The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-07-09
EDUCATION BUREAU MEETINGS.

When the Board of Education be-
came, by Act of the last Legislature,
the Educational Bureau, it was hoped
that the old time method of holding star
chamber business meetings would come
to an end. Whatever hopes may have
cleaned in the minds of the body po-
little have been completely snuffed by
the action of the Bureau since its re-
organization. We have yet to hear OF
a single open meeting which the Bureau
of Education has held; yet there has
hardly been a week since the Bureau
was formally reorganized when there
has not been one and sometimes two
meetings Reporters have asked to be
present and have been refused.
Why this department of the Govern
ment should confine the knowledge of
its proceedings to the individual mem
bers alone is beyond the power of this
paper to explain. The doings of the
Bureau of Education are quite as i'm
portant as the Board of Health. One is
open to the public and the other is not.
In the first case the public is kept in
touch with the department, and in the
other case the public is practically os-
tracised.
The only argument that we have ever
heard advanced in favor of the execu
u
ton is that the members are often
called upon to discuss the individual
merits of various teachers or appli-
cants for positions, and it is hardly fair
to the teachers and applicants to make
public the discussion of their personal
merits or dement's. Granting all this,
we would like to know if the personal
peculiarities of employees is all that
engages the attention of the members
of the Bureau. We don't believe that it
is. There are questions of administra-
ton, matters connected with develop
ment and improvement of our common
school system, all of which are or ought
to be of interest to the people at large.
Let the discussion of teachers indi-
Vidual characteristics be held behind
closed doors, but the meetings as a
whole should by all means be open
meetings, and the public kept in touch
with what is going on in educational
circles. There is absolutely no reason
why the people should go from one
member to another, around Robin
Hoods barn, so to speak, to find out
what the Bureau of Education is doing.
The Commissioners are every one of
them men and women in whom the peo-
pie have complete confidence. They
have shown their capacity to keep the
schools up to the mark and steadily
progressing. But that is not the point.
The parents who are sending children
to public schools ought to be kept in
touch with what is being done to build
up the educational institutions. By
to its plans and general meth
cd of administration, it is not i'm
possible that the Educational Bureau
may receive suggestions OF more or less
value. A more complete cooperation
with the public is what is wanted, /
and it is what open meetings will help
to bring about.
The ban of secrecy has become so
binding and complete that the results
have often been almost amusing When
the deputy inspector of schools was Sc
lected by the Board of Education, one
of the members was approached to
ascertain the action of the Board He
admitted the deputy had been named.
but he didn't know as he ought to
tell" Still another was approached
with the same result. A third member
was seen, and by dint of good guessing
and positive statements the seeker after
knowledge finally obtained the nameoof
the new deputy. What possible reason