CHAPTER XIII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN-CONTINUED.

III.-REPORT OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF CITY SCHOOL SYSTEMS.

It is understood that the committee is to treat of city school systems which are so large that persons chosen by the people to manage them, and serving without pay, can not be expected to transact all the business of the system in person, nor to have personal knowledge of all business transactions; and which are also so large that one person employed to supervise the instruction can not be assumed to personally manage or direct all of the details thereof; but must, in each case, act under plans of organization and administration established by law, and through assistants and representatives.

The end for which a school system exists is the instruction of the children, the word instruction being used with the meaning it attains in the mind of a well-educated person, if not in the mind of an educational expert.

To secure this end, no plan of organization alone will suffice. Nothing can take the place of a sincere desire for good schools, of a fair knowledge of what good schools are and of what will make them, of a public spirit and a moral sense on the part of the people, which are spontaneous or which can be appealed to with confidence. Fortunately the interest which the people have in their own children is so large, and the anxiety of the community for public order and security is so great, that public sentiment may ordinarily be relied upon, or may be aroused to action, to choose proper representatives and take proper measures for the administration of the schools. If, in any case, this is not so, there is little hope of efficient schools. Wherever it is so, it alone will not suffice; but proper organization may become the instrument of public sentiment and develop schools that will be equal to the needs of all and become the safeguards of citizenship.

Efficient schools can be secured only by providing suitable buildings. and appliances and by keeping them in proper order, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by employing, organizing, aiding, and directing. teachers so that the instruction shall have life and power to accomplish the great end for which schools are maintained.

The circumstances of the case naturally and quickly separate the duties of administration into two great departments, one which manages the business affairs, and the other which supervises the instruction. The business affairs of the school system may be transacted by any citizens of common honesty, correct purposes, and of good business experience and sagacity. The instruction will be ineffective and abnormally expensive unless put upon a scientific educational basis and supervised by competent educational experts.

There will be a waste of money and effort, and a lack of results, unless the authorities of these two departments are sympathetic with each other; that is, unless, on the one hand, the business management is sound, is appreciative of good teaching, looks upon it as a scientific and professional employment, and is alert to sustain it; and unless, on the other hand, the instructors are competent and self-respecting; know what good business management is, are glad to uphold it, and are able to respect those who are charged with responsibility for it.

To secure efficiency in these departments, there must be adequate authority and quick public accountability. The problem is not merely to secure some good schoolhouses, but good schoolhouses wherever needed, and to avoid the use of all houses which are not suitable; it is not to get some good teaching, but to prevent all bad teaching and to advance all the teaching to the highest possible point of special training, of professional spirit, and of life-giving power. All of the business matters must be intrusted to competent business hands and managed upon sound business principles, and all of the instruction must be put upon a professional basis. To insure this, there must be deliberation and wisdom in determining policy, and then the power to do what is determined upon must be present and capable of exercise, and the responsibility for the proper exercise of the power must, in each case, be individual and immediate.

It is imperative that we discriminate between the legislative and the executive action in organizing and administering the schools. The influences which enter into legislative action looking to the general organization and work of the schools must necessarily and fundamentally flow directly from the people and be widely spread. The greater the number of people, in proportion to the entire population, who can be led to take a positive interest and an active part in securing good schools the better will the schools be, provided the people can secure the complete execution of their purposes and plans. But experience has clearly shown that many causes intervene to prevent the complete execution of such plans; that all the natural enemies of sound administration scent plenty of plunder and are especially active here; that good school administration requires much strength of character, much business experience, much technical knowledge, and can be measurably satisfactory only when the responsibility is adequate and the penalties. for maladministration are severe. Decentralization in making the plan

and determining what shall be done, and centralization in executing the plan and in doing what is to be done, are perhaps equally important. It should be remembered that the character of the school work of a city is not merely a matter of local interest, and that the maintenance of the schools does not rest merely or mainly upon local authority. The people of the municipality, acting, and ordinarily glad to act, but in any event being required to act, under and pursuant to the law which has been ordained by the sovereign authority of the State, estab. lish and maintain schools. They must have the taxing power which the State alone possesses in order to enable them to proceed at all. They must regard the directions which the State sees fit to give as to the essential character of the schools, when it exercises in their behalf or when it delegates to them the power of taxation.

The plan should be flexible for good, while inflexible for evil. After meeting essential requirements, the people of the municipality may and should be empowered to proceed as much further as they will in elaborating a system of schools. The higher the plane of average intelligence, and the more generally and the more directly the people act in deciding what shall be done, and the greater the facility and completeness with which the intelligence of the city is able to secure the proper execution of its plans by officers appointed for that purpose, the more elaborate and the more efficient will be the schools.

It is idle to suggest that centering executive functions is unwisely taking power away from the people. The people can not execute plans themselves. The authority to do so must necessarily be delegated. The question simply is, Shall it be given to a number of persons, and if so, to how many? Or to only one? This question is to be decided by experience, and it is of course true that experience has not been uniform. But it is doubtless true that the general experience of the communities of the country has shown that where purely executive functions are conferred upon a number of persons jointly, they yield to antag onistic influences and shift the responsibility from one to another; and that centering the responsibility for the proper discharge of executive duties upon a single person, who gets the credit of good work and must bear the disgrace or penalty of bad work, and who can quickly be held accountable for misdeeds and inefficiency, has secured the fullest execution of public plans and largest results. To call this "centralization," with the meaning which commonly attaches to the word, is inaccurate. Instead of removing the power from the people, it is keeping the power closer to the people and making it possible for the citizen, in his individual capacity, and for organized bodies of citizens, to secure the execution of plans according to the purpose and intent with which those plans were made. Indeed it is safe to say that experience has shown that it is the only way in which to prevent the frequent thwarting of the popular will and the defiance of individuals whose interests are ignored or whose rights are invaded.

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So much, it seems to us, is strongly supported both by reason and by experience, and is clearly manifest.

But all the people of a city whose population is numbered by hundreds of thousands or millions can not meet in a legislative assemblage to formulate plans for school government any more than they can all meet to make plans for municipal government. They can not even gather in mass meetings, and, if they could, mass meetings can not deliberate. Even their legislative action must flow not from a primary, but from a representative assembly.

What shall such a representative legislative body be called? How shall it be chosen? Of how many members shall it be composed? And what shall be its powers? These and other similar questions are allimportant and must be determined by the lawmaking power of the State. The sentiments of the city, as expressed through the local organizations and particularly through the newspapers, must of course have much weight with the legislature if there is anything like unanimity or any very strong preponderance of opinion in the city; for the plan for which a community expresses a preference will surely be likely to operate most effectually in that community. But the local sentiment is not conclusive. When divided it is no guide at all. The legislature is to take all the circumstances into consideration, take the world's experience for its guide, and, acting under its responsibilities, it must exercise its high powers in ways that will build up a system of schools in the city likely to articulate with the State educational system and become the effective instrument of developing the intelligence and training the character of the children of the city up to the ideals of the State.

The name of the legislative branch of the school government is not material, and the one to which the people are accustomed may well continue to be employed. There is no name more appropriate than the "board of education."

The manner of selecting the members of this legislative body may turn somewhat upon the circumstances of the city. We are strongly of the opinion that in view of the well-known difficulty about securing the attendance of the most interested and intelligent electors at school elections, as well as because of the apparent impossibility of freeing school elections from political or municipal issues, the better manner of selection is by appointment.

If the members of the board are appointed, the mayor of the city is likely to be the official to whom the power of appointment may most safely be intrusted. The mayor is not suggested because his office should sustain any relations to the school system, but in spite of the fact that it does not and should not. The school system should be absolutely emancipated from partisan politics and completely disassociated from municipal business. But we think the appointments should be made by some one person rather than by a board. The mayor is

representative of the whole city and all its interests. While not chosen with any reference to the interests of the schools, he may be assumed to have information as to the fitness of citizens for particular responsi bilities and to be desirous of promoting the educational interests of the people. If he is given the power of appointment, he should be particularly enjoined by law to consider only the fitness of individuals and to pay no regard to party affiliations, unless it be particularly to see to it that no one particular party has an overwhelming preponderance in the board. The mayor very commonly feels constrained under the pressure of party expediency to make so many questionable appointments that he is only too glad, and particularly so when enjoined by the law, to make very acceptable appointments of members of school boards in order that he may gratify the better sentiment of the city. We are confident that the problem of getting a representative board of education is not so difficult as many think, if the board is not permitted to make patronage of work and of salaried positions at the disposal of the public school system. Under such circumstances, and more and more so as we have approached such circumstances, appointment in the way we suggest has produced the best school boards in the larger cities of the country.

Attempts to eliminate partisanship from school administration by arraying an equal number of partisans against each other in school boards do not at least aim at an ideal. At times such boards have worked well and at others have led to mischievous consequences. The true course is to insist that all who have any share in the management of the schools shall divest themselves of partisanship, whether political or religious, in such management, and give themselves wholly to the high interests intrusted to them. If it be said that this can not be realized, it may be answered, without admitting it, that even if that were so it would be no reason why the friends of the schools should not assert the sound principle and secure its enforcement as far as possible. We must certainly give no countenance to makeshifts, which experience has shown to be misleading and expensive. The right must prevail in the end, and the earlier and more strongly it is contended for the sooner it will prevail.

The members of school boards should be representative of the whole population and of all their common educational interests, and should not be chosen to represent any ward or subdivision of the territory, or any party or element in the political, religious, or social life thereof. Where this principle is not enforced the members will feel bound to gain what advantage they can for the subdistrict or special interests they represent; bitter contests will ensue, and the common interests will suffer.

The number of the members of a board of education should be small. In cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants it should not be more than nine, and preferably not more than five. In the very largest cities it may well be extended to fifteen.