The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-12
AN ANTI-HIGH SCHOOL CHAM
PION.

PION.
A correspondent Of the Deseret News
writes that paper at length on the
question of the high school. which he
opposes. In the course of his letter he
saws:
Until the burdens now placed on the
taxpaying element be made easier,
consider the district school system is
all that can be consistently expected
as free education. and the state con-
stitution never designed nor contem-
plated placing more upon the taxpayer
than could consistently be carried. Pu-
pills can go direct from the district
school course TO the preparatory de-
partment of the university, which in
cludes, or can be easily made to, all
work done by the high school, and,
having the university right here, it
should answer all such purposes.
If the high school were abolished it
would not make any great difference
wouldn't reduce the assessment half
mill, certainly not a mill, while it
would very materially injure the pub
lie school system.
But what saving would there be in
sending the high school pupils to the
preparatory department of the univer-
sity? That department is already
crowded to its capacity, and were the
five hundred pupils now in the high
school to go to the preparatory depart
ment, additional accommodation would
have to be provided for them and ad-
ditional teachers employed; so where
would be the saving? Then, again, the
preparatory department of the univer
sity is not a part of the city school
system. Its purpose primarily is to
furnish a place where pupils from va
rious parts of the state, where there
are no high school facilities, can pre-
pare themselves for entrance to the
university courses. Those who go to
that department it is supposed will
become students of the university, but
/ this doesn't necessarily follow with
| high school students. Perhaps a ma
jority of them do not expect to pursue
their studies beyond the high school,
but they do want to complete them
that far. Abolish the high school and
where will they be able to do this?
1t is true that our school taxes are
quite heavy and that there is big
school debt, but the creation of that
debt was necessary to give the city
school facilities. When our present
school system was started and the era
of building school houses was begun,
the city had outgrown the very meagre
school facilities that had been pro-
vided in the past. There was but one
thing to do, which was to go ahead
and provide the city with school ia
cilities adequate to its needs. This
was done, and to do it money had to
be borrowed, but for the money so bor-
rowed the city can show school houses
the equals of any in the land. 1t was
the almost total lack of school facil-
| tiles that made the erection Of so many
school houses absolutely necessary.
They will have to be added to grad
ually to accommodate our ever in
creasing school population, but the
first great expense has been incurred
and will not have to be incurred again.
Towards the close of his letter the
News correspondent says:
No matter what sophistry may be
used to the contrary, the fact, as 1t
now confronts the taxpayers of this
city, is that the maintenance of the
high school at present works an OPP
preston. The entire public school sys-
tenn is overdone in its methods, more
than the peoples finances Will justify,
and requires retrenchment.
We do not believe that the mainten-
ance of the high school works an op-
preston, nor that the public school
system is overdone. If there are ex-
travagancies they should be cut off,
but any great retrenchment in the
school system means impairment of it
and nothing else. The taxes paid for
the support of the schools are the best
investment made by the people. Why
single out the schools for censure in
stead of something else? Some seem
to think that they are of less impor-
lance than anything else and that
they can go first when it comes to re-
ducing expenses.
One word in conclusion. Those who
favor the maintenance of the high
school are by no means the floating
population that has no landed inter-
ests in the city. Some of the firmest
and most aggressive supporters of it
are old residents who own real prop
erty and pay heavy taxes, and they
are perfectly willing to pay them for
so laudable a thing as maintaining a
high school that shall complete the
public school system.
BOISE AFTER THE MAIN LINE.