New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-02-07

| SUPERINTENDENT Oh SClOOlS,d HILL VI SGlOu$
character, honest purpose, unflinching
determination to conduct the city schools
according to the best principles ofteach.
ing and who insvlecting his teachers chose
them only for competency and not fol
political reasons or creed or nationality
or any other irrelevantreason. Suppose.
failing to bully such man into making
the city schools subjects of political pat
ronage, the city council should periodi-
cally try to sandbag the schools by cut
ting the appropriations down beyond the
sum absolutely necessary for their main
| tenance.
This is the history of the chief schol-
| astic institution of Cook County for Sc
veral years. A school that stands at the
! very head of like institutions in the en-
tire country; one whose management
las evoked the highest praise from for
eign professional instructors; whose con-
duct is strictly along scholastic lines and
free from politics or partlsanship of any
nature, has been subjected at frequent
! intervals to sandbagging that several
times has come near ending it's life.
Every other institution in the county
is the prey of politicians. The places in
the county hospital, in the poorhouse, in
the detention hospital, in the county
agents office, in the offices of the vari-
Gus clerks of courts, are regularly par
celed out among politicians as their re-
spective personal property. Physicians,
attorneys, nurses are named by politici-
ans as absolutely as scrubwomen or book
keepers.
The county normal school alone has
resisted this despotism Of politics. It
maybe true that biennial or annual
changes of all emplvyes in all other
county institutions works no serious
wrong. Admitting this, deplorable as
the system is, it cannot be claimed by
any intelligent person that like sys-
tenn of frequent wholesale changes in the
one notable public school of the county
would be for the good of the school or
the welfare of the students or teachers
of Cook County. County agents may
safely be selected annually from among
thousands of honest and competent
men. The place requires no special
training, and the discharge of its duties
does not demand experience beyond
what business man may acquire in any
commercial occupation. This is not true
of a normal school.
All members of the county board have
not been implicated in the sandbagging
of the normal school. A number of up
ght and intelligent men have always ap-
peared in the county board to safeguard
the school of the county. A county
board of education, the creature of the
county commissioners and chosen to
some extent for no higher reasons than
bal1ffs or constables, has exercised sort
of supervision over the school; but hith-
erto, even in the county board of edu-
cation thus irresponsibly chosen, there
has always been enough intelligence
and integrity to safeguard the schools.
Now the politians of the couAty board
have overstepped even the county board
Of education and actually dictated the
number of persons to be employed in
the normal school, fixed their salaries at
disheartening figures and assumed the
right to order a course Of study of which
some men in the county board have just
as much knowledge as county building
window washers.
There is manhood enough in the coan-
ty board as now constituted to stop this
sandbagging of a public school. The bet
ter men in the board are unconscious of
the part they are being made to play:
The pretext of economy is spurious on
its face. The people pay the taxes, and
,, never yet have Americans been unwilling
to pay the school tax. We want every
school in the country kept up to the
highest standard Of efficiency. We can
do without many other things, but we
must have public schools worthy our
! aims and adequate for our progress. Let
the conscientious men among the county
commissioners refuse to indorse the
sandbagging of the county school fol
/ teachers and students. The community
will not tamely submit to sandbaggiDg
any public school.-Chicago Herald.
The New Education Based on Child Study