The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-08-25

The Pell City Progress, of which Me Lane Triton is editor, contributes the following editorial to the discussion of Alabamas school facilities
 The Age-Hernld and Education
 A recent editorial in The Age-Herald has stirred up a small sized hornet nest The results of the editorial were excellent because it served to impress upon many people facts they did not know before as well as to remove several false impressions that have been widely enter tained by the public.
 The Age Herald, in commenting upon the aid given to schools of advanced learning in Alabama, added that the Com- CT administration would have had more to be proud of had the common schools been equally benefited. A well-known business man took The Age-Herald t2 task about this and enunciated the re- markable doctrine that education starts at the top, with universities, and then trickles slowly down to improvement or . conditions at the bottom with common schools.
 
 gentleman found his authority. No such authority exists because the fact IS ao- solutely incorrect. The development oi educational systems does not begin at the lon. If 1t begins anywhere 1t starts al the bottom with the public schools anu works up. But Progress is more lhchheo to the theory that the two must or ne cessitv grow and travel together
 In proof of this it should be suificient to ,,oint out that those states noted TOT having the best common school systems also have the best high schools ana COT leges. As examples take Michigan liii- nois Wisconsin, Nebraska and kansas' Their state universities have an enroll ment of from 1000 to 6oOo The reputatoh of these universities is worldwide lnese game states also have the best coliiihoii school systems in America
 Coming to Alabama, where all under stand how backward we are in educa- tional facilities, and without intending any reflection upon Tuscaloosa we nnu ' mere handful of students gathered there' vet Alabama's population Is equal or nearly equal, to the several states 5ust named. Alabama's state university does not rank with Michigan or Minnesota [ simply and solely because Alabama's coin- mon schools are not to be compared Wi'h theirs. The differences existing between inc universities are also the differences shown in their respective common schooi systems The conditions prevailing in the one explain and cause the conditions pre- yailing in the other.
 MT. Syd Bowie enters the discussion wlth the declaration, in another Age-Heraio letter. that Alabama's main troubles come from the fact that we have no local tax ation to assist the state in the mainten- ance and improvement of our common schools. Progress dislilSes to diner Wl,h MT Bowie, but is forced to do so Our 'main trouble is this: We are not spenclhg +o hest advantage the money now avail able. and it would be folly to increase concentrations until sufficient headway has been made so as to know that not one dollar of public school money IS De- ing wasted. Progress ventures to assert that were the per capita expenditure doubled this very year, the average or school efficiency would not increase 10 per cent.
 It is not difficult to see why this is so. From the state superintendent of educa- tion through county superintendents' county boards and on down to district trustees politics rules and oftimes par tisan politics of the very worst sort. AS long as Alabama's common schools are controlled in whole or part by politics, the playthings of political leaders. as long as state and county superintendents are elected by political methods and county boards and school trustees selected with