Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-05-12
PUBLIC EDUCATION
IN MARYLAND
The Next Step--Report Made by
DR.. Abraham Elexner at the
SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING.
MARYLAND State Federation Of Woman
Clubs, Johns Hopkins University,
Mccoy Hall April 18th.

ham Flexner. appeared in recent is
sue of The Town" published in Bal
I timore:
The new Maryland Education Law
is one of the most comprehensive
statutes ever written upon the law
/ books of an American commonwealth
! II furnishes the people of Maryland
| an opportunity TO bring about, with pa
/ thence. tact and in good time. very con-
siderable improvements in the educa-
| tional administration of the State You
! will notice that l say advisedly that it
furnishes an opportunity" The stat
ute itself has been called by your
chairman. and in a sense properly call
| ed, great achievement
| Nevertheless, from the point of view
of the education which the children OF
Maryland are going TO get, it is not an
| achievement it is not a performance
it is simply an opportunity. 1t is pos
| sible that the children of Maryland
may be as poorly educated under the
new law as they have been under the
| old. Whether any changes in educa-
| tional practice comm ensurate with the
| changes in the educationl law will fol-
| low the enactment of this law remains
| TO be seen.
| have gladly taken advantage of this
| opportunity to speak in order to point
| out to you what you doubtless already
/ know, that it is very largely in the
hands of the women of Maryland TO
| determine whether the promised posi-
bilities of the new law shall or shall
not more or less fully realized. The
| law itself simply changes and improves
] the conditions under which the educa-
| tional game is henceforth to be played
| in Maryland The old rules. to use the
| sporting pharseology, left the public
education in Maryland open to polite
| ians and amateurs The new rules seek
TO exclude the politician and the anna
teur and to install the professional.
Il do not mean, of course, to imply
that all persons who have dealt with
public education in Maryland have
been either politicians or amateurs
Some very admirable men and women
are to be found in educational posi-
tions in the State of Maryland in ad-
ministration, supervision and teaching
| do not mean to say that under the
new law you will necessarily be rid OF
politicians and amateurs and be deal
ing only with well-trained profession
ais. What | no mean is this, that the
natural tendency of the old law was
TO leave public education in Maryland
in the hands of unframed persons.
Whenever a highly trained person
obtained an educational position. il
was more or less the result of accident
or good fortune. The new law is de
signed to bring disinterested citizens
into school boards, and to fill technical
posts with highly trained men and wo-
men. Whether or not this will turn
out to be the case depends in no slight
measure upon the intelligence and ac-
tivity of the women of Maryland.
Let me run over for you very briefly
the changes which the new law brings
about Under the old law. which gov
ems until the first of June. almost
any one who had been occupied in
school work was eligible for the i'm
portant post of State Superintendent
of Education. 1t is hardly less than
miracle that a skillful, competent and
able man has held that position for a
number of years. Under the old law
| the State Board of Education had to be
something of a political body, and the
county board was also politically con-
stituted. The county board was, un-
der the old regime, not only liable, but
| almost sure TO choose an unframed or
slightly trained superintendent
True enough in several counties this
expectation has for one reason or an
other been disappointed; there are a
l few extremely well-trained county SUI
| perintendnets in the State of Maryland
| but the whole tenor and tendency of
| the old law was in favor of the anna
| teur and the politician. Neither State
nor county superintendent of education
was provided with the technical assist
| ants absolutely indispensable to the eff
| fective performance of their duties.
In respect to the teaching staff we
1 counted something like twenty of thir-
/ ~ perfectly legitimate ways of enter
/ ing the teaching service of Maryland.
| 1t is quite fair to say that any ordinary
| educated person who had gone through
| the elementary schools might hope to
| secure a position in some part of the
| educational system. Finally, under the
old law, there was no assurance that
the children of Maryland would go to
school regularly.
| When it became evident to us that
| such was the framework of the Mary
land system. it was almost unnecessary
to go into the schools in order to find
out what was happening. Though
there are, of course, vigorously. highly
trained and resourceful teachers in
Maryland, the existing conditions tend
| ed toward inefficiency. 1t was, there
fore, no surprise to us TO find an obso-
lete and overloaded course of study
leading TO an extremely unsatisfactory
| educational outcome
The new law endeavors to create
different underlying conditions. If you
will read the report of the Maryland
Survey Commission you will find that
il contains very few suggestions as to
what the schools should do, as TO how
teachers should be trained. as TO how
the teaching should be supervised. as