The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1912-02-15
Ccntraliz alton In the School System.

From the New Orleans Times-Democrat
State Superintendent of Education T. j.
Harris, who created such intense popular
disgust and indignation throughout the
State during the recent campaign, after
he had been nominated for reelection as
by taking the stump for
Michel, and abandoning his educational
duties, to devote himself to attack on
Judge Hall and pretending to show that
the public schools of Louisiana would suf-
fer greatly if the administration which the
people have just nominated were elected,
has prepared his report for the Legislature.
It contains number of suggestions and
recommendations which will not be likely
to commend themselves to the General
Assembly, which knows Harris better now,
and how he threw off all disguise when he
thought himself safely in the Superinten-
dency and tried to lug the schools into
politics. Perhaps no Democratic candi-
date had ever been more excoriated in the
press. He wants State Board of Educa-
ton. with himself at it's head, and he wants
all the various boards and trustees of the
State colleges abolished and the admins
tration of the affairs of these institutions
intrusted to this State Board of Education
and himself He advises further a State
Board of Examination of Teachers; and
other similar centralizing and consolidating
measures that would place him in fuller
control of the entire school machinery.
The present rising of the people of Lou
isiana in revolt is against the centralizing
tendencies that have been under way in
Louisiana of late, and especially during
the Sanders administration. The vote
nnf
only against him personally, but against
whereby he sought to center all the State
powers in his own hands. In no depart
ment has that tendency been more marked
than in our schools, the special property
and the greatest interest of the people, and
which cannot become all they should be
unless they are brought nearer to the peo-
pie and the latter have direct part in
their control, management and operation.
The more democratic the management
of the schools, the more the people have to
say as to them, the better. This is the
system which has done so much for the
schools in the North, where the local
boards, as representatives of the people,
the women as we'll as the men, look after
them, and where there is no school car,
Governor or superintendent.
The school question will demand great
deal of attention from the next Legislature,
for much that was done in the last eight or
ten years will have to be done over again,
and done rightly, to assure the children of
all the benefits they are entitled to through
the generous sacrifices made in the cause
of education. Prof. Harris is the last man
to consult in this work.
One of the greatest dangers to our school
system is that they may become involved
in bitter factional politics. AS matter OF
fact the present movement against the ring
began over the schools in the determina-
ton Of the women in this city, backed by
the men, to prevent Mayor Behrman from
making our schools part of the political
plumber of the ring, giving it the power to
dictate their control and management, AND
to fill the School Board from the ranks OF
cheap politicians and officeholders unde,
the absolute control of the bosses. This
fight was extended to the State machine
when Governor Sanders, in defiance of the
law, appointed City Hall clerk, an ex.
poolroom chalk artist, as his ideal of the
class of men who ought to superintend the
education of our children.
Prof. Harris put himself on record wher
he displayed himself in the State capital
before the big Sanders meeting, riding or
the Governors steam roller, as expressing
his idea that the schools should be run or
the steam roller principle, and again when
after declaring that, because Of his posi-
ton, he could not speak at political meet.
ings in this campaign, be became one o
the most bitter and abusive stump orators
the advocate of ring and machine rule ove1
the schools and of greater school central
ization under himself.