The Baltimore County Union

Our School System.

A convention of Public School officers was held in Baltimore city, on the 7th and 8th days of December, 1869, at which a series of resolutions were passed, headed by a preamble declaring 'the main features of the present school law, worthy of the confidence and support of the people of Maryland,' yet it is capable of being amended so as to adapt it more completely to the wants of the community.

That convention appointed seven gentlemen, a committee, to visit Annapolis and present their recommended changes to the consideration of the Legislature, through its committee on education.

We believe that committee of seven has discharged its duties in that respect.

The committee's first recommendation is 'that a State Board of Education should be appointed with general supervisory powers.'

We consider this recommendation an exceedingly wholesome one; and without the aid and supervision of some such department in our public school system it must fail to fill the full measure of its usefulness.

The Legislature of 1865 gave us the first school law whose jurisdiction covered the entire State, or assumed a State importance. In that law the State Board of Education was made the head and front of the system.

That system, though faulty in several respects, was based upon the correct idea so far as the State School Board was concerned. Being aware of many objections that were advanced against that portion of the system at the time, and knowing that the opposition thus manifested was directed more against the individuals composing that board, and their action in the discharge of their duties, than against the provisions of the system itself, though the individuals who gave that opposition may not be altogether conscious of the motives that prompted it, and without undertaking to discuss the merits or demerits of the charges thus made against the members of that Board of Education, we assert that its existence was not without its fruits.

Under that system this Board had 'supervision and control of Public Instruction' throughout the State, and 'supervised all colleges and schools that receive any State donation, or are incorporated by Act of the General Assembly' and exercised a controlling influence over the schools calculated, when the prejudice and excitement incident to the rebellion had died away, to inspire an enthusiasm among the people, concerning the public schools throughout the State.

That Board of Education (through one of its members the State Superintendent of Public Instruction,) visited the counties of the State annually, inspecting schools, delivering addresses, collecting statistics, and diffusing information tending to the improvement of instruction throughout the State.

This feature of our school system was put on trial just long enough to let it take a cursory survey of the field of its labors, and collect information enough, relating to the requirements of the people, to give it a good footing for usefulness. This was necessarily the case as it was entirely new with us. The Board had no example or precedent held up before them in the discharge of their duties, whose successes they might imitate or whose mistakes and blunders they might see and avoid.

They were pioneers in the movement, and were compelled 'to break the track' in the best way they could and with whatever material they had at hand.

The best system possible (not condemning the one in question,) under such circumstances, could not do more than get ready to prove its efficiency, during the time it was in operation.

The Legislature of 1868 abolished, however, this system of Public Instruction, and made provision for another. In other words, they attempted to run a State School machinery by the impotency of the body of the system of 1865, with its head taken off. This headless creature has been groping in the dark for the past two years, thereby discovering its inability to discharge the duties required at its hands; and to-day it is crying aloud to the Legislature to restore its controlling power—its head—by the creation of a 'State Board of Education' 'with general supervisory powers.'

We trust the Assembly will respond to this request by immediately re-heading our Educational system in the broadest and most comprehensive sense of the term.

That head should not be one in name only. It should be a State Board of Education, clothed with all the powers and equipments necessary to render it equal to the task it will be called upon to perform.

We, however, differ from the committee, concerning their recommendations relative to the Board of County School Commissioners. We have always considered this appendage to a school system almost, if not entirely, useless.

Leaving the control of the schools in the hands of the Board of school commissioners, or in the district to the one commissioner of the district, is a mode that has become antiquated and the requisites of the times demand that in its place something better, more efficient, and more satisfactory to the people should be substituted.

That substitute should be something like the following:

Let the county examiner have general supervisory powers over the schools of the county. Let him hold stated examinations at which those wishing to teach shall be examined, and if found competent, furnished with a certificate, setting forth the character of the candidate's qualification in each branch respectively.

Let the patrons of each school be required to assemble at some stated time, yearly or half yearly, and elect three of their number school directors or trustees, whose duty it shall be to exercise a guardianship over the school and look after its material interest without pay. Let the existence of the school depend upon the amount of interest manifested in it by those most interested, then the evil (the unpopularity of the system, because the patrons have no voice in the school management,) will soon be remedied. The prevalent dissatisfaction will work out its own remedy.

You could not find a community in Baltimore county, at least, that would not show this much interest in the education of their children.

The people would then have the matter at their own disposal, and they alone would be responsible for any miscarriage that might occur.

In the 13th resolution the convention recommended 'that schools should be kept open three terms (seven and one-half months) during the year and that penalties should be provided so as to insure this result.'

This is certainly a laudable recommendation, and should be acquiesced in by the Assembly by bill securing this object.

The Legislature can, by a judicious reconstruction of the present law, give us a most efficient system of Public Schools. Such a system will be equal to all the requirements of the State.

We do not wish to be understood as finding fault with the officers of our present system of schools. It is the law, and some (the unsound ones of the recommendations of the convention to the General Assembly, that we impugn.)

We should have been much gratified to have seen a recommendation, emanating from that convention in connection with the others, asking that provision (better than the present,) be made for the education of the 175,000 people in our State whose education thus far has been provided for almost exclusively by voluntary contribution. Though the law gives them the school tax they pay into our treasuries, to be set apart for their education—though this is very well as far as it goes, we should be pleased to see our Legislature do something more. They have received $300 in Baltimore county, from our School Board, which is certainly a great advance and very gratifying, and praiseworthy in the Board. We think the State owes it to herself to do something for the education of this class of her citizens.

They have had schools for the past four years, costing $213,000—mainly contributed. The State has done a little. If it was right they should have that little, they should have more. If wrong, it should be taken from them.

The $165,000 uselessly expended the past year on our Militia and Oyster Navy, would go far to invigorate and vitalize our school system and do the fair thing to all without any increase of taxation.