The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-01-02
ADDR e 8 s
Superintendent of Schools A. 8. Cook
at the Laying of the Cornerstone
of Mount Washington Pub
lie School Building.


of Mount Washington Pub
lie School Building.
like to think of the school sys tenn of Balti.
more county as a great business concern, con-
sisting of 100 different plants Tor school grounds
and buildings and their equipment) in which the
people have invested more than million OF
dollars, with annual operating expenses of $780,
900. Its business is education of the youth. The
School Board has comprehensive and progressive
plans for better administering the affairs of
this great business concern, with the sole pur-
pose of making the business pay better divi-
dend in good citizenship and life efficiency in
our boys and girls.
These plans for better administration of our
schools have not been hastily made. nor sudden
ly put into effect. They have been outlined and
discussed from time to time in the annual re-
ports of the Board. always year or two in ad-
vance of their being put into operation. and
these reports have in the main been published
in the newspapers.
Baltimore county takes pride in the fact that
her people take deep and intelligent.interestin
theirpublic schools and have alwaysmaintained
that where such interest is taken in the schools
the people can have just as good schools as they
are willing to pay for, and the continuous and
insistent demands on the School Board for school
improvements from all over the county has
caused the County Commissioners to levy in
pecially school buildings, during the past few
years. And still the demands from the people
for school improvements continues; improved
buildings, improved courses of study, including
manual training and industrial work, domestic
science and art in some sections, and agr1cul-
tural science and commercial trainingi in others,
while the introduction of advanced courses or
high school grades along academic, commercial,
Industrial and agricultural lines, are just as
insistently demanded from still other COM
All of these demands from the people deserve
careful and thoughtful consideration at all
times, but they cannot be met either IN whole
or in part without increased expenditures.
But these demands for better school facilities
are not confined to Baltimore county. The
over the United States. The schools of the
whole country are in more or less of transit
tional period due to the vast changes in econom-
ic, industrial and social conditions during the
past twenty five years. The schools are slowly
but surely trying to adjust themselves to these
changed conditions. Many of the problems that
ditions were taken care of in the home, under
the present vastly complex environment due to
progress in inventions, industries. arts and
science, are now thrown upon the schools. The
public schools have not sought these problems.
nor have they been received any too willingly
when thrust upon them put an enlghted pup
a solution of these problems and the public
schools as the only organized agency for educa-
III.
people, have had to take up the burden.
1t took half century of discussion to secure
legislation establishing the right of the state to
tax the property of the state to educate the
children of the state" but there was then no
conception of the broad lines that public educa-
ton has now come to include.
up the burden of some of the problems that have
been thrust upon them because the public
nave eea he anu IN
the economic, industrial and business world and
perhaps wisely SO.
Changed conditions have forced new subjects
into courses of study and conservatism has re-
tanned many or all of those already there, with lit
tie modification to meet these changes in the en-
oyercrowded course of study, and this is a seri-
GUS problem, yet cannot agree with those VINO
bark back to the good old days" when reading,
writing and ciphering were the only subjects
taught, important as they are and always will be
as Instruments for obtaining an education.
But l believe we are nearer the solution or
overcrowding than ever before and that solu-
ton seems to be a broad education along ration
al lines in the lower and early grammar grades,
with opportunity Tor the & a9d 1neir
grade among different types or schools, or
among different types of courses OF study, the
one that will best meet the requirements of the
life of the individual child.
The plans of the School Board of Baltimore
county in respect to the various problems of the
modern se beS o h & bs
retained in the course, but 1t has been enriched
and brought into closer relation TO the lie or Inc
child and his environment.
In the lower grades handwork has been intro
duced, and closely related to history. literature,
nature study and numbers there has been sys-
tematic work in drawing, also closely related to
other subjects of instruction: In the higher
grammar grades and high schools, cardboard
construction, mechanical drawing ana woo9wor rS
have been introduced for the boys, while the
girls have sewing, cooking ana housenold
This has been in response to positive request
!, moi nd QifiZan9 and
has been met in large part by state approprla.
ton for manual and industrial work OF $3,OOO
annually the county appropriating part OF the
cost for teachers salaries, but the funds at the
disposal of the Board are not suihcfent to pro
vide teachers for manual training and domestic
science in all the schools that have asked for 1t.
modern type of school building is being
erected wherever new building is needed. so
Tar as n He on The part the public the
citizens of many communities going down into
their own pockets to raise additional funds by
personal subscription IL 20 order der 70 secure the
More and better supervision OF the SCHOOLS mas
been introduced because Baltimore county has
outgrown the Anticipated methods of supervision
Ordinarily provided for county school system.
This has brought about better teaching and
better methods of work generally and mas pro-
vided for more teaching in manual training ana
handwork drawing and music. as well as better
work in other subjects of the course OF study.
Better supervision was needed, not because
teachers did their work poorly. but because our
educational standards are high and are growing
higher because the course OF study Is broad, re-
quiring the teacher to be constant student, ana
because expert grade supervision is the best
known means in educational administration Tor
securing the highest efficiency of teaching in q
school system. AS teacners, we 9ensve C .Sa
process of education, and we are, TO the extent
of our varying abilities, studying these princi-
pies and trying to apply them again to the ex-
TENT of our varying abilities in the teaching pro-
cess remembering always that we are teaching
the child rather than course or study.
cational progress of the county has been the
Parents Clubs organized in many OF our schools
thus bringing the parents, the home, the emil,
| dren and the teachers into closer sympathy. all
working together for the best interest OF the
| school and the community. l trust that the
school will come more ana more 70 pc Inc
| this community in having one of the best Far
| ents' Clubs in the county.
In short SO far as the funds at the Boards dis
| posal would permit. and so far as the more OIL
less wide separation of our schools does not toe
| much interfere, the school system of Baltimore
county has been organized in harmony with the
| hest principles of school administration that
have been developed in the U nited states during
| the past twenty. years; but there are many
things yet to be done. as there always Will be IN
progressive community.
The result has been modern system OF teacn
ing in our larger schools almost equal to the Des
city systems of the country and, considering oul
many handicaps, this shows remarkaole
| achievement on the part of our teachers.
Our teachers ana our I9acHtng Ssva been in
4
creased greater demands have been made OF
| their time in school and out OF school. INT
teachers have met these demands with nnt
sense of their responsibilities to the children ant
to the public.
The cost of living has increased greatly in thu
| last twenty years; salaries and wages nave In
| creased more or less proportionately in every
| calling of life even teachers salaries nave In
| creased all over the country, and by the opera
ton of the State minimum salary law teachers
salaries in every other county in the state hav'
| increased from 10 to 80 per cent or more. yet II
| baltimore county the teachers have received
practically no increase in salary in twenty years
| There has been aslight read ustment, giving In'
| beginners much less and the teacher of fiv'
| years experience little more, costing Tn
| county nothing. a..
AS vet our schools have, perhaps, suffered lit
tie; we have on the whole an efficient corps o
teachers with strong professional spirit, Will
| ing and anxious at all times, in season ana on
| of season, to give their best service TO Tn
| schools; to give abundantly of their time an
| energy to the work they have chosen, but zee
that unless the patrons, citizens ana taxpayer
| arouse themselves in the immediate future .
the necessity of increasing the salaries OF all Tn
| teachers the school system will not attract an
hold the kind of men and women you want Z
become teachers of your children.
| The teacher is the school SO far as the efnclenc
| of a school system is concerned; the profes
sional spirit of the whole school organlzatlon an
the educational forces outside of the school, Tn
church. the home and the community spirit ma
help; splendid school buildings and eQuipmen
furnish merely the workshop, but the mig
standard of the men and women VINO WORK VIII
the children determines the character OF you
schools.
successful Sunday school Entertain
ment.-The Xmas entertainment OF Hunt
Methodist Episcopal Sunday school was bel
on Wednesday night The church was ar
| S.ov-;otol,, docorafod and crowded in sDite {