The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-03-11
THE WAY THEY DO 1T.

THE WAY THEY Do 1T.
The new appointments to the board
of school inspectors and the organize
ton of it following thereafter tell their
own story Of the singular system by
which municipal affairs are managed
with the advice Of the politicians and
the consent of the people. We have NO
personal knowledge of the qualifications
Of either of the new members Of the
board, and are willing to give them the
benefit Of all doubts. Assuming that
both of the Zimmermans are men Of the
highest ability and the sincerest desire
to administer school affairs to the pub
lie advantage, it remains true that it
will require months, or, rather, years
of actual service and hard work DIT
that, before they can be really familiar
with the school system and it's needs.
Any old politician is perfectly sure that
he could run the schools Of the city and
not half try. AS matter of fact, how
ever, the place is one for which no man
can qualify himself without arduous
and long continued study. We have
not only force of some 500 employees
to deal with, and the mental require
ments of nearly 10000 children to study,
but these duties must be attended to
in the light of all the information that
can be thrown upon them by the re-
searches of students in the theory and
practice of education, and by the ex-
perience of other cities and other coun-
tries. In other words, education is
vast scientific work to be carried on by
scientific methods that can be under
stood and applied only after years OF
application. It is not touch and go
matter any more than it is to build a
railroad or a cantilever bridge, or to
install big electric plant.
Now, our wonderful mayor has ex-
hibited his intelligent zeal for the pub
lie good by removing men familiar with
these duties and appointing in their
stead persons who have no experience
whatever. Thereupon, the school board
organized by electing as it's president
one of the newcomers. Mr. thinner
man talks like an honest man when
he says that he is not yet acquainted
even with the members Of the school
board, and that he knows little about
the schools, either in their PERSONAL Or
their management. For aught he
knows, he continues, the schools are
being run in the best possible manner
Maybe they are and maybe they are
not. He must go to school himself be-
fore he can form an intelligent opinion.
This is just what an honest man would
say under such circumstances. Yet the
action Of the mayor and the board, and
the idiotic, childish and vicious system
under which all our municipal affairs
are managed, places a man thus I'M
equipped, except with those good in
tentions that are said to gravitate in
evitably toward a warmer cline than
ours, in a place where he must make
up the committees of a board whose de.
cision will determine the condition and
progress of our educational interests
for years to come.
The wonder is not that we get into
business difficulties in all departments
Of public work, but that municipality
runs at all under such a system No
satirist who might give us an account
of some community of irresponsible be-
ings inhabiting another planet could
devise a scheme more faulty, irrational
and certain to end in confusion. disap-
pointment and disaster than our ar
rangement for rotating into and out of
office lot of men chosen for political
reasons to manage what are essential
ly vast business enterprises, picking
them out haphazard, without any ref
erence to the work to be done, and
making sure of but one thing, which is
that a man shall be removed from Of
flee as soon as he has become reason
ably familiar with what he has to do.
and an untried candidate be put in his
place This is American municipal
government "as she is run" Criticism
of its effects is lost in wonderment a.
the fact that it can exist and be toler-
ated among people who call themselves
sane