The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-11-23
THE MISSION
HIGH SCHOOL
WELL HEATED
Fifteen Furnaces in
the Basement.
GLARING FRAUDS UNEARTHED
CRIMINAL RECKLESSNESS IN
PURCHASE OF FURNITURE.
superintendent Webster Makes an
Inspection and Finds Evidence
Of Jobbery at Every
GLARING FRAUDS UNEARTHED
CRIMINAL RECKLESSNESs IN
PURCHASE OF FURNITURE.

There appears to be any quantity Of
trouble in store for the members of the
Board of Education over the building and
furnishing of the Mission High School,
large proportion of which will come when
they attempt to explain their connection
with the job to the Grand Jury.
Bills for many thousands OF dollars are
awaiting payment by the board, in which
are included large amount on account or
the Mission High School, and if all these
bills are paid the board will go out OF Of
flee leaving a deficiency of not less than
$3.50 900.
It was for the purpose of looking into
the justice of these bills before signing
them that Superintendent Webster, ac-
companied by Deputy Superintendent
Stone, made a tour of inspection of the
new school building yesterday morning.
Bills for furniture and supplies amounting
approximately to 5000 are awaiting pay
ment, and Mr.. Webster determined to sat
isfy himself of their accuracy. The two
officials went over the entire building,
from basement to garnet, and their dis
coveries caused them to gasp in astonish-
ment. Not being expert architects or
builders they could not tell, of course,
whether the building had been put up ac-
cording to specifications but they did find
many things that were not as they should
be. For instance, the board sought to ac-
cept the building as competed two weeks
Now, the specifications provide that the
walls shall be sand finished and tinted,
but the tinting has been dispensed with.
and the rough, dull gray walls are any
thing but pleasing to the eye.
Down in the basement, however, is
where the inspectors were most deeply in
tereSted, for the most extravaganza and
complex system of heating that probably
ever went into any building has been put
tered less than fifteen 1be e
counted. while the splendid area is ruined
by the multitude of steam, water and air
pipes that extend in every direction at all
one has to bend nearly double to pass I'M
der them, although it would have been as
easy to put them all high enough to allow
the pupils free range of the basement.
Why fifteen furnaces, or a third Of that
number, are necessary to heat that build
ing is something Messrs. Webster and
Stone are still pondering over,
justly, too, that the school is sadly lack
the pupils, As an illustration, not a
windows and the children are Obliged
to tax their eyes in the glare of the sun
without any prospect of relief.
Yet up in the practical department
the board has put in thirty solid oak
standing desks at a cost of SIS % each, but
they have, never been used and are not
board refuses to employ a teacher for that
branch; $547 80 tied up in useless and ex-
pensive furniture, while the eyes of sew
eral hundred school children are being
ruined for proper window shades.
And then the price Of those desks IS
Co. had the contract for furnishing them
at SIS % each. They sublet the contract
for making. them to a Shotwell- street
a practical cabinet maker has offered to
duplicate them in every particular for
81 so each.
Then up in the auditorium Messrs
ha
opera chairs which cost the city So %
each. Now the auditorium is convenient
classes for entertainments and the like,
but that there was any urgent necessity
for fitting it up when the School Depart
ment is bankrupt, not even the Directors
who voted for this useless waste of money
will dare assert.
In the physical laboratory auditorium
the inspectors found another instance of
what they mildly termed extravaganza.
The place, which may in time be required
to accommodate a class of thirty-f1ve or
ton chairs and tables of elaborate de-
sign, with springs, hinges, hooks and
what not that must necessarily be ex-
occupied at one time.
The drawing department is most beau
tifully, fitted up, it is said there is moth
ing like 1t on the coast. 1t has thirty
elaborate drawing tables supplied with
every convenience and the most expensive
materials obtainable.
and physical department that have been
ordered have arrived, it will be as COM
plete as the most exacting professor could
ask Bills for $500 worth of apparatus
and supplies have already been allowed,
while bills amounting to $4,000 are waiting
to be signed, and there is a quantity of
stuff coming from Europe, the bills for
which are yet to come in
So it was throughout the building
Webster and Stone found all the furniture
the city had been charged for, but some
of it was unavailable for the present
much more entirely useless and all show
ed the most reckless extravaganza in it's
purchase.