-
ercise with essay tied up with a white rib
! bon, and receive from the honorable the
president of the school board, diploma tied
up with a blue ribbon, while ninety
nine children, clamoring for in
struction in the fundamentals of an English
education-which is the definite purpose of
free schools-are left to wander in the
streets because there is no room for them.
This is practical question; it is being
pressed upon the attention of the peo-
pie, whether they will or no, and the proposed
action of the school board looking still further
toward the inversion of the common
school system, which is at once the pride and
the prop of our free institutions, should arouse
the public to an unmistakable expression of
their sentiment The Journal has minated
its view of the subject-it leans to a Topping
off of the top branches and broadening of
the umbrage below. Whether this idea be in
harmony with the general thought is not for
It's to assert; but it is our province and duty to
call attention to the question, and to ask that
the school board shall be fairly amenable to the
popular Judgment if it can make itself known
-
THE News of yesterday has this statement:
.'Yesterday afternoon there was a len othv CON