Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1886-01-30
sATURDAY.....JANUARY 80, 1886
Save the Schools.

SATURDAY.....JANUARf 80, 1850.
Save the Schools.
Surely the Legislature will do Meth
ing to impair the efficiency Of the pub
lie schools. The people ought to be
encouraged to labor for the improve
msnt Of the public-school system, and
every effort should be made to give to
every child in the State education enough
to fit him for the ordinary pursuits of
life.
The public schools OF Richmond are
among the best in the United States.
The city has appropriated more than
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to her
school-houses. She has ITO teachers,
I76 schools. and more than I 900 children
in those schools. She pays into the
State Treasury twenty thousand dollars
q year more for schools elsewhere than
she receives from that Treasury for her
schools here. And yet even in Rich
mond the school-houses are not capa-
cious enough to accommodate all the
children seeking admission to the public
schools. When the current school-term
began there were more than thousand
children asking to be entered upon the
rolls for whom there was not room in
the school-houses. The School Board
was necessitated to rent rooms here,
there, and everywhere, for the accom-
mediation of the overflow; and even
now there are, we think, several hun
bred children, mostly colored, who have
not been provided for.
We ask the members Of the Legisla.
ture to look at the figures above, and
ponder the facts stated, and then to ask
themselves whether it would be right
to compel the people Of Richmond
to educate all the children whom the
people Of the counties would be sure
to send hither to be educated if the
Legislature should give them the right
SO to do. To pass such law would
be to offer q premium for poor schools.
Lynchburg, Staunton, Danville, Nor
folk, Richmond, Lexington, Peters
burg, and all other places that have
now the best Of schools would
be invited so to lower the stand
ard as not to have their schools
oyercrowded with children from the
counties. The counties, on the other
hand, where even now it is in many in
stances very difficult for the teachers to
keep up the average number Of pupils
to entitle them to draw their pay, and
to prevent the schools from going down,
would suffer for the want Of the pupils
whom the new law would have quar-
tered upon the schools Of the cities.
II cities are to be taxed in the manner
referred to for the education Of children
from TIE country, then surely the cities
ought to be allowed to use for the bene-
fit of their own schools all the money
raised in them by taxation for school
purposes. Surely, too, each city would
be expected by the members of the
Legislature to provide first for the edu-
cation of her own children. Can any,
body imagine that SO unjust measure
will ever be adopted by Virginia
legislature as would be one COM
polling City Council to provide schools
for children coming into the city to get
an education, before all the children
living in that city had been provided
for? Take the case already mentioned
in this article as having occurred last
September in Richmond, when mere
than a thousand children Of parents re-
siding here were unable to get into the
public schools. Must Richmond, when
she builds new school-houses provide
first for these children, or must she
provide first for the children of persons
residing elsewhere.
The House Of Delegates has already
passed bill taking from the School
Board Of Richmond--and of Richmond
only Of all the cities in the State-the
control Of the school funds, and en-
powering the City Council to refuse to
pay dollar for school purposes not re-
commended first by Council commit.
tee and afterwards by the Council it.
self. AS the city's charter requires
two-thirds vote for oil appropriations Of
money, the appropriations for the schools
will under the House bill be first made
for year by two-thirds vote Of the
Council, and then "paid OUT" as the
bill says, By another vote Of the Coun.
ell. Does not that bill reduce the
powers OF the School Board to mini
mum? Is it necessary or right to CON-
( pei the trustees TO admit children from
abroad into their schools at the very
time that all power to fix the amount
Of the school fund is taken from them
Again: As the bill now stands, it
authorizes none but the children Of
persons paying taxes in the cities to
send their children to the city schools.
How long win that qualification be per-
pitted to exists What has become Of
tbe poll-tax qualification Of votsrss
The patons Of this bill will soon hear
on the stump the demsgogus's cry that
II discrimipstes against the mass Of
voters; that IL allows rich men to send
their children of 10 the good schools Of
the cisiss; and thus not only gives their
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