The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-12-23
LOCAL SCHOOL FINANCES
SOME ERRORS or JUDGMENT IND
nov TREY MAY BE RECTIFIED.

Amount to $T46, 900 Net.
10 the Editor of the JOURNAL AND CoURIE
The school district meeting that was
held in Harmonic hall on the evening
of Tuesday, the 18th, was an uncom-
monty interesting one, both in its de-
bates and its results. Some of the re-
suits are commendable and some of
them. in my Judgment, are not.
1 was drawn to attend the meeting
because l am especially interested in
the lamentable condition of the high
school. Its inadequacy for the proper
needs of a city like New Haven has
long been known to those citizens who
care for these things. 1t is a positively
dangerous building, as now used, and if
high schools were subject to as rigor-
Gus Inspection in care of the safety of
their pupils as factories are in respect
of the safety of the operatives, I am
disposed to think its occupation under
present conditions would be forbidden,
tunate exemption from fire and alarms
causing panic during school hours
saves us from a tragedy involving the
flower and hope of the city.
But aside from the peril of the situa-
ton, the insufficiency of accommoda-
tion results in such discomfort, incon-
venience and confusion that the work
of both teachers and pupils is done
under unfavorable conditions and is
necessarily inferior compared with
what it ought to be- 1t is fact, also,
and it is reasonable to presume that
this condition is one of the causes,
that the proportion of the school chill
dren of New Haven who attend the
high school is smaller than that in most
New England cities, less than that of
the average proportion for the whole
state of Massachusetts,, city and coun-
try together. Furthermore, this COM
bination of conditions reacts upon the
standard, the work and the spirit of all
the lower schools, to their disadvan-
tage for it is a maxim in all educa-
tional systems that the higher schools
make the standard for and determine
the efficiency of, the lower, and not the
lower for the higher.
But with regard to the high school
problem will content myself now with
the suggestions made. l have more in
mind which I hope to have an oppor-
unity of saying on some proper occa-
sion.
The matter to which 1 desire to ask
immediate attention is the financial
Ia1 NV +la
on finance of the school board and ap-
proved and adopted by a. small ma
jority of those present at the meeting
after a brief and by no means thor
ough discussion. For myself, / confess
that / had given to the published rec
concentrations of the committee only
a cursory attention beforehand which
now regret, although if had thought
about them as much previously as I
have since, | should have expected that
older citizens, more versed in these
matters, would at least have called at
tention to the points which by your
courtesy, Mr. Editor, I shall now sub
NIT to the consideration of larger
audience Of citizens of the school dis
trict.
1t is not of the purpose, apparently
unanimously favored by the meeting,
to pay as we go" henceforth, that
have any criticism to make. That is
wholly commendable and / hope that
the district will stick to it. But the
easy willingness to shirk the payment
within reasonable time Of the floating
debt already incurred within a brief
period for current requirements does
not greatly encourage confidence that
this purpose will be enduring.
The treatment of this debt is a mat
ter which needs ITO be reconsidered.
The debt amounts to 1922, 600 1t ought
never to have been incurred. Having
been incurred, it should be paid as soon
as possible, not carried as long as pos
sible What did the committee recon-
mend and the district authorize? That
this debt should be funded ins bonds
payable fifty years after their issue,
with interest payable seni-annually at
the rate of per cent. per annum, and
with no eoncurrently accommodating
sinking fund provided for paying them
at maturity. A small nucleus of such
a fund was afterwards Professionally
set apart.
l take leave to say, with all due re-
spect to the motives and integrity Of
the members of the committee that de-
yised this scheme, that 1t shows neither
wisdom nor courage. l suspect that
they are wiser than their scheme in
dicates, but that they lacked the cour-
age of their wisdom. The scheme is
unjust, because it shifts upon a remote
future, which will have burdens enough
of it's own, a burden which belongs to
the present and should be borne and
extinguished by ourselves. 1t is gross
ly extravagant because it compels the
people to pay the debt two or three
times over instead of once. If this
policy of shirking debts were to be
generally adopted in private and mu-
nicipal affairs, it would invite univer-
sal recklessness and insure universal
bankruptcy.
Let us see what this scheme which,
as 1 said, was sanctioned by small
majority. and not without evident re-
luctance on the part of some who voted
for it.-let US see what it really means.
The annual interest on 1922, 900 at
per cent. is s11 $50, which must be rails
ed by taxation every year. In fifty
years this taxation for interest alone
will have amounted to 1854 900, almost
twice the principal of the debt, and