The times., 1901-06-22
The Use of school Taxes.

The New York Board of Education
! has received a petition from members
of the Educational Committee of the
! Neighborhood Workers, begging for
more schools for the tenement districts
! 1t is alleged that in one small district
in the vicinity of the Bowery there are
/ over six thousand children in half-time
/ classes. The Board of Education asked
/ for an appropriation of fourteen million
! dollars for the coming fiscal year. 1t
! got three and a half million. The ap-
propriation asked for was urgently
/ needed to make UP deficiencies which
/ had been steadily growing for many
| years. since the population of the city
! had considerably more than kept pace
/ with the school accommodations.
! New York is probably worse off than
other cities, even in proportion to its
immense population; but there are
plenty of other places in which the chill
dren of the poor are deprived of part
of their very limited amount of school
ing in order that money may be spent
somewhere else, where il is not half so
much needed. 1t is to be regretted that
Americans have evolved national locals
which are something like those Of
shoddy housekeeper who spends all her
money on her parlor and her street
gowns and puts up with a small, shah
bv kitchen. with few appointments, in
convenient bedrooms, and unsanitary
plumbing. Such sham gentility is not
TO be encouraged either in public or in
| private life.
There are many towns in which the
municipal authorities will cheerfully' or
at least willingly, appropriate money
/ for a fine new town hall, or some other
/ show building, while they neglect the
water works, the street paving, and the
schools. Moreover. Of the money which
is spent on the schools an undue
amount is apt to be put into fine finiss-
ings for the buildings, and various fads
in the way Of education, whise the
main problems are left unsolved. The
old-fashioned district school had its de-
fects. but children were better educated
/ there than they are in many fine city
/ schoolhouses, simply because the Sc
1 Iectmen of the country town had but
I little money to spend and put it where
IL
! teachers wages, rather than snto fine
/ schoolrooms or new-fashioned books.
| What is needed more than anything
! else is common sense in this matter.
We will suppose that the town of
! Smithville has a certain amount TO
| spend for schools. which is insufficient
to make them equal in all respects to
! the best schools in the world. but more,
per capita. than Smithville had for the
! purpose when ii was a town Of four
! hundred inhabitants instead of forty
| thousand. How is the new schoolhouse
to be made an Improvement on the old
fashioned district school?
The district school was a small build
| ing heated by stove, with row Of
nails for the hats and cloaks of the
! pupils an adjacent woodshed, and
| desks and benches Of unpainted wood
and rather clumsy manufacture. So
! long as the building was comfortable
and dry, and the light and ventilation
good, as they usually were, and the
| seats comfortable, the appearance of
| the building did not in the least affect
the good Of the pupils. Smithville,
| therefore. will do well to have its school
| buildings as plain as possible; and one
! schooIhouse in which five hundred chill
| dren can be taught will not cost as
much for building, heating. OF anything
else as twenty five schoolhouses in
which only twenty pupils apiece can be
housed. There need, therefore, be no
extra expense in the building-but there
usually is.
Next, as to books. The great work Of
the primary and grammar schools is to
| teach reading. writing English, arith-
metic and the rudiments of Amer can
history and geography. That is az the
average child has time to learn before
the age of fourteen, and in the average
| city not more tnan one-fifth of the
| children go to school after that age. In
the majority Of the smaller cities, there
fore. one high school suffices, and since
| the pupils of this school usually belong
to families able to spend a small
amount Of money for their schooling.
the city could better afford to spend
money on the lower schools and make
the high school students pay tuition, if
It could do no better. There is simply
no excuse for any town which allows
one child within its limits to reach the
age of fourteen without having had at
least six months of some sort Of teach
ing annually, from the time it was six
years old. If this teaching were thor
ough II would be enough for a begin
ming, and academy or high school train
ing might better be furnished by pri-
| va te schoOIe than nv frnnavarishfng the
lower grades for it.
The money which Smithville spends.
therefore. is spent more proitably on
instruction In the common brane O. II
may be spent in securing the late4 text
books and educational methods, or in
increasing the number of teachers. fur
nishing school libraries. and providing
manual training schools for those who