The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-07-10

~ AoOlA AS tA4CA3 CAllCANu III ~
with work of other normal schools
and testimony is arranged and set
out at large. The next proposition
contained in the report of the COM
mittee is that the school is simply a
high school and not first class high
school at that. In this connection,
the courses of instruction are care
fully examined and analysed and com
pared with the courses of instruction
in various high schools in Maryland,
in which it is shown more advai ced
studies are pursued than in the Nor
nal School.
The requirements and standards
for admission have been put decid-
eddy too low, and the truth is very
copiously set forth upon this subject.
1t is shown that marked improve
ment and advancement are needed in
the curriculum of the school, the dis
cussion upon this subject ending with
the conclusion that the present senior
year of the school should be made the
junior year and that the requirements
attendant to an average high school
course should be established for en-
trance to the Normal School. The
unanimity of opinion among the wit
nesses examined upon this subject is
next indicated.
The equipment of the school is next
taken up and it is shown that its
library is greatly inadequate and very
badly located in the Office of the prin-
cipal of the school; exposed to con-
slant intrusion of persons visiting
him. 1t is also pointed out that the
school really has no reading room, its
quarters are contracted, the class
rooms are not sufficiently spacious
and not numerous enough to accom-
modate its needs. The laboratories
are shown to be without sufficient
equipment.
The finances of the school form the
next subject of consideration in the
report. These are shown to be in a
confused and chaotic state because of
the lax and improper methods. The
want of business standards is pointed
out in detail. The report says the
committee also found that pecula-
lions had taken place, the guilty
party being former employe of the
Normal School, and that these pecu-
lations had never been reported to
the trustees of the school.
The refusal of the trustees to per-
NIT the the committee to inspect the
books and accounts of the Normal
School is caustically commented upon
in this connection; the report con-
tains many other incidents of con-
spicuous shortcomings in the conduct
of the business affairs of the School
and consists of the failure of its prin-
cipal to render proper and detailed
reports to the board of trustees as to
its financial condition. The only ac-
counting on the part of the principal
to the board consists in the mere pro-
duction to an auditing committee of
receipted bills and the checks where
with they were paid. Such pro-
ceeding clearly gives the board no
definite information of the state of
the finances of the School. 1t does
not show how much it owes or how
much is owing to it. If it has any
debts, it is not revealed whether they
are just ones; if debts are due it, it is
not disclosed whether they are separ-
ate or desperate. The books of the
school do not balance, and have never
been balanced, so that they show
nothing as to the financial condition
of the School.
The cash is kept in bank or in the
safe in the principals office, or, in its
place in the safe, there may be slips
of paper, of which the witnesses
spoke, desultorily inserted as sub
stitute for account of currency with
drawn, as is customary, to meet run
ming expenses as they occur. The
system is in default, lax, slovenly,
careless, unbusinesslike, incompetent
and chaotic.
The report further finds that there
is division and want of unity in the
faculty, which is divided into cliques,
some of its members being excluded
from the confidence and concert of
the others. The faculty meetings
are described in a highly amusing
and humorous vein; it is pointed out
by the citation of authorities that the
subject of normal education that in
normal schools, meetings of the fac
ulty play an important educational
as well as administrative part in the
management of such schools. After
commenting upon the subject of fac
ulty meetings in this respect, the re-
port continues as follows:
During the entire incumbency of
Prof. Prettyman as principal of the