The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-08
ONE SCHOOL PROBLEM.

SnOulQ De SIOWn 10 du eAlIdO1 ulAleIJ
proposition now actually brought seri-
ously before the st. Paul public and
some of its representative bodies. This
is nothing else than the abandonment
Of the present Central high school and
the Mechanic Arts and the construction
at an alleged cost of $4,000 of a new
high school building somewhere in the
st. Anthony hill district. The actual
cost. of course, like that Of the county
jail, would run from a quarter of a mil
lion dollars upwards. This scheme en-
bodies the fullest expression of the
worst idea in our public school system.
That idea regards the high school as
the chief end of education. 1t is willing
to scrimp and neglect educationally the
tens of thousands of children who never
expect to reach the high school and
never do. It ignores conditions in the
grades, is satisfied with poorly qualified
or poorly paid teachers there if need
be, in order that we may make an os-
tentatious show of providing for the
comparatively small number Of children
of the comparatively well-to-do people
who eventually enter the high school.
We may tolerate it as far as it has be-
come fact accomplished, but in heav-
ems name let us give it no new encour-
agenent.
A new high school in the st. Anthony
hill district would be merely an adorn-
ment and a convenience for the wealth.
Ter people of st. Paul. It would be an
open confession Of the specializing Of
our school system in the direction of
special advantages for the few. 1t
would be giving to those who have by
taking away from those who have not
the small things that they possess. 1t
would be step against which every
friend of the people and of popular
education should enter vigorous pro-
test
The high school problem in st. Paul
as it is presented today is no problem
at all. We should not interfere in any
particular with the work now done in
the Central high school and the school
of Mechanic Arts. Let no one give ear
or sympathy to the resurrected de-
mand for the abolition of the latter or
a reduction in its place and function
II. is so practical and so splendid in it's
accomplishments that every true friend
of education should be ready in its de
tense; and if for any reason we had to
part with any of our educational insti-
tutions, it should be the last to go.
If our high school quarters are too
crowded, it is because we have made
access to them too easy. The remedy is
perfectly simple and readily available.
Raise the standard of admission. We
now advance the child from grade to
grade and from school to school in a
more or less perfunctory way, and the
pressure of parental pride and the free
dom from remonstrance which yield
ing ito it brings have made the way
easier and easier until the doors of the
high school need but the very faintest
"Open Sesame" to admit the applicant
who comes with a due record of prog
ress from grade to grade, and without
much scrutiny into his qualifications.
Change all that.
The principle to which T he G o b e
proposes to adhere, and which it be-
lieves to be the center and soul of good
citizenship and of devotion to public
education, is to seek the interests of
the many at the expense, if expense
there must be, of the qualification of
the few 1t declares that all the effort,
all the money which st. Paul has to
spare should be at the service of the
the additions and improvements which
we have to make should be for the
benefit of pupils of the grades below
the high school, until the time shall
arrive when there will not be child in
st. Paul deprived of an opportunity to
get elementary instruction from the
best teachers under the most favorable
conditions. Then and then only ought
we to consider the enlargement of high
school opportunities.
In the meantime, while we are turn
ing our energies and resources, as we
should have done from the beginning,
to the grade school, what of the high
school problem? AS we have said, it
vanishes instantly on the application of
a rule of practical reform. Instead of
keeping our eyes fixed on railroading
from to per cent Of our school chill
dren through the grades and through
the high school as mere way station
to the university, let us make the high
school an educational end in itself. Let