The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1914-03-12
SCHOOL SYSTEM
RECEIVES BLOW
Present Methods Are Doomed and
Plans Are Already Being Made For
Managing Institutions In Future
MANY PEOPLE FAVOR CHANGES
President Wilson And Critis Express
Same 0pinions-Efficiency Com
/ mittee Suggests Board of Fifteen

st. Paul, March 12,-(Special To
the Pioneer)-People were never
thinking so much about educational
matters as they are today. Wheth-
er it is the complaint of business
men that schools do not fit children
for their work, or the protest of
school men that courses are overbur-
dened. or the agitation for more
practical studies or the movement
for better training for teachers or
just Jim Hill making an after din
ner speech, the whole school system
is being gently but firmly stood on
it's head.
At the same time the work of tho
educational commission for standar-
dizing the state system and the dis
cussion of the efficiency commission
for unifying it's administration have
attracted extraordinary interest.
Take the one matter of organiza-
ton. It is evident that the state
desires unification as far as possible.
One paper after another declared
that the system must be animated by
single purpose. And when Presi-
dent Vincent on one hand and critics
of the existing order on the other
speak in substantially the same Ian
uage, it may he taken as the sense
of the meeting that meets the
views Of the mass of the people who,
as some wise man has said, constitute
the bulk of the population.
A single board of directors for the
state system seems to be the most
popular arrangement Certainly
there would be fierce opposition to
any plan that seemed to subordinate
the common schools to the university
and equally determined resistance to
any method that seemed to slight the
interests Of the university.
TO represent all the interests that
make up we'll balanced board re-
qulres a comparatively large num-
Der. Such body should be repre-
sentative body. You can hardly
have a single executive officer, you
can have a governing committee of
three or five, but if it is to be a re-
preventative body it must be larger.
Fifteen is the number the efficiency
commission is disposed to recon-
mend
But fifteen is too big for business:
1T can arrive at decisions, form opin-
ions, assemble sentiment. But it
cannot act. For action smaller
body is needed. That is universal
experience Therefore it is proposed
to divide this board Of education into
two smaller bodies-call them COM
mittees. Seven or eight members
can take the place of the board Of
re gents. Seven or eight can direct
the common school system and the
normals. All together may shape
the states educational policy, sub
Ject always to the general supervi-
sion of the legislature.
That gives an educational council
large enough to be representative
and governing bodies small enoug
to be efficient. DR.. Durand's sug-
gestion is that each governing COM
mittee should have power to act but
that on the request of any member
any question might be referred to
the whole board
Public opinion has not fully
agreed on the merits of this plan.
The educational commission is in
clined to separate bodies for the uni
versity and the schools. The ef-
ficiency commission is strongly dis
posed to recommend a single body.
In either case, public opinion
seems to require unity of purpose
and concert Of action. Minnesota
wants but one school system of
which the common schools, the nor
mails and the university shall be in
tegral parts. If anything whatever
in the state is clear, that is. \
By J. S PARDEE