Evening star., 1937-12-19
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

Washington's street railway require
ments were thus briefly recited in The
e.cr Star of December
Street Car Needs 10, 1857:
of Washington, "Applica tions for
new street railway
franchises and for the extension OF ex-
isting lines, in connection with the report
by the Senate special committee, will
bring the subject of the street railways
of the District prominently before Con-
gress. AS result Of long discussion the
Districts needs and wishes in the matter
have crystallized as follows: % Grooved
rails; 90 no cobblestones; CD improved
motor, electricity or cable; 90 participa-
tion by the District in profits of roads as
substitute for sale of franchises; 80 the
authorizing of new roads and extensions
in such wise as not to needlessly multi
ply tracks or injure residence streets, but
to furnish transportation facilities to
unsupplied portions of the city and its
suburbs
The Star of December IT, 1887, thus
outlines the needs of the public school
p,,h,;. c.L, system Of the District:
1uoiio o'hooi Washington desires
Legislation. two things from Con-
gress with reference to
the public schools-first, provision of full
accommodations. both for the low grades
and the high schools, and, second, a re-
modelling Of the law to the end that the
relations of the Commissioners and trus-
tees may be distinctly stated and present
antiquities removed.
"The recent report of the school trus-
tees calls renewed attention to the wish
first suggested. The same liberality in
appropriations for the erection OF school
buildings is needed now as that shown
at last session. The large increase over
last years figures in the number of pupils
and the consequent necessity of halliday
instruction in the high school as we'll as
in the low grades, furnish pointed argu-
mentS in favor of continuous policy Of
enlarging school accommodations.
THE advisability of legislation in re-
spect to the status of the board of
trustees is indicated by the fact that the
Commissioners construe the present law
to give them full authority in school mat
ters. with only limited and subordinate
authority in an advisory board of trus-
tSSo cO AoA6 81 IAldt HOdI0 ID HCIAllGLCO
to exist; while number of citizens con-
tend that the law means, as it was in
tended to mean by the Congressman who
framed 1t, that the old board Is revived
with the same powers it enjoyed before
1t was abolished. The round about pro-
cedure Of abolishing the school board,
transferring its powers to the Commits
Sioners and re-establishing by the same
act school board with the same powers
as to the care and management of the
schools as those previously exercised,
readily opens the way to the legal infer
ence that the second board has not pre-
cisely the same powers as the first But
IN correcting this bungling legislation
Congress will fix the status of the school
board without refence to the legal affect
OF the present law. The actual intent of
the former legislators to re-establish the
old board OF citizens with its former pow
ers and the wishes of the people of the
city in the matter may then have weight.
Public sentiment has favored intrusting
school affairs, except their financial con-
Germs, to an independent board of citi-
zens, a method which developed Wash
lngton's school system creditably through
its entire history until the present con-
troversy under the organic act and which
Is recognized by educators and adopted
by citizens all over the country as the
best form of school manarenent