Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-04-17
UI)e Ea,,faster 1ntelIi9eufe-.
LANCASTER. APRIL IL, 1885.
The Goyernor and the Superintendent.

luC VOtCiuVh uuu taS
The governor has politely invited Super
intendent Higbee to resign his post as
superi, .tendent of soldiers orphans schools
The governor bases his request upon the
fact that he has reached the belief,
after investigating the schools, that
the superintendent late report to
him, that their condition is good, is
not correct. He says that he would not
have reappointed DR.. Higbee to his office,
a year ago, if he had known then what he
knows now about the soldiers orphan
school management which may be be-
lieved without difficulty.
The governor thinks that there should
be harmony between his views and those
of the superintendent of soldiers orphan
schools, as to the method of the admins
tration of the schools; and, further, that
his view should govern. He does not make
this latter statement in so many words, but
it is forcibly to be inferred from his
declaration of the need of similitude be-
tween his view and the superintendents,
from the fact that they are not similar, and,
from the failure of the governor to proffer
resignation of his own office.
He is evidently of opinion that the
governors office and the superintendent
Office should be brought into harmony at
the superintendent cost. AS Doctor
Higbee has not accepted the governors in
vitation to resign, it is apparent that
he continues his difference of opin-
ion with the governor as to the
proper management of the soldiers
orphan schools with a difference of
opinion, also, either as to the need of har-
mony in the views Of the governor and
superintendent, or as to which officer
should resign to secure harmony il
harmony is needed. What may be the
precise position of the doctor on these
points we will doubtless know when he
speaks.
Meanwhile the public may make up its
mind whether the superintendent and gov.
ernor should agree; and as to who should
resign, to secure the agreement which
Will depend, no doubt, upon the public
judgment as to which is right about the
school management. Here the governor
has manifest advantage, as it has been
shown that the soldiers orphans schools
are not first-class establishments. 1t is
contended, however, that they were
good enough for the purpose and for
the money they cost.
There is large room for difference of
opinion as to what luxuriousness of ap-
pointments and elaborateness of diet, cloth
ing, scrubbing, teaching and polishing the
soldiers orphans-whO were not soldiers
orphans by the way-should have had from
the contractors who took the job from the
state at so much per head per week.
We are bound to say that Dr. Higbee
seems to have large contract on hand to
vindlcate himself by vindicatng the
management of the orphan schools. No
doubt he and the good Mrs. Hutter-who
used to be our townswoman and the wife
OF the then editor of the INTELLIGENCFR
thought the thing was being done all
right !; but they seem to have had their
eyes shut.
The proper kind of superintendent for
these schools, as now organized, is not
school teacher or a professor, because they
do not teach anything in them to speak
of; but he should be rough
and ready administrator who would
hold the contractor up to the scratch.
The schools seem to be nothing
but asylums, that would more properly
come under the supervision of the board
OF public charities, than that of the
superintendent of common schools. The
governors suggestion to DIR. Hgbee is a
good one, that he should divorce the office
OF superintendent of soldiers orphan
schools from that of superintendent of
public schools by res!gning the former
function.