The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1915-07-02

| One regent drew last year S44O LOT
lightweight days of special service
while the board of regents received
| last year, in addition to their eXpens-
| es, over $4,000.
"The normal boards description of
| its labOrious attention to details is
| strong argument for a central board
| which will leave details to educators
! and business agents. Public spirited
regents should give their time to larg-
er questions of policy and government
| shown by properly summarized details
| TO need attention. The new board
with a highly equipped educational
and business officer will easily learn
more than present regents know. The
state will gain if normal regents stop
examining candidates for graduation
and stop attending to all kinds of adj
ministrative questions and
| a great mass of Details a board of
fifteen can arrange to do all the visit
| ing of institutions that will be of any
help to Institutions or to regents.
'"The central board will do away
with the system which now makes the
| resident regent a special attache of
his normal school president.
For Common Schools.
"AIen of ability will not be over
whelmed with varied interests if work
! is properly summarized. The central
board is proposed to put a stop to
Overemphasis upon varied and special
interests of higher institutions and to
begin to emphasize interests in COM
mon with common schools. Using it's
present officers to organize details,
the central board could easily know
more than the present boards.
"While 1t is claimed that details of
educational institutions are now man
aged by present boards, as a matter
of fact the boards act almost entirely
upon suggestion and recommendations
of educational men in charge. They
have practically no information eX-
cept as they get it from these educa-
tionaI men.
Will End Confusion.
Instead Of introducing CONFUSION
and providing trouble for subsequent
legislatures, the central board will get
rid of confusion and minimize trouble.
It is generally admitted by the strong
est opponents of the proposed law
that it would be difficult to imagine
any situation more confusing and
troublous to legislators than the pres
! ent system which has meant lobby
ing, logrolling, rivalry, personal ap-
peals and the pressing of claims upon
legislators by regents and officers who
had no information concerning the
needs and requirements of any schools
except their own, and little infOrma-
ton with respect to their own schools.
What the normal regents did re-
garding their budget as described by
them does not constitute proper re-
view Arguing for details of a bud
get before finance committee is not
reviewing budget estimates from the
standpoint of the taxpayer or the in
terests of schools. To know why
presidents want to spend more money
is not proper review of estimates in
the sense / use the term in my mes
sage. This is proved by the fact that
within a short time after the finance
committee said that the normal school
estimates must be cut $4,000 year
an entirely different kind of review
began and in surprisingly short time
he ii 1tc 70 tc whit oh
they should have had before they ever
presented the budget to the legisla-
ture and facts which show that the
original estimates were altogether too
large
Budget Not Reviewed by Regents.
GAS for the university regents, their
budget came to the legislature and to
the governor this year with the state
ment that there had not been time to
submit it for review and revision by
the regents.
'Hasty action the normal regents
decry. They say it is better to be
safe than to be sorry The answer
is that nothing is SO unsafe as failure
action has come, or as failure to be
sorry when conditions show that pres
ent methods are unsatisfactory.
"Our system has failed to give the.
rural and common schools proportion
ate attention. This defeat a central
board will cure because it insures two
results which have been demanded
from one end of the state to the other
Ito stop the separate consideration
of disproportionate allowances to the
university and the normal schools
and insure more adequate considera-
ton and allowances for the rural and
common schools"
Woman Suffrage Beaten.
Equal suffrage appears to. be a
closed book at this session. The