The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1906-09-22
FORMAL OPENING OF
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

On last Monday the city schools
opened with an unusually large attend
ance, both of prospective students and
visitors.
Prof. T. L. Trawick (by request of
Prof. Leon E. Bell, the present superin-
tendent) acted as master OF ceremonies
and addressed the student body and
visitors.
Prof. Bell made an inspiring speech,
for the place. He is possibly, without
disparagement to others, one of the best
educated men in school work that ever
came to Mississippi. He was educated
in the public schools Of New York,
State that spends S24 per capita for
education. mississippi spends less
than St.00.) After completing his ele-
mentary education there, he took a
four years course at the Northwestern
Uniyersity-on of the great universi-
ties of the United States. He then
went to the Club of the Universe
Boston-and spent several years at Bos-
ton University. He graduated there,
and then spent several years teaching
in New York, California anu Wash
ington.
In order to better prepare himself for
the life work Of teacher, Prof. Bell
gave up the class room and spent d
whole year at the University of Chi
cago, from which institution he gradu-
ated. The presiding officer of that great
college recommended Prof. Bell in the
highest terms.
Prof. Bell knows what is best in edu-
cation. Teaching is no experiment with
him: he goes straight to the mark, and
accomplishes his purpose.
A prominent citizen of Bay ST. Louis,
once a school trustee, remarked that
Bay ST. Louis had never sent out IRON
its schools a student who had distin-
guished himself. If this criticism has
been just in the past, the future is more
| auspicious - under such efficiency as
Prof. Bell is possessed of, with his ex-
ceedingly suitable assis tants.
The teachers of Bay ST. Louis public
schools this session are elected strictly
on their MERITS, and the writer chal-
lenges anyone to find a better discip-
| lined or better curriculumed school in
/; Mississippi.
The school now has a competent set
of Jrustees-duly elected by law-who
will look into the operation of the
( school and spare no pains to make it the
best of all along the coast.
1t has been said that this county oc-
cupies the rather unique position of
| being one of the most illiterate spots as
regards the white race. 1t has also,
with some few exceptions, the Oldest
town in the South. These two state
ments prove that the educational advan-
tages have been either neglected in the
past, or misdirected; but now, with the
new order of things, the public school,
equipped with a fine faculty, and the
new $4,000 addition, offers exceptional
advantages to all the people.
We have heard some talk among the
misinformed against the public shools
of our city, and, indeed, Of our country.
| We have heard of persuasion, and men
aces lodged, against those who attend
them. But let our citize 8 remember
that the public school is as much con-
stitutional institution of our country as
are the courts of our country or its
Executive, or administrative depart
ments, and to speak against them, or to
fail to obey their mandates, or to live
up to their principles, one would fail, to
say the least, to be a good citizen, and
no country has ever risen to so high a
| plane as America, whose citizenship is
intelligent beyond any nation OF the
world-due almost entirely to its mag
niicent public school system. T.