Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-07-25
For the Good of the Schools.

TIE Education committee of the Geor-
gia Senate has pointed the way to
~ invaluable progress by recommend
inc the passage of the three great constructive
school measures now before the General AS
sembly, namely: the bill for Constitutional
amendment to establish in every county To-
cal tax for schools the bill revising and codi-
flying the States school statutes, and the bill
creating an illiteracy commission.
Each subject in this program is of the kind
which Bacon described as coming home Ito
mems business and bosoms The local tax
measure known as the Elders-CarsWell Dill,
affords the one adequate solution of the
financial problems with which Georgia's
school system is so gravely beset. Teachers
can never be paid just salaries, school terms
can never be duly heightened, children IN the
majority of rural districts can never be vouch-
safed their educational rights until fund
far larger than the State treasury can pro-
vide is Forthcoming. This means that the
counties must serve their individual needs by
supplementing with reasonable local tax
their alIotments from the State. There IS
not the remotest suggestion, be 1T understood,
of withdrawing the State fund; on the con-
trary, the stanchest advocates of the Elders
Carswell bill declare that the State fund
should be increased when it is possible to do
so. But as practical men, knowing the pres
ent and prospective condition Of the central
treasury, and as earnest friends of education
main mere words, they insist that every
county ought to supplement the State appro-
priation with fair measure of local support.
In this contention they are upheld by the
unanimous judgment of Georgia's educational
leaders and by the virtually unanimous prac-
tice of the country at large. Ours is one of
the two or three States, if not the only one,
in which local taxation for schools is not re-
quired. We cannot afford to limp on under a
plan which is inherently unsound and which
ole in n SiYtV-fiVn
Georgia counties already have adopted the
local-ad or self-help system, Colquitt and
Coweta having done so in the last few days.
Their names make up roll of honor and
progress we'll worth proclaiming. They are:
Bacon, Ben HILL Bibb, Bryan, Burke,
Butts, Camden, Chatham, Clarke, Chat
tahoochee, Clnch, Coffee, Columbia,
Crawford and Crisp, DeKalb, Echols,
Emanuel and Fulton, Glascock, Glynn,
Hancock Harris, Hart, Henry, Houston,
Irwin, Jasper, jeff Davis, Jenkins, Jones,
Lee, Lincoln, Lowndes, Marion, McIn-
tosh, Mitchell, Monroe, Montgomery,
Morgan, Muscogee, Newton, Pulaski,
Quitman, Rabun, Randolph, Richmond,
Screven, Spalding Stewart, Talbot, Ter
reIl, Tiff, Walton, Wayne, Wheeler,
Wilkes, Worth, Stephens, Treutlen, At
kinson, Cook, Habersham Coweta and
Colquitt."
In t1me no doubt, every county would rOl-
low these inspiring examples; ultimately, in
Decd no county that prizes reputation and
prosperity could afford not to provide ade
quate aid for it's schools. But why waste
precious years in the long and costly process
of local plebiscites, conducted under rules
that give a backward minority the advantage
over progressive majority, when one State
wide election will place Georgia where she
ought to be and where she so urgently needs
to be in this fundamental matter of school
finance? The General Assembly can render
no sounder service, none that will come home
with richer boons to the material interests
and the heart interest of the Commonwealth,
than to press this good bill to speedy enact
ment.
The two other measures recommended by
the Senate committee are so obviously well
advised that no plea for them is needful.
The States school laws are now mass of
confusion and contradiction which the
astutest of lawyers would find difficult to
understand. They of all statutes should be
harmonious and Ineligible The pending
bill proposes to make them so by proper re-
vision and codiffcation. Equally apparent is
the need of a commission to facilitate the
carrying out of the compulsory school at
ing Georgia from illiteracy. These bills are
virtually assured of passage if they have
chance on the Legislative calendar.
SO, too, is the local tax bill, notwithstand
ing it's need of a two-thirds majority as
Constitutional amendment. Last year it
passed the Senate trump 'antly and missed
success in the House by ony vote or two.
In the present session it's friends are more
than ever numerous and more than ever
Jealous in its support Let them work I'M
ceasingly until it is enacted.