The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-06-06
THE SCHOOL QUESTION.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION.
The letter of Commissioner Conner is one
that it would be well not to have written. Its
spirit indicates that the members of the
School Board are not in frame Of mind es-
.ential to a wise and just consideration of the
questions presented to them by circumstances
for which they are alone responsible. Mr..
onner is one of the most conservative mem
GERS Of the board, aud also one of the newest
and if such letters can be written and such
Dentiments entertained in the green tree, we
ought not to be surprised at anything in the
dry. In the first place, the use Of the term
'tasses, whether applied to the board or to
those taxpayers who have the temerity to
venture a criticism of the infallibility
of the commissioners, proves nothing
Epithets are of little value except
TO determine the ugly temper Of him
who uses them. In the second place, Mr.
Conner should grasp the fundamental
idea that the schools are the peo-
Piles; they belong to the taxpayers who
support them, and not to the trustees
who are elected as the servants Of the owners
It is not an impertinence for the people to
criticise the School Commissioners, and the
members of the board must make up their
minds to accept in good grace what the people
SOW x1bafbar ~ 10 IN horp,opv With fba;r ;rdi
vidual views or not. The School Board must
get our of the idea that mas been very preva-
lent for some time, that the schools are their
personal property, and that all the people have
to do is to send such children as the board
may determine shall enter the System" and
then pay the expense without murmur The
people have different relation to the schools
than this, and to call them "asses," by impl-
cation, or to sheer at their complaints as sfool
criticisms" will not help matters at all.
Mr. Corners statement is not candid, be-
,use it is not full. We do not believe that
.e meant to be uncandid, but the result of
IS statement is the same despite his candid
sotive. The existing complaints against the
schools are not new; they have been made
long before Mr. Conner became citizen of In
dianapolis. So that, in the sense in which he
says it, it is not true that the school system
is what 'swe' made it; it is what school men
have made it over the protest of citizens for
many years, but which, like other protests,
does not become specially formidable or effect
i've until some such conditions of affairs is
reached as is now the case with tbs schools
of the city, when it becomes neces-
sary to save things from threatened
disaster by radical changes, and, pos
sibly, a complete reversal Of tendencies.
The second proposition, that we are all
equally to blame, may be accepted, with the
modification that they are less to blame who
see the troubles and are willing TO do their
share towards their amelioration. We know
how the commissioners feel The schools are
their pets; they can see nothing wrong in
them, and they regard the man who says Q
word against them as bashi-bazouk. This
is natural, and we excuse the grief of the
commissioners; but that fact does not dc
away with the other fact, that for years the
board have been deliberately running into debt
at the rate of SIS, 900 year, until now, wher
the inevitable day of settlement comes, they
do not know which way to turn to meet their
obligations. The third proposition. that the
growth of school population is much greater
than the growth Of the revenue on 8
liked basis, is only partially true, and
misleading in the shape in which
sIr. Conner puts it. It true that the enum
sration Of school children has increased abou,
80 per cent. during the past ten years, and
that the revenue has remained substantially
She sanae but this does not tell the whole
truth. While the enumeration has thus in
creased, the attendance on the schools has not
and il Is only the children who attend the
schools that the board have to educate. The
school attendance has increased from about
10000 to about $4,000, an increase Of % PEI