Year: 1866




While other affairs engross the public mind, let
not remain insensible to our educational inter
ests. Wagon roads, stage routes, mail contracts,
and infnity of similar subjects form material
for daily conversation and discussion but our
schools and all that is connected with their main
tenance and advancement can scarcely be said to
constitute ordinary topic for consideration.
And why is this Is it of greater Importance to
survey and construct piece of mountain road, or
to establish stage mail communication between
distant points, than it is to educate the youth of
BE derived from the latter than from the former
In MY humble estimation there is not! While
am far from feeling disposed to underrate the real
value of all eudeavors to develop the intrinsic
sources Of our county and to supply the wants and
increased requirements naturally consequent upon
that development, still | am OF the opinion that we
should not heco ne forgetfu of those interests,
which though in dissimilar manner, just as inti-
mately concern us, and as inseparably associa-
ted with our future prosperity. 1t seems to me on
elaboration that public instruction does not receive
that attention and care which might be expected
in a county so wealthy as Butte. With thirty-one
school districts, an aggregate number of ? III chill


dren, and an immense assessabe property. yet
school is kept no more than four or five months in
two-thirds of the Districts and teachers receive
average salary of from fifty to sixty dollars. Viii lie
on this question: let me instance case in point.
Not thousand miles from the Live Oak District.
there is district with a census report of thirty
thrty-five children. One of the Trustees is man
oF a,i hStn al may bar
of the community. so he imagines; the second, too
| believe is comfortably circumstanced; the third
is man of education and refinement, and being of
generous turn of mind, easily susceptible to the
convictions of duty is, have every for sup
posing, unwillingly connected with his colleagues.
short time ago of the first and best teachers
of the Live Oak school-a lady of intelligence and
accomplishments. who never received less than
SIS per month salary-was offered the paltry mis-
erable sum of s25 per month to teach the school in
the district above mentioned, Aud this by man
of wealth who could easily pay thrice the amount
monthly without being inconvenienced in the least
by an American who ought to have at heart the
interests of the country which gave him birth, and
protects him in the possession of his property +.
Ridiculousl In the words of SwErr "A mission
airy ought to be sent tina; district at by the
State Educational Society


1t is then in the selection of the proper men for
Trustees that the public schools of this county as
well as Of the State, to rely for their progress


Let men be elected who understanding their duties,
will honestly and unfinchingly discharge them.
Il is true the Office of School Trustee is attended
with no compensation whatever. and is subject to
innumerable petty annoyances from those who
have never served in that capacity. From my
own experience l'can testify TO the fact that the
clerk Of a certain Board of Trustees with whom
an acquainted, has been put to no inconsiderable
expense on account of school wants, for which he
never received acknowledgment nor allowance
OF any sort-snd yet there are individuals abfus
Gated that they imagine the Trustees have good
time of it. If ii were not for the enormous evils
that would unavodably ensne. some district should
appoint three such hombres as Trustees, in order
TO give them a chance to lay up snug little for
tune and display the grand Tesolts Of school gov
ernment by self-conceited ignoramGses- And these
are invariably the kind who volunteer, unsolicited


information offer suggestions and pry with lmper


tnent curiosity into school matters. For this class
have ALWAYS felt cordial contempt and disgust


l shall treat with kind regard and respect all who
proer in the proper spirit advice which may prov:
beneficial to any school TIN OTMBER may b
teaching: but let meddlesome, insolent, Ignorant


pretenders keep their brilliant educational thoughts
in craniuuls which require all the assistance anj
humauizing influence Of their luminous ideas L
{ preclude the possibility of their receiving meritet
positions in the Insane Asylum at Stockton.