Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-08-30
AN APPEAL FOR AID.

JoHNsTowN, Pa, August 6, 1889.
To County, city, and Borough Superfnten-
dents Of Pennsylvania.
AS the Board OF Education of Johns
town, Pennsylvania, we beg leave to pre-
sent for your consideration the following
statement of facts touching the educa-
tional interests of our city. We do this in
the hope that you may feel justified in ex-
tending to us the aid necessary to open
our schools and provide educational
| facilities for our children.
The terrible destruction of property and
the bitter suffering of our people by the
flood of May 31st rendered it impossible
for us to secure, by means of taxation,
the money required to MAINTAIN our
schools during the current year.
No portion of the money which has
been so generously contributed by
| sympathetic public can be used for pub
lie school purposes, as it will be exhaust
ed in supplying the immediate and press
ing wants of our stricken people.
We have appealed to the Governor of
our State for assistance, but whilst admit
ting the necessities of our position, he yet
does not feel that he possesses the author
ity to apply to our relief any part of the
educational appropriation of the Com
monwealth.
During the past year we had thIrty-six
schools, thirty eight teachers, and an en-
rollment of nineteen hundred and thirteen
pupils. The expense of maintaining the
schools for this period was in round mum.
bers $4,000. At the opening of the ap-
| preaching school term we shall have
eighteen hundred children for whom
school accommodations and educational
facilities must be provided. Some of our
school buildings were destroyed. others
are seriously damaged, and we have not
the money with which to build or repair.
There is, in addition to our loss, bonded
Indebtedness of $4,000, which, with our
reduced valuation through destruction of
property, will bring our Indebtedness up
to the limit allowed by the Constitution
To supply the needful accommodations
and provide the necessary teaching force
Will require, for the year, an expenditure
of not less than S25, 900. This money we
cannot secure ny taxation or loans, and,
as we have exhausted every other resource
known to us, we now appeal to the edu
cational people of Pennsylvania for aid in
this, our hour of need
Humanity forbids that our children be
left to roam about the streets, subject to
the contaminating influences of street u.s.
sociations. But the cause of the public
schools of this city, in their utter destitu.
ton, needs no argument before the school
men of this State. We feel that we have
only to state our need to secure the requi-
site aid.
We desire TO open the schools at the
usual time, and, to this end, we hope our
friends will be prompt in giving us assur-
ances of cooperation. n small sum
gathered from the citizens of each of the
twenty-five hundred school districts of
the State will not be missed by them, and
will be a blessing to us.
Johnstown has been prosperous city
in the past and when she rises, rs she
surely will, from the ruin and desolation
which enshroud her at present, her crate
full people will not forget in their happier
hours the friends whose generous and
sympathetic hands were stretched out to
them in the night of their sorrow and
want. II. l.. COULTER, President.
D. j. JONES, Secretary.
James j. Fronhciscr, Goticb Bantly, J.
w. Hamer, Horace Il. Rose, John
Won Alt.
FROM DIR. E. E. HIGBEE, SUPERINTENDENT
OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, I
DEPARTMENT of PUBIC INSTRUCTION,
HARRISBURG, August 10, 1899.
We fully endorse this touching appeal
of the School Directors Of Johnstown to
the schoolmen of the State. No interest !
has suffered more from the disastrous
flood than the schools. They need imme-
diate help, and surely it will be given
Let every borough, city, and county SUI
perlntendent take prompt measures to
gather contributions, and forward the
same at once 10 the School Board at
Johnstown, that the schools may be
opened and the children gathered into
them.
Our people will not neglect such
challenge as this upon their generous
sympathy. They will not see destitute
parents, their property and their friends
buried beneath the flood, suffering the
additional misery of being deprived of all
opportunity of schools for their children
They ooW respond to this appeal.
No superintendent, therefore, need hes
itate single moment to organize the
work of soliciting ntributions, by teach
ers and others, that sufficient funds may
be secured to start the schools into opera
tion. Then the busy hum of happy chill
dren at their studies may help to drive
away the sad memory Of the horrors
through which the wrecked city has