The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1899-03-17
AN IMPORTANT OFFICE.


The Office of Commissioner Of Schools
Should be Filled by an Able Man Whose
Whole Soul is in the Work-O. L. Bns-
toll Is the Man Who Has Already
Shown His Worth.
There are offices which the people
have to fill by their ballots which are so
purely clerical in their practice that
any person of good understanding and
ordinary education can fill after little
instruction.
There are other offices, too, in which
the work to be done does not require
any special technical training, while
honesty, a greater or less degree of enter
prise, and an ordinary amount of COM
mon sense will soon make the new man
almost as valuable as his predecessor of
equal ability.
In fact offices of this class are so COM
mon and the general education, adapti-
bility and good sense of American citi-
zeps is so great, that it is one of the
characteristics of Americans to regard
any man in whom they have ordinary
confidence as fully capable of entering
upon and satisfactorily conducting the
affairs of almost any Office within their
gift. And it is only recently that they
have come to see that in some offices,
while they can elect whom they choose,
yet it is best for all concerned, and they
are exercising their highest liberties,
when they insist that only men espec-
tally qualified and we'll trained are
chosen to fill them. Of course there
are other offices where this has always
been recognized, but the office of school
commissioner may be said to belong to
the above class.
However that may be, the day has
gone by in this state when anyone with
out special training can step into this
Office, and this is as it should bS. The
county commissioner of schools should
be man of tried ability, and one who
has his whole soul in the work. The
Importance of this Office needs but
single fact for it's enforcement and that
is that the schools which are under the
direct guidance of the school commits
sioner are the only schools which the
vast majority of all non-city residents
ever attend. When one stops to think
of this, that the schooling of this great
class of citizens is practically limited
to the county schools, which of course
do but little work above the eighth
grade, surely every one should agree
that no one but the most capable and
faithful should have charge of this
work. 1t is matter of deep concern
to the state as a whole while it is of the
utmost Importance to the rural popula-
ton.
1t is quite unnecessary to call the at
tention of Shiawassee voters to the fact
that in the person of their present ceun-
ty commissioner of schools they have a
man eminently fitted for the position.
He is man who has long been more or
less intimately acquainted with the
needs of the country schools. He has
been before Shiawassee people as boy,
as student in the State Normal. as
of the Mcrrice schools-where
he showed in the executive ability, the
for the work, and the sue
cess with which he carried on the
school administration, that he was
man with his heart in the school work
and a man of no small ability-and
last, he has been before the people in
the office where his faithful work in the
previous years had guaranteed his
worth, and the office to which the vot-
ers will return him on the third of
April next. Mr.. Bristol has shown
himself to have his whole soul in the
work, and while laboring constantly
for the improvement of the district
schools ard for their recognition in the
city schools, yet he has always tenn
pOIou LILO tnOIuo Will COluLlOu Souoo,
well recognizing that system cannot
be overturned in day nor would it be
likely to be useful if it could be; but
that improvement must be gradual and
the result of intelligent work on the
part OF all concerned. And with the
experience he has already gained he
cannot fail to be of still greater value
to the county during the next two
years. But he does not need such as.
surances to secure his election; he can
stand on the record already made, and
the voters are satisfied with it and will
see that Mr.. o. L. Bristol, of Perry, is
to the Office of county COM
missioner of schools by no small
majority.
Tho parrv Iourual In apoobiu0 NJ tha