The Arizona sentinel., 1895-02-09
Territorial ReLrenchment

ElSuG6OuGu L6SISIdIlN0 ASS0ulU Uly,
 is demanding everything in sight
 AS usual, the whole Territory is
 expected to boom the capital city,
 infate real estate values and
 truckle to the vanity of the Phoe
 nicians. The biennial sessions ot
 the Legislature are regarded by
 Maricopans as goose, affording
 them the opportunity to pluck the
 feathers.
 Notwithstanding the liberal ap-
 prop-iations made heretofore in aid
 of the Normal School, $45,000 is
 asked this term. And for what?
 To educate feathers, when the
 majority of the teachers in Arizona are the imported article, coming and staying through the few months that each school district can afford to maintain them, and then folding their tents like the Arabs and silently stealing away.
 Within recent years, one of these itinerant teachers in Gila county objected to paying a poll tax, and did so only when the Sheriff threatened to attach his trunk, and he actually decamped without pay ing the road tax.
 Should the appropriation of $45,OG0 be granted, this would make $70,0O0 appropriated for this school building. Would it not have increased the standing of the University of Arizona, if the educa- tion and training of teachers, of which the Normal school is the object, had been made a course at the University under the name of pedagogy? Every benefit thus at tained at the Normal school could have been supplied by the Univer- sity, and at far less expense. Col umbia College, of New York City, has long had such a course in charge of Prof. Butler, one of the foremost educators in this country.
 There should be something done to amalgamate these two institu- tions, the University and the Nor nal school, 1.-the interests of the Territory, instead of Maricopa county, are regarded. In any event, nonresident pupils should be charged more than the nominal sum of $1 per month, which is the present charge,
 A Reform school was established at Flagstaff by the last legislature. Contracts, we are advised, have all ready been let to the amount of At present the Territory is in no need of such an institu- tion. When children pass beyond the control of their parents, our penal institutions, the penitentiary and the jails, afford ample facilities for their correction. Flagstaff is the proper location for the Insane Asylum. It is altogether likely that the contracts already let for the erection of a Reform school could be so modified and altered to change the plans from a penal school to an asylum for the insane upon the village system, at Flag staff.
 Maricopa has already made a de- mand of $20,0O0 for the mainten- ance and rebuilding of the Insane Asylum. If retrenchment is the object of the present lawmakers, we have pointed out a way for them to save this S20,OOO and still take adequate care of the unfortun- ate demented.
 Perhaps the most monstrous proposition to come before the legislature is the one broached by a prominent citizen of Phoenix, that $3,000 be appropriated for the building of q levee between Phoe- nix and Tempe. Such a bill is fathered by those who have only their own interests at heart and who do not realize that in the event of the passage ofsuch an act, in all probability the warrants drawn for the payment of such a scheme, would be illegal.
 Appropriations are made so easily--to secure funds to carry them into effect is more serious matter. In our present financial straits, the Territorial fathers chnnld weigh carefully every an-