The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1910-09-15
WHO IS TO BLAME?

We are reliably informed by students
that the Oakland High School opened
Monday morning with an attendance
most gratifying but under conditions
that demand the greatest condemnation
of the school authorities by an outraged
public.
With an enrolment of sixty-five to
seventy the board of school commits
sioners has divided up the school and
distributed it around among four of the
rooms on the ground floor of the old
court house. Only one of these rooms
is as large as the ordinary country
school room. The senior class of the
school is quartered for the year in the
old vault of the clerk office. While
occupied as vault Mr.. Tower, the clerk,
was obliged to operate stove init, win
ter and summer, in order to preserve
the records from dampness and keep
them from becoming widowed. This
condition, as to dampness, still obtains
in this vault and we may expect serious
cases of rheumatism or other diseases
among the students quartered there to
follow Why not send the class to the
county Jail, where the grand jury causes
things to be kept sanitary, and have
done with it?
The old court room, probably the fin
est school room in the county as regards
size, light, ventilation, ETC., has been
given over to the manual training de-
partment on the plea that it cannot be
heated If this room cannot be heated
as class room or general assembly
room for the entire school, the question
naturally follows: can it be heated for
manual training work?
True, the board has spent a large
sum of money for painting the walls,
woodwork, ETC., of the building and in
stalling natural gas for heating pur-
poses, but persists in putting up the
plea that certain portions of the build
ing cannot be heated. This proposition
will strike the average mind as being
somewhat peculiar.
Two of the rooms are fitted with
desks that were used by the primary
grades of the public school last year.
This furniture was made for infants and
not for young ladies and gentlemen. A
beautiful spectacle, indeed, to see
grown boys and girls occupying desks
with their knees up under their chlns,
their spines curved, in. unnatural and IN
comfortable positions, and expect them
to keep up with the course Of study pre-
scribed by the school laws as inter
preted, however, by the great mind Of
the local board Of school commissioners.
The filth, both in and out of the
building, up to opening Of the school
and day or two following, had not
been cleaned up and had been the &C
emulation of years Of idleness. The
outbuildmgs are simply out Of commits
sion and the whole premises in a de-
plorable condition.
We understand the County Superin-
tendent, in his address to the school at
its opening, denied all responsibility for
the situation and on the other hand
Principal Palmer lis quoted as say ing
that he did not feel responsible as he
notified the board in ample time, in
writing, that ne was at their service if
there was anything he could do to assist
in getting ready for the opening, but
received no reply, which is another in
dlcation Of the courtesy generally melted
out to those having business relations
with the members of the Garrett Coun-
ty School Board.
The school will waste a week or more
in getting organized and during the
time Superintendent Browning is intim-
idating the pupils with dire threats of
an examination if he can get the
State Superintendent to order one, in
the hope, evidently, of cutting down
the enrolment by demoting sufficient
pupils to cause the school to drop to the
second class. Superintendent Brown
ing certainly must have the interests of
Garrett county at heart if, by his efforts,
he can cripple the High Schoo and divert
5000 of the State appropriation and
grind that much more from the stax
payers.
1t costs perhaps 500 per day to oper-
ate the High School. The pupils must
lose week or more of their school year
at an expense to the county of at least
500, not taking into consideration the
incalculable loss sustained by the pupils,
all because somebody failed to put the