The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-03
Rushvile, Ind, oct l.
STATE AID FOR SCHOOLS.
Constitutional Status of Purdue, the
Normal and the University.

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
The friends of education in Indiana are
under renewed obligations to Hon. Isaac
Jenkinson for his defense of the constitu-
tionality of appropriations to the State Uni
versity. Every true friend of education
wants to reach the truth affect whom or
what it may, and no mans opinion or argu-
ment is entitled to respect whose aim is IN
any degree personal partisan. Mr.. Jen-
kinson is too we'll known in Indiana to be
charged with either motive in his defense
OF existing conditions relating to the State
University, though his relation to it as q
trustee, If not as an attorney, may justify
a pardonable bias which may lead him to
make the best of the facts in the case as q
special >pleader without impugning his mo-
tives or discrediting him as friend of edu-
cation.
1t rarely happens that the supreme court
of the people or any other supreme court
is confronted with such an array of irrele-
want citations as he offers in his able paper
in the Journal of Sept 26, and let me do
him the justice to suppose that his bias as
a trustee, if not as an attorney. also leads
him to imagine that they are to the point,
and to hope the court of the people, in the
absence of any other view, will accept them
as conclusive.
In the first place, the constitutionality of
appropriations to Purdue University has
never been questioned, at least in the pres
ent controversy. The government donation
was conditional that the State would sup
plement it by appropriations for plant and
the like and it was accepted with these
conditions. Besides, the Constitution makes
it obligatory on the State ito encourage by
all SlIita bla means moral intol1aotuaI cofon-
tific and agricultural Improvement" Purdue
University comes under this classification
which is distinct from the common
school clause as the judicial is from the
executive or legislative branches of the
government. Might as well make ii the duty
or the State to appropriate funds to re-
hglous institutions, Notwithstanding the
press inhibition to the contrary, because
the Constitution makes provision for moral
Improvement, and morals are included in
rellglon. The only difficulty with Purdue is
In It's allowing itself to be used as cat s.
paw Tor what is unwise we'll as what
is unconstitutional. 1t has made the cause
OF the university and of the State Normal
It's cause by linking its just claims with
their unjust demands, and log-rolling with
them. On its merits it deserves more lib
eraI appropriations than it has ever re-
celved, but it is handicapped not benefited
by its adulterous cohabitation with the
wrong.
Secondly. no one seriously questions the
the State Normal The very decided vote
or the constitutional convention by which
the section reported by the committee on
education, which ordered normal school
under state patronage, was stricken out
may or may not prohibit such appropria-
lions, but that is not the question. 1t is
wholly one OF policy. If the State would
make provision for all as it does in the COM
mon schools by multiplying them so to
meet the demand and then run them on bust
ness principles, paying only fairly remunera-
tive salaries, sometimes bordering the
skimp, just as all employers are bound to
do If they make their income meet expenses,
the case would be different. But here we
are running one lone school at one side of
the State which accommodates only about
one-eleventh OF those who are seeking in
struction in the art of teaching, and at
cost. that is unprecedented in the United
States. For instance, in 1896 the sal
al aries the of the first ten the Grss
dent a teacher though he teaches
not a single class-the only case of the
$50 62l GA. At oSwego n: Y, it was 81 200;
the East and Pie West, and there is not
case, East or West, that / can find which
materially mohifies these comparisons. But
that is not all it is not half. The out-of-the-
way location of the school necessarily
Vigo county, with a voting population of
only 1889, has furnished 2375 students
while Marion county, with 1890 voters, has
had only 2S4, whereas to have been equally
represented she should have had 1897: or
to look at it from another standpoint Ma
rion county, under the special tax, pays
TINS year to the support of the current ex-
penses not including plant or library
anything of that kind, $6, SO4 for twenty-five
students, cost of 1912 per student per
year, while Vigo county pays only 81 GAS for
dent, while Porter county pays $40 with no
students at all, having a normal school at
not costing the State one dime; while Allen
county pays $2,OS0 for three students or 1893
per student, and score of coun-
Ties snow practically the same re-
even a worse feature than this The
relative expensiveness of that state school,
furnishing fat places for sinecures, is seen
in the fact that the executive department
alone of the State Normal, including con-
ndentlal clerks, typewriters, postage and the
like, with the presidents salary, exceeds the
entire running expenses of the state super
lntendents Office by $175.S9, and exceeds the
corresponding expenses of the indianapolis
public schools by $3.50, though in 1ndianap-
oils there are 800 teachers and $500 pupils
to forty-three teachers and less than 500 stu
dents at any one time at the Normal. But
even more shameful than any of these items
is the fact that the first appropriation of
$50 600 was taken from the township library
fund and the state treasury. and until this
the lavish rates above shown was taken
from the common school fund before di-
visions were made to the counties. thus
clipping the meager salaries of the country
school teachers as they had to live upon
what was left after the octopus was salts
fled. All this may be constitutional, but is
it wise? Viewed only from an economic
standpoint can any one defend it when the
facts are known?
The claim of the university to recognition
as a state institution differs radically from
either of these, except that in the lavish
expenditure of money goes hand in hand
with the Normal The salient points are
these: Under the old Constitution the I.egis-
lature was to provide for a system of pub
lie schools ascending by regular graduation
from township schools to a state univer-
sity" AS a historic fact il never had made
semiraries when the convention of 1851 met
to revise the Constitution, but as the I.egis-
lature might so farther, If it was not in
duty bound 10. as soon as possible early in
the session Hon T. A Hendricks offered
a resolution tnstructing the committee on
education to so amend that identical sec
ton that no Legislature ever after might
make any school but the district school a
charge upon the State. There could be
mistaking the meaning of this resolution,
Ristine supplemented it. few days later.
by one Ito abolish the county seminary
system and the State University also" Tn
der these instructions the committee re-
ported the section specifically mentioned in
Mr.. Hendricks resolution of instruction
in the form it now has In the Constitution.
Under the circumstances the Constitution
as peremptorily fOrbids appropriations to
collegiate and professional education as IL
Mr.. Hendricks's resolution had been incor-
porated word for word.
There are a few rules OF Interpretation
given by all writers on constitutional in
depreciation which apply in this case. First
the mind OF the convention Is to be OBJ
tanned by the resolutions and discussions of
the convention These point 10 but one con-
c11fsion thn convention meant 10 ssahnftSh