The Hawaiian gazette., 1911-01-27


ont for the roads. No such luck FOR the
school tav. 10 hash Z reached the dig
nifty % icing individnalized when IL M.
! rives at the treasury.
The practical method Of getting the
fund for the schools Is for the super.
intcnicut OF public instruction to make
or statement Of what he needs This
! goes TO the chief executive. who Is as.
sembling reports from all the other de.
partmcnts. He sizes up the whole thing,
/ and rcaHs back word to the superin.
! tendent That he must cut his estimates
, m shave down his necessities There
you find IN error right at the first
ia Up. The superintendent has TO do as
he is told or get into n row with the
Governor. The result Is that he asks
for less than he wants. less than he
needs. The Governor tells him what he
can put in to the legislature. and then
the Superintendent of public instruction.
in order 10 stand by the "administra.
tinn,' has to graciously go before the
representatives OF the people and saw
that estimate win suit him, when he
knows that he is not telling the whole
truth and nothing but the truth.
Misrepresentation of Needs.
Then this Misrepresentation of the
needs of the public schools goes before
the legislators, who are just as human
as anyone else. When you have men
Of light and leading stand up before
an audience and declare that money
should be saved by turning little chill.
dren out of school because their hard
working mothers are using the school
for kindergarten, you haven't any
good reason to be too harsh with the
legislators who can't understand why
a good school teacher is of any more
Importance than an increase of salary
for a wharf tender or money for the
new Jail.
To make long story short. the pub.
lie schools do not get, have not secured,
from the legislature the money re-
CURED. To use the words of one of
our educators, " Appropriations of
money have been estimated on the basis
of past requirements, rather than of the
growing present or the greater future -
What the public school fund commits
sion wanted to do was to arrange a
scheme whereby the department of pub
lie instruction should make up estimates
of what the department needs, and then
levy specific tax of n sufficient num-
her of mills on the dollar of real and
personal property of the Territory to
provide that amount of money. That
is exactly what should be done. The
legislature should allow the educational
experts to estimate the sums needed.
and the money should be Forthcoming,
the legislature being always on guard
to exercise its prerogative of prevent
ing the educational enthusiasts from
going to too great extravagances.
Immediately this was proposed by the
commission protests came from the
wealth and intelligence of the com.
munity, that we were trying to revolu.
ti9nize the taxation system of the Is.
lands, and probably they would rather
perjure themselves relative to the valu-
alton of their property and wink at
the eonfessedly generalization of their
property rather than tamper with that
blessed fetich, the one per cent tax on
real and personal property.
But they were not the only
ones. Others declared that all the
children in the schools are orientals.
and the increase of funds should be
secured by an increase of the poll tax,
it being admitted that the laboring
alien could be got at while the nom
laboring citizen could escape payment
if he saw fit.
Use Public Lands Income.
Incidentally, it occurred to us that
it was and IS foundation American
policy that the income from the public
lands be used for the public schools.
1t was also interesting to discover the
nun, Der of hands that were reaching
out to grab that three hundred thousand
dollars income from the public lands,
leases and water licenses.
We were told that the income from
the lands must go towards the con-
stluction of roads for homesteaders.
The Organic Act amendment has sup
posedly resulted in legalizing the use
for this purpose of a larger share of
these funds than was allowed before.
In other words, the law is so arranged
that an income Of over a quarter OF a
million of dollars year can be ex-
pended practically on the say-so of
the commissioner of public lands and
the Governor, while some of our good
people have a fit if the salaries of
few teachers are not handled exactly
in accordance with an exact schedule
the exacting details of which shall be
gone over by exacting members of the
legislature. Just let that sink into
your thoughts a while to impress you
with the advieability of investigating
whether we are not making grave mis-.
takes of public policy in being so
frightfully solicitors of certain mate
rial things while the public school sys-
TEN goes stalking about in frayed
clothes, that never fit. The Nation set
the example of giving public lands for
the public schools and now there is
nothing that State guards more care
fully than its public school lands. Tex
as, l believe, has an income from its
public school lands of something like
six dollars per pupil. And Texas is
proud of that record, proud of her
schools, nothing seems to be too good
for her school children.
Having been baked by the greed for
the income from public lands, we then
had to turn to the last resort, the real
and personal property tax, or in other
words the principal source of income
for carrying on the government of the
| Territory, to make up the money re-
qured, this in addition 10 the two dol
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