The Natchitoches enterprise., 1913-09-25
Stability In School Administration.

printed in The Country Review
last week State Superintendent
Harris pointed out one of the
weaknesses in our public school
system which hampers the pro-
gress of popular education. The
new law providing for overlapping
boards to manage educational af-
fairs IN the parishes is distinctly
forward step, but other reforms
are yet needed to remove the
schools from influences that ham
per them and to put them on a
plane of the highest usefulness.
Mr.. Harris suggests a central
board to have charge of all the
educational interests of the State.
including the institutions of higher
learning, the membership of which
should be small and the members
elected at congressional elections,
one from each congressional dis
trict and so arranged that two
Will go out of office at every con-
gressional election, the regular
term of the members, after the
first election, to be eight years.
The suggestion appeals to us as
being sound. 1t will give per-
manency to the administration of
our common schools, the State
University, the Normal School
and the industrial schools. 1t will
put it cut Of the power of a fac
tlonal executive to make political
appointments to those institutions
upon the excuse tia. he wants to
take the schools out Of politics.
It will insure continuity of poll
cies and enable the board to under
take for the future, to map out
broad plans for betterment and to
put them into execution without
interruption by the saddling upon
the schools of political pets, Sc
lected with a view of discharging
political obligations or to provide
asylums for others.
Instability is the bete noir of
orderly educational progress. The
building up of great potential
fabric, like the educational system
of commonwealth, or a great
state university, cannot be accom-
plished successfully by the hand-to-
mouth method of going about it.
The plans must be carefully
studied, comprehending not the
needs of to-day and the immediate
tomorrow alone, but the far fu-
must be in accordance with pre-
conceived plan in which each piece
fits into the other just as the
mechanic fashions each bolt and
nut for its predestined l'lace in the
finished mechanism. Great sys-
TENS are the results not of sudden
spasms, but of gradual develop
ment, and the most successful of
these are those the details of which
have been thought out long in adj
vance, only such changes being
admissible as are required to meet
the results Of changing conditions
in the social and industrial life of
the State.
One central board, with over
tapping membership and eight
year terms, charged with the
oversight { f all the States educa-
tional business. from State Uni
yersity to kindergarten, would ar
ticulate the system, lmpart vitality
to every branch of it and insure a
continuity of policy and method,
without which the best results
cannot be obtained.
Mr.. Harris suggests, also, the
importance of considering some
remedy to overcome the shifting
in the ranks of the teachers in the
public schools, where defniteness
of purpose and continuity of
methods are as desirable as the
same qualities are in other profes.
sions and businesses. The physi-
clan who changes his base of
every year or two soon
loses his prestige in the profession
as we'll as his business. The same
thing is true of the lawyer, the
merchant and, Of course of the
school-teacher. In most cases the
compensation of the teacher is SO
neager that the temptation pre-
'ented by FIVE dollars a month
more, offered by a principal in
mother parish, is irresistible and
he tnachnr nntc into Tho ;4;no.a.