The Politician and the Public School: Indianapolis and Cleveland

THE unscrupulous politician is the greatest enemy that we now have to contend with in public education. His highest conception of the public school is that its revenues offer him the opportunity of public plunder. Did he accomplish his end without other injury to the cause of education than the depletion of its revenues, he might be ranked merely with the common thief. However, he does not confine his depredations to the financial side of the matter, but pushes his corrupting presence into the school itself. He commits the unpardonable sin when he interferes with the rightful tenure of office of the teacher, and seeks to make political reasons more effective than professional competency in securing and retaining teachers’ positions. The purpose of this paper is to compare some existing conditions in this respect with reasonable ideals, and to suggest remedies for some of the direct evils to which public education is now exposed. It is somewhat difficult for me to summon sufficient patience for the calm consideration of this subject, in view of the officious impertinence of the politician on the one hand, and the apathy of the good citizen on the other. But it seems clear that if the selfsame good citizen is ever to be roused to an appreciation of his duties and his rights in the premises, it must be through the utterances of some one else than the partisan politician.

It is true that many other unworthy influences operate in the employment and retention of incompetent teachers ; but all other influences, either inside or outside the profession, dwindle into insignificance when compared with the baleful effects of partisan politics. It is natural, therefore, that in any discussion looking toward practical results in rendering the teacher’s tenure more secure and the teacher’s career more attractive, practical politics as a factor in school elections and appointments should receive a large share of attention. Yet before this phase of the subject can be adequately treated certain ideals must be explained, to serve as standards of comparison when forces external to the profession are to be considered.

In the first place, the good of the profession requires that persons of special ability and adaptation shall be selected as teachers, and that these persons, after having received a liberal scholastic training, shall prepare themselves for the work by a thorough course in the science and the art of teaching. The schools in this country that have attracted attention through the excellence of their work have enforced a standard whose lowest limit includes a course of study equivalent to high school work for four years, supplemented by a normal school course of one or two or three years, or the equivalent of this preparation gained in that dearer but still more effective school, experience. It is highly desirable, too, that the inducements to enter the primary and grammar grades be made sufficiently great, to lead college-bred men and women to turn their attention to this work, especially in the administrative and supervisory tasks of elementary education, in which their riper scholarship and fuller discipline could make themselves felt for good throughout the corps. To achieve this end, not only must the tenure of these teachers be made more safe, but the conditions for promotions within the ranks must be such as to secure certain recognition for unusual scholarship and administrative or teaching ability, without too much stress on length of service as a factor in advancement. Somewhat in proportion to the enlargement of horizon by liberal education do teachers dislike to be made dependent for appointment and successive promotions upon school boards, whose members, almost without exception, are without due respect for scholarship and are unfriendly to advanced professional training. Tosecure for any community, then, the best graduates of the colleges and normal schools, and to retain the services of these persons in the most vital parts of the school system, some inducement as yet practically untried must be found. A long stride in this direction will have been made when professionally trained superintendents shall have the power to select teachers, and to assign them to the grades for which, all things considered, they are best adapted.

All promotions to places of responsibility should in like manner be made by the superintendent, — alone if in a small city, together with his assistants if in a city so large as to require assistants. Let the deciding power, in such case, rest with those professionally trained for this work, and teachers will soon come to recognize the justness of the method; and they will prefer to risk their professional advancement in the hands of those capable of appreciating real success rather than with a school committee or school board, whose members, though they be reputable citizens, are not capable of distinguishing between the true teacher and the veriest charlatan. Could teachers be assured that professional worth would be duly appreciated and suitably rewarded, they would the more zealously prepare themselves before entering upon the work, and more earnestly seize the opportunities of improvement which every good system of schools keeps within reach of its teachers.

I have no doubt that there are unjust and incompetent superintendents, supervisors, and principals ; but the number of those who will prostitute their office to the service of their prejudices is relatively so small as not to be taken into account, while their ability to judge of professional merit in teaching is so far beyond that of the average committeeman or member of a school board as not to allow of comparison. Were professionally competent persons thus made the sole judges of competency, whether the custom be supported by statute or by the higher law of common consent of school board and community, teachers would be quick to see its benefits.

It has often been argued that after all these advantages of tenure have been secured for women teachers, a large proportion of them will marry, and abandon the profession after a short term of service, leaving their places to be filled by beginners; and that thus the average term of service is not determined by internal reasons, but by matters entirely outside the profession. There is some show of truth in the argument. But in my judgment it is a sufficient answer to say that long average tenure of service is not the sole object in view ; for the main purpose is to give teachers security and serenity, so that they will prepare themselves better before entering the profession, and devote themselves more exclusively and happily to the work while they remain in it. Should the teacher, after a reasonable term of service, marry and leave the work, she goes out into the community carrying with her a respect for the public school and a belief in its efficiency that will be scarcely less valuable in the family and in the community than it was in the schoolroom. Our public school system is too new yet to reap in full the advantages of the increased public respect due from the second and third generation of those who have loved and served the public schools.

It is common, also, to repeat the wornout theory that our teaching force will always be transient as long as so large a proportion of our teachers are women. It has recently been shown that the States having the largest ratio of women teachers have also the longest average term of service of teachers (as well as the best schools), and that the mean average length of service of teachers has until now been greatly lowered by the presence of men in the work who do not intend to make teaching a profession or a career, but who use it merely as a stepping-stone to some business or to another profession. The course that I am recommending would have the effect, I believe, of ridding the profession of these time-servers, and of introducing a larger ratio than heretofore of men who will make teaching, including supervising and superintending, a career ; and better yet, of calling into the profession a class of men of larger native endowment, more complete adaptation to the profession, and more liberal scholarship than we find among those who teach temporarily.

There remains another point to consider. — how to get rid of incompetent, non - progressive, or negligent teachers. Self-respecting teachers cannot remain satisfied to work side by side with teachers who are held in their places by reasons foreign to the profession. The tribunal which discharges the incompetent must be of the same professional type as has herein been advocated for the selection and promotion of teachers, and its decision must be absolute and final. No procedure will more quickly improve the morale of the teaching force than the fearless discharge of unworthy members by the proper and competent authority. It must be made certain that no influences whatever can be relied upon to retain a position except the worthy work of the teacher. Let this be once established in any city, and one of the most vexatious causes of stagnation in city schools will have been removed.

To recapitulate : there are three important functions in the management of a corps of teachers, in any system of schools, which cannot be safely vested in non-professional hands: the selection, appointment, and assignment of teachers ; the promotion of teachers to fill vacancies occurring in the more important positions ; the discharge of unworthy, incompetent, or non-progressive teachers.

Members of school boards are usually chosen on account of other reasons than their professional knowledge of school work. They are manifestly not the competent professional authority here advocated. The creation of the office of superintendent is a recognition of the need of an executive officer who is an expert in this very work which the members of the board are unfit, through lack of training, to perform. Having, then, provided an expert executive officer, it is absurd not to allow him to use his expert knowledge in the highest interest of the schools ; and yet I venture the assertion that in a very large proportion of counties, towns, and cities the superintendent is a superintendent only in name. In my own judgment, the proper method is to give to the superintendent (either by statute, or by the common consent of the school board as the legal authority and the community as the interested party, preferably the former) full power to appoint, promote, and discharge teachers, and to hold him strictly to account for but one thing, — good schools. Select a capable man for superintendent, give him adequate power, and require results. The possession of power will make him conservative ; and the concentration of power in his hands will make it easy to hold him accountable for results. Appoint the superintendent for an indefinite period, but be sure to reserve a means of getting rid of him for incompetence or malfeasance in office. Of course it is plain that since the superintendent is the highest expert in the system, he must be immediately responsible to a non-professional body, the school board or the school committee. This must be frankly admitted as a defect. But it may as well be admitted further that, with our present democratic tendencies, there must somewhere be accountability to the people; and the work of a superintendent is of a kind that can be better explained and better made to appeal to the non-professional mind than the work of the teacher. It is clear to my mind that by this means the effect of non-professional judgment is reduced to its minimum ; and while the system will for a while doubtless result in frequent dismissals of superintendents, it will not in all these cases result in the disorganization of the corps of teachers, certainly not if the same power be immediately conferred upon the new head officer. Indeed, if the superintendent bad the power herein advocated, he could soon develop a system of schools which should go far toward preventing his discharge for any except the gravest reasons. In any event, it seems necessary to require the superintendent to be the instrument in securing for teachers a reasonable tenure of office, even though he be occasionally offered up on the altar as a vicarious sufferer for the more fortunate members of the force. The conditions here explained are in practical operation in many places, notably in the two cities of Indianapolis and Cleveland, in one of which the superintendent, by sufferance of the school board and by the glad consent of the people, exercises every function here described, while in the other such power is conferred upon him by statute.

Before giving a detailed account of these instances it will be instructive to examine the “ confessions ” referred to by Dr. Hall in the March number of The Atlantic Monthly. Such confessions could not have been made by the members of any other profession. It is difficult to decide which is the more startling, the innocent acceptance of the situation by teachers and superintendents, or the depth of cupidity and cold-blooded selfishness manifested by the partisan politicians, and even by members of school boards. It seems strange that people who are apparently honest in other social relations will deliberately conspire to secure the appointment and the retention of persons as teachers who are known to be incompetent to perform the service implied in the contract. That these persons are not clearly conscious of the enormity of their crime is shown by the naïve way in which they sometimes offer, as reasons for employment, incidents and qualifications in no way related to the work of teaching. In my own term of service as superintendent, I have had persons insist upon the engagement of individuals as teachers on one or more of the following grounds: the applicant belongs to a good family, has high social standing, is of a scholarly turn of mind, has always wished to be a teacher, has had a reverse of fortune, has failed in other fields of endeavor, has friends who are taxpayers. In some instances, poverty has been assigned as an incontestable qualification ; while in a few cases, ill health, debarring the applicant from entering upon hard labor, has been offered as an imperative reason for immediate employment as a teacher in the public schools. While these confessions make a mild showing in favor of all these reasons, they concentrate about two. I refer to the influence of church membership and that of partisan politics. Church influence assumes two forms, one of which is more respectable than the other, but both are baleful. The appointment of a fellow-member of a church is asked, irrespective of competency from an educational point of view, and the employment of competent teachers who happen to belong to some other church is discouraged. The confessions before me bewail most bitterly the prevalence of both of these influences, but especially that form of sectarian bigotry which cannot find value in the work of any teacher who does not attend “ our church.” Such sentences as these are taken somewhat at random from among many which might be cited :

“ If a man is not an attendant at the prevailing church, he cannot succeed in holding his position here.” ” An unseen church influence often decides the case.” “ A church broil unseated my predecessor.” “ Teachers here must be of a certain church denomination.” “ The Methodist church meddles with school matters more than any other denomination here.” “ To hold your place in a Democratic community, you must be a Democrat; if these Democrats are principally Baptists, you must be a Baptist too.” “ There is a contention between Catholics and non-Catholics. The teachers of opposing denominations are dismissed by the opposite party without consideration of competency. Occasional islands “ lift their fronded palms ” above the almost universal deluge. One superintendent writes : “ Although our board is A. P. A., one Catholic teacher is so competent and popular that they have not dared to remove her. I have had close relations with many school boards, and I must say that I have never known any other case of like forbearance.” Another puts it vividly: “ A teacher’s position is very much dependent upon church relations.” Still another says: “ Political influence has but little weight here, but church influences are strongly felt.” One may indeed well ask in what state of darkness a man must be who can consent to regard membership in a special church as a fitting qualification for appointment to a position in the public schools ! It is true that he deludes himself with the idea that he does not give membership as a reason ; he says, “other things being equal;” but other things never are equal. It results finally in making it appear that other things are so nearly equal that his candidate must receive consideration. The friends of the public schools must begin a crusade against church sentimentalism, until clergymen and members of the churches will allow competency to teach in the public schools to be tested by the regular standards of professional worth.

But the highest measure of just execration must be reserved for partisan political interference with the interests of the public schools. It is upon this point that our confessions converge most sharply. A superintendent in one of the Eastern States writes : “ Nearly all the teachers in our schools get their positions by what is called ‘ political pull.’ It they secure a place and are not backed by political influence, they are likely to be turned out. Our drawing teacher recently lost her position for this reason.” One writes from the South : “ Most places depend on politics. The lowest motives are often used to influence ends.” A faint wail comes from the far West: “ Positions are secured and held by the lowest principles of corrupt politicians.” Another writer says : “ The teachers of this place have practically no protection from political demagogues. Not only is political influence used directly, but it is made to reach out through all other avenues. They must trade with the merchants, bank with the bankers, take treatment of the doctors, consult with the lawyers, and connive with the politicians of the dominant party.” “ No teacher with us feels secure except those who are of the same political faith as the ‘ powers that be,’” is written by a resident of the Atlantic slope. “ The public schools of this city are partisan political schools.” writes another. “Politicians wage a war of extermination against all teachers who are not their vassals,” comes from the Rocky Mountains. “ Our board is politically corrupt. The members voted to put out the principal of the high school because he was of the opposite political party ; they put in one of their political friends who had a pull,” is the complaint from the Pacific slope.

There seems really to be no geographical limit. A pestilence will sometimes confine itself to certain doomed regions, and when the poison has run its course it will subside ; politics never so confines itself and never subsides. Appointments are made, promotions secured, removals effected, on the basis of a political auction. “ How many votes can you control for me when I become candidate for mayor? ” seems to be the test question in mathematics required in many places. Sometimes payment has already been made, and the appointment of a friend is taken as the settlement of the account to date. The situation staggers belief. No one seems to grasp its real significance. It would be a serious problem if it were simply plundering the public treasury. Its evil would be beyond computation if it extended no farther than the corrupting, humiliating, and degrading of the men and women who teach in the schools, and who, though they are infinitely the superiors of the political bosses, must submit to the most galling indignities, or cease to follow their chosen profession. But the real enormity of the crime begins to dawn upon us when we consider that these political tricksters, who give positions to incompetent teachers in return for political support from the friends of such teachers, steal from defenseless children. The horrible accumulation of social consequences would appall us if it resulted only in deformed bodies and wasted intellectual energies. But the inevitable consequence of incompetence in the schoolroom is spiritual death to the children, the dwarfing of all noble purposes, the paralyzing of all high effort, the destruction of all elevated ideals, the gradual obliteration of all that makes life worth living. Herod killed the innocents, as he doubtless thought, to protect his throne. The modern politician murders the children for mere gain ; and it does not seem to make much difference that his own children are among the number. Partisan politics is the most horrible curse that ever spread its blighting influence over the public schools.

Light breaks through slight rifts in the clouds, giving a glimpse of what may be if this dark pall shall ever be lifted. One teacher writes : “ I believe our teachers are secure while efficient. I have never known any attempt to remove the best teachers.” Another says : “ Politics has never in any way affected our schools.” I have known several places where political influence has been practically removed from the educational side of school affairs. In two cities with which I am especially well acquainted, similar results have been achieved by two very different methods. My references to these cities as examples will necessarily require statements of a personal nature, from my intimate connection with both movements. The end of pertinent concrete illustration has seemed to me to justify the personal references.

Indianapolis and Cleveland have each a system of schools in which the teaching corps is fairly removed from the influence of politics, and professional conditions control, in the main, the tenure of office of the teachers. But the two instances differ widely as to the methods by which this result has been brought about.

The Indianapolis school system was founded and developed by educational experts, with relatively little assistance from the community. Whatever variations in detail have been brought into the work by the successive superintendents, one uniform policy has obtained in this respect. Whatever mistakes have been made have been mistakes incident to educational work, and not in general to outside interference. Whatever excellencies have been wrought out — and they have been many — have been patiently wrought out through intelligent and conscientious leadership and a faithful, loyal, and thoroughly trained corps of teachers. The distinguishing feature has been the fact that superintendents, supervisors, and teachers have, in their professional capacity, held the respect and confidence of the community to such an extent as to preclude in the public mind any tolerance of non-professional interference in the tenure of office. The superintendents have in succession, each in his own way, been leaders in pedagogical thought and practice, and the teachers, with some exceptions, have loyally preferred to submit their professional standing and treatment to the educational executive rather than to appeal, through any of the arts of political, sectarian, or social intrigue, to the board of education. The foundation for this condition was laid in the very organization of the schools. The man first elected to the superintendency, and charged with the permanent organization of a city school system, made it clear as a cardinal principle of action that he was to be regarded as an educational expert; and that if his services were accepted at all, it must be on the ground of his capability to organize and to carry forward the work of the educational side of a public school system. For eleven years he labored assiduously ; securing necessary legislation, selecting the best teachers, organizing and grading the schools, encouraging successful teachers, discharging incompetent ones, until he had established a system of schools, outlined a course of study, developed a loyalty to high purposes among his teachers, and in many ways set a high standard of educational achievement. He established a successful city normal school when such schools were few, and laid stress on thoroughness in professional training to a degree which I have never seen equaled in any other school of its kind. He was a born executive, a capable leader of teachers, but never a teacher of teachers. He had educational ideals, but he could not teach these directly to his teachers. He succeeded in finding teachers who could to some extent work them out in the schoolroom. He then held these realized ideals up as object lessons to the others.

This method was calculated to foster intensity of effort, ruggedness and vigor of method, fierce competition, and far too high an opinion of tangible results. But these were the faults of the youth of the system ; and it must be granted that the high purposes, enthusiastic loyalty, and large capacity for work which the superintendent developed in the corps of teachers made an excellent foundation on which his successors could the more easily and surely erect the superstructure of an organic teaching force. His immediate successor was a scholarly, thoughtful man, who was a true teacher of teachers. He liberalized and organized the course of study, and taught the teachers how to teach it. He pursued courses of psychological and pedagogical reading with his teachers, and set every one upon his honor to do the best he could for the children. While the fierce competitive struggle among the teachers was not in any sense abandoned, a new end in education was set up, and less rigid attention to externals was required. This period was one of enthusiastic study of education in its broadest principles, The superintendent’s leadership was mental and moral, developing a taste for philosophic and literary studies among the teachers of the city that has remained to the present time. His good work was done so unobtrusively that some members of the board wondered if he were doing anything ; but those of us who were in his corps of teachers understood him, and felt the inspiration of Ids presence and work. With no special interest in external organization and little disposition to explain to outsiders his plans and motives, he encountered some opposition from members of the school board ; but he was supported by the majority and by the teachers and the public, and the principles for which he contended were well sustained.

The third superintendent brought to the work organizing power of a high order, connected with scholarly habits. He further modified the course of study, improved the general organization of the schools, preserved and extended the studious habits of teachers, and especially gave tone and efficiency to the work of individual teachers. There was manifested about this time some inclination among members of the board to assume the rights guaranteed them by law of controlling appointments of teachers in their districts, rather than to obey the unwritten law which had generally obtained of affirming the judgment of the superintendent. But the movement was more or less condemned by the general public, and was looked upon with great disfavor by the teachers of the city ; always excepting the limited few who preferred to secure and retain their positions and standing by wheedling the members of the school board rather than by rendering acceptable service in their profession. There was more or less feeling of uncertainty during the early part of this administration, but things grew better as time went on ; and the six years of his work must be reckoned a period of great general progress in the schools. They were attracting public attention for the general excellence of their work, and a devoted band of students of the science and art of teaching had grown up in the corps of teachers. Twenty-one years of development had passed since the first definite organization of the school system was begun, and maturity and permanence had become visible. Necessary school legislation had been obtained ; a central supervisory force had been established, reinforced by district supervision. The city normal training school had become securely fixed in the confidence of the educational authorities and the general public as well. A superintendent of primary instruction, continued in office through three administrations, had developed unusual excellence in the work of the lower grades. The important principle announced by the founders of the system, that educational matters should be judged and decided by educational experts, though often temporarily overridden, had on the whole been fairly sustained.

It was at this juncture that I succeeded to the superintendency of the schools in Indianapolis. I was familiar with all the struggles by which they had risen to their enviable position ; and I felt that if a further advance was to be made, it must be through a still more pronounced and vigorous policy. Giants in the educational world had preceded me, and if I were to survey the field with accurate view I must stand on their shoulders. I had studied the situation carefully for ten years, from a position too near, however, to give me the requisite perspective. From my new position I was able to see with a truer vision. I assumed at once all the rights that had been claimed by my predecessors in reference to the educational side of the system, and extended them in some directions. I believed that it was my right as well as my duty, in the new office, to appoint, promote, transfer, or discharge teachers as the case demanded, reporting my action to the board for legal confirmation. I consulted freely with the various committees of the board ; but whenever questions as to teachers and courses of study arose, I assumed that members of the board would not think of deciding questions concerning which they could not have the knowledge, but that, as an educational expert and the executive officer of the board, it was part of my official duty to attend to all matters requiring definite professional knowledge. I said but little in public about my plans, but I took occasion to explain my ideals quite in detail to individual members of the board whenever opportunity offered. Some were already in accord with my views ; others became so upon explanation ; while a few members were anxious to resume the spoils or patronage system to which they had been accustomed in politics. During the first few years of my administration the close of each school year brought with it the inevitable struggle ; and many times I was threatened with failure of reëlection unless I would become subservient to individual members in the matter of appointments, assignments, promotions, and discharge of teachers. My invariable reply was that while I was allowed to continue in office my authority must be commensurate with my responsibility. I think it was chiefly a wholesome fear of public opinion that made these politicians yield rather than press the matter to an open rupture.

While this line of action was carried on with the school board, there was an attempt to pursue a just and vigorous policy with the teachers. Professional study was encouraged ; self-improvement among teachers was rewarded by promotion ; incompetent teachers were discharged ; and a belief was established among the teaching force that professional capability and faithful devotion to the public service would result in appropriate recognition. A unity of purpose and action throughout the schools was brought about by organizing all the supervisors and principals into a pedagogical society for professional study and discussion. Stated written examinations were abolished, and more rational methods of promotion of pupils were adopted. A spirit of mutual helpfulness was encouraged, in place of the competitive struggle for supremacy which had too long been allowed. The superintendent tried to be a leader and an inspirer of the teachers rather than a mere carping critic. The expected changes came about slowly ; it was a process of evolution rather than of revolution. Teachers became more liberal in their ideas of management, more scholarly and capable in their teaching, and more hopeful of their own progress. An intenser interest in childhood was developed, and a better view of education was enforced.

The teachers were convinced that the tests put upon their work were at last professional; that the power of appointment, promotion, transfer, and discharge was exercised in fact by the superintendent and his assistants ; and that the action of the board was merely that of legal confirmation. As the years went by, the lists of appointments and assignments were made out by the superintendent, after full consultation with teachers, supervisors, and principals, and confirmed by the board without change. It was the climax of a progressive movement extending through thirty years. No other principle ever striven for in the schools of Indianapolis did so much good as that one did, namely, the principle of practically removing the entire control of the teaching force from the hands of the members of the school board, and placing the tenure of the teachers upon a professional merit basis. All other reforms ever made there were small as compared with this one, since this was at the base of all the others. The teachers of Indianapolis have suffered under many trying limitations. They have worked on meagre salaries, and in many instances supplied apparatus and appliances out of the money thus received. But through it all they have preserved their professional spirit, their enthusiastic loyalty, and their heroic devotion. They have at last compelled the respect of a community that has been too slow in its appreciation of their self-sacrificing endeavors. More than to anything else this result is due to the fact that the school board permitted the school people to conduct in their own way the educational side of school affairs. Whatever sins this board may have to answer for (and I confess I do not think it has always been perfect), I am thankful that through ten busy, anxious years I was allowed by it to set the educational standards, and to plan the movements by which these educational ideals were year by year realized. It cost many hours of explanation and argument to secure the privilege, but I have never regretted the time so spent. It was often the case that new members elected to the board came in with the idea of gaining a reputation for reforming things generally, especially of applying to school - teachers the practices of political party patronage. It frequently took much of the time and strength of the superintendent, which he should have spent in improving the schools, to disabuse members of the notion that they were fitted to appoint and remove teachers in the public schools. There were, however, always a few members of the board who stood four square to all the political winds that blew, and strongly upheld my hands in every effort to make the educational side of the school work strictly professional.

One aspect of the work in Indianapolis was always difficult for me to account for in such way as to preserve my respect for human nature: stubborn objection, made by many of the young teachers and their friends, to the necessary criticism given by the helpers (or critics) in the normal practice schools, and by the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and supervisors after promotion to regular places in the corps of teachers. Throughout all the earlier years of the struggle for good schools, there was bitter opposition to the longcontinued and patient training required in the practice rooms of the normal school. Similar objection was made to the supervision given by assistant superintendents and supervisors, whenever this work was made sufficiently close and exacting to be of real value. While the same condition to some extent yet exists, there is now a large body of teachers who recognize the professional value of the painstaking work required of them in the earlier years of their teaching, and who rejoice in the perfection of their powers developed through strenuous exertion under honest, critical, and intelligent supervision.

But now the people of Indianapolis owe it to themselves, and to the teachers who have served them so faithfully, to secure needed legislation. They have been too willing to allow good schools to be produced for them, while they have lifted no finger in aid of the enterprise. They have in a way appreciated their excellent schools ; but they have allowed the school - teachers to fight the battle for better schools unaided and alone. The next legislature should be called upon to change the present law in two or three important particulars. It should separate the business department from the educational side of the public school work, and place the legal power of appointment and removal of teachers in the hands of the superintendent and his assistants ; it should require all members of the school board, and not five or seven at most, to be elected by the city at large, instead of by districts ; it should provide for more generous revenues. The city that restricts its expenditures for public education must increase its expenditures for police, judiciary, and penal institutions.

Cleveland, on the other hand, is a city in which, to a considerable extent, the people have been alive to the interests of public education. Originally settled by New England people, who believed that intelligence and morality are foundation - stones that must always be placed under any civic structure which is expected to endure, the city early looked to the matter of public schools. Cleveland founded the first public high school of any consequence west of the Alleghanies. At first and for many years, the people and the teaching and supervising force worked in harmony, with singleness of purpose ; and the result was a system of public education which commanded the respect of the whole people at home, and challenged the admiration of those engaged in school work throughout the country. But as time went on, politicians sought places on the school board. The teaching force was gradually subjected to non - professional restrictions, and political reasons superseded professional competency as conditions of employment. Finally, the people, led by a few representative citizens of both political parties, secured from the State radical legislation, overthrowing entirely the political influences which had prostituted the public schools to partisan ends. The so-called Reorganization Act, better known abroad as the Cleveland School Plan, is in many respects the most advanced school legislation now upon the statute books of any city or State in this country. Its central principle is that of fixing definitely the responsibility for good schools upon certain officials, and guaranteeing to them authority commensurate with their responsibilities. Almost equally fundamental is the idea that the educational work shall be done by professionally trained persons, members of the school board having no direct function or part in the appointment, promotion, or discharge of teachers.

The Act itself is very brief. It provides for a school council of seven members, elected by the city at large, each for a term of two years. The functions of this body are purely legislative ; such as fixing salaries of teachers, determining upon location of schoolhouses, purchasing grounds, adopting textbooks. The law provides further for an executive officer known as the school director, upon whom is placed the responsibility of conducting the executive phases of the business side of the school work. He and the school council constitute the board of education. He appoints the necessary employees in his department, builds the schoolhouses, directs janitors in the care of buildings, supplies fuel and necessary appliances and apparatus, and acts generally as business agent of the board of education. The law also invests him with the power, and imposes upon him the duty, to appoint a superintendent of instruction, should a vacancy occur in that office; and he holds by statute the right to remove such officer, “ for sufficient cause,” at any time. But it is in its provisions with reference to the powers and duties of the superintendent of instruction that the law is most radical and progressive. This officer is clothed by statute with the power to appoint, assign, promote, transfer, or discharge teachers without interference in any particular from either the director or school council, except that he must receive direction from the latter as to the number of teachers he may employ and the compensation which may be paid them. The superintendent is held directly responsible for good schools, and for this reason he has complete control of the teaching force. It is an instance of vast responsibility and adequate authority. While superintendent of the Indianapolis schools I exercised practically every function which I now perform in the Cleveland schools, but there it was by sufferance of the school board, while here it is by sanction of the law. The advantages of the latter condition are manifest in many directions, especially in the expeditious management of a large mass of business and the prompt adjustment of the teaching force in cases of emergency. But the chief advantage of all is in the definitely professional standard set for the efficient control and direction of the teaching force. This phase of the case deserves a brief explanation.

The plan has been in operation nearly four years. My predecessor occupied the position for two years, resigning to accept still more desirable work. Upon receiving the appointment under the new law, he selected a competent corps of supervisors, who in function are assistant superintendents. These supervisors, of whom there are five, are practically a board of advisers as well as executive assistants to the superintendent. Through the aid of these officers and on his own judgment, the superintendent of instruction has from time to time made such adjustments and promotions among the members of the force as seemed to be in the interest of the schools, and has discharged a considerable number of those who for any reasons have been found inefficient. No teachers have been lowered in rank or discharged without the concurrent judgment of the supervisors: so that the teacher’s have the security of being judged by as many persons as would constitute a small school board, with the added advantage that each one so judging is professionally competent, and is precluded from rendering judgment upon anything except competency. The result thus far has been a great increase in the general efficiency of the teaching force, a development of a professional tendency and spirit among the teachers, an increased interest in professional study, and a marked general improvement in the morale of the entire body. The fierce competition for promotion has been reduced to honorable effort for deserved recognition. Applicants for positions in the corps present to the superintendent evidences of their professional fitness, and rarely urge unworthy reeasons. There have not been wanting teachers who have been greatly dissatisfied with the rulings of the superintendent’s department, but the number has been small relatively. The teachers feel a greater security in a professional tribunal than in a non-professional one, and it does not require that they spend any time in defending themselves against the wiles of the politician. The fact that the majority are fairly satisfied with the tenure of position was recently shown in an emphatic manner. They rejected by secret ballot an offer to secure for them a permanent tenure of office through a bill to be presented to the state legislature. It is true that this clause was connected with an objectionable pension feature ; but had many of the teachers felt any great fear for their tenure of position, they would have accepted the objectionable pension feature in order to secure the permanent tenure.

But the politician feels really neglected. Like Othello, his occupation is gone. Like Othello, further, he contemplates murder. However, the people are wideawake, and will not allow the schools to pass back into the hands of the partisan politician. In the election which was recently held, the people elected to a third term as school director the man who has so wisely and creditably administered that office since the law was enacted. His campaign, both in the nomination by his own party and in the general election, was based squarely upon the theory of efficiency in the office as the test, without reference to political relations and methods. Other good men made the canvass for the nomination, but they could plead only that, since it was a political office, it was time to pass it around. The people did not think so. They elected the present director by a majority six times as great as that by which he was first elected to the same office. Notice has thus been given that the public schools of Cleveland are not in the future to be considered as subject to the damning influences of partisan politics. It is a great achievement in the interests of public education when so practical a step has been taken in a matter of such vital interest to the public schools.

It now remains for Cleveland to take one more advanced position. The most excellent law which has proved its right to exist yet needs to be amended in at least two particulars. Arrangements should be sought whereby the nomination for school director and members of the school council shall be made upon some other basis than a party platform; and the teachers’ tenure of office should be extended in such a way as not to require annual notice of continuance. These amendments would make the law wellnigh perfect. In the mean time, the people of Cleveland must remember that good laws will not administer themselves. Eternal vigilance is as necessary in school affairs as in any other department of human activity. The people must elect to school offices only those persons who have in other important affairs proved themselves competent and trustworthy, because to these people are entrusted the dearest interests of childhood and the future prosperity and wellbeing of Cleveland.

L. H. Jones.