teachers for campaign funds; unseemly intrigues, strifes, and bickering within the schools themselves by adherents of different parties; the son of some local heeler allowed to be habitually unruly, to the detriment of general school discipline, because the teacher fears for his position if he attempts to assert his authority-all these evils and more are feared by those who have seen the results when local politics has had undue influence.

Where there is a school board clothed with due authority, whose members are not influenced by political considerations, these things can not be. Hence the solicitation for a board "above politics."

The first boards were chosen at popular elections and the members were ward representatives. This has not always worked well. The local feeling in members has sometimes prevented them from appreciating any interests other than those of their own districts; local politicians of small caliber have crept in from out-of-the-way wards, and have made things very unpleasant in various ways. To avoid these things, in many cities the board is elected from the city at large and not as representatives of any particular locality. In other places the mayor of the city appoints the board, often with the advice and consent of the council. But, alas for human devices, instances have often occurred in which both these methods of election have proved to be as objectionable as ward elections, for there are big politicians as well as little politicians, and the big ones are no more disinterested than the little ones; the city machine may dictate the board members at large just as the ward machine may elect the board members from the wards. And mayors are not always above appointing their personal and political friends, even if they are not the most desirable men for the places; so these plans also have been discarded in some places, as in Philadelphia, where the board is appointed by the judges of the superior court, and in New Orleans, where they are in part appointed by the governor of the State and in part elected by the city council.

All of these schemes come from efforts to take the schools "out of politics." But after all there is but one way to do that, and that way is by the creation of a general sentiment demanding clean and honest administration of the schools, without regard for any consideration save their best good. With such a sentiment the worst law, apparently, may be satisfactory; without it the best law may fail. Examples to prove this are not hard to find. The law that relates to Savannah, Ga., would probably be the very last to be copied by a modern city school lawmaker. There we have a unique instance of a board that is a self-perpetuating close corporation, handling public funds, holding public property in their own corporate name, and managing public schools. This would be considered nowadays a very dangerous power to put in the hands of what is practically a private corporation; but the Savannah board was established in 1866, and during the entire thirty years that have passed no change has been made in the law

governing them save to extend the field of their operations. The members have usually been professional and business men, and have always been of high standing in the community. The list has embraced Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, but it appears that no action of the board has ever been tainted with a rea sonable suspicion of improper motives.

Washington, D. C., is often described as the best governed city in the United States, yet there is probably no place on the face of the earth where men are governed by written laws in which the laws themselves are in a more chaotic condition than in the District of Columbia. The laws that regulate the school trustees are past finding out, as the portion of this chapter which relates to the details of the Washington system shows. Nevertheless the schools are harmoniously and successfully conducted, and deservedly stand high among the systems of the country. Incidentally I might mention that the force of an adverse public sentiment has been sufficient to utterly overthrow two entirely different systems of government in the District within the last thirty years.

On the other hand, another city might be mentioned in which a half dozen reasonably good laws have been in force in the last thirty years and not one of them has succeeded in giving the city a system free from the evil eye of the politician. But until recently evidences of any general interest in the management of the schools were hard to find. A gentleman prominent during the last year or two in the agitation for school reform, according to his own account, had practiced law in the same city for twenty-six years before he had ever been conscious of seeing a public school building. His explanation of the unsatisfactory condition of the schools was that the indifference which he himself had felt was general among a very large proportion of the best class of citizens. If good citizens turn the administration of the laws over to schemers and self-seekers, how can even the best of statutes accomplish good results?

But while it is true that the public opinion behind a law is the principal factor in the success of its operation, the importance can not be overestimated of so constructing the statutes as to provide for those times which may come to any city when the public shall become less watchful through long security, or when the chosen officers shall be beguiled by influences not of the best.

SOME NOTABLE SYSTEMS.

In some cities that relic of rural school organization, the local trustee system, is still retained. In Hartford, Conn., the organization is nothing more nor less than that of every country township in the State, and a very complicated organization it is. The ward trustees are even more powerful in some respects in Pittsburg, Pa., than in Hartford, for there they may levy taxes for the purposes which they control, while

in Hartford the district taxes are laid in district meetings. The central board in Pittsburg have more complete control over the high school than do the school visitors of Hartford, but on the other hand the superintendent is appointed by the school visitors of the latter city, while all the trustees vote for the corresponding officer in the former. Philadelphia also retains its ward trustees, though their powers are somewhat less extensive than in Pittsburg.

In all three of these cities the central authorities examine and license teachers, while the local boards select and appoint them.

It has been only within the last few months that the local trustees were overthrown in New York City, and this year is the first in their history in which all the common schools have been controlled by a single board.

There are comparatively few plans of organization now in operation which are not the products of evolution, but in a few notable instances schemes have been brought into being and enacted into law which had little or no local precedent on which to build. The most conspicuous of these in late years has been the so-called "federal system" of Cleveland, Ohio. The provision of a legislative body without executive functions, and of a single executive officer who is directly and solely responsible to the people for the administration of the schools, are novelties in American city school organization, and up to this time the example of Cleveland remains unique. The plan has met with considerable favor. It received the indorsement of the subcommittee of five of the National Educational Association's famous committee of fifteen, and will undoubtedly influence school legislation in the future. Unquestionably as long as the director is a paragon and his principal appointee, the superintendent, is above criticism, such a system as this will be conspicuously successful. But time, and time alone, will show the results of one-man power in school management during revulsions of popular favor causing sudden radical changes, or relaxations of public watchfulness resulting in the election of men of doubtful fitness. These things sometimes occur and such possibilities must always be taken into consideration.

School district No. 1, Arapahoe County, Colo., which embraces the greater part of Denver, is another Minerva among school organizations, and its system has been widely copied, especially in the West, with modifications to suit local conditions. The school board is supremo in school matters and owns no allegiance to any other local authority. There are but six members, and two are elected each year for three years at a special election. In the twenty years that the system has been in operation it has been unusually successful. The policies of the board have been subjected to no sudden deleterious changes, and the progress of the schools have been uniform and consistent. But as Cleveland had only one director under its present system, so this district of has haut one superintendent, and that a strong man who

exercises great influence in shaping the course of the schools' affairs. In neither case, therefore, can the excellence of the schools be neces sarily ascribed to the system as such. To say that it was the system of organization that made it possible for these good men to retain their positions so long, and that therefore the system itself is responsible for the good schools, would be erroneous. Other superintendents now in office have held on for just as many years or more under systems that are conceded to be bad.

The present laws that relate to the school committee of Boston contain nothing especially remarkable, but their history is full of things which it would be well to avoid. The primary schools were managed prior to 1855 by a committee which had grown from 36 to 190 members. They filled their own vacancies and were generally a law unto themselves. At the same time there was a general school committee of 24 members, 2 elected by the people of each of the twelve wards, and when the primary school committee was abolished the general committee was increased to 72, or 6 members from each ward. With the annexation of more territory to the city the school committee grew to 116 members. It was so unwieldy as to interfere with the proper prosecution of business, and in 1875 the number was cut down to 24, elected from the city at large. They had formerly no authority to determine the location or character of the schoolhouses, that power being exercised by the city council until 1875. Then the school committee were given a voice in the matter, but the division of authority was equally unsatisfactory in practice, and in 1889 the entire control of the erection of buildings was turned over to the school committee, though the money must first be appropriated by the council.

The mayor is ex officio a member of the board of education in some places, as in Atlanta, Ga., and in others he is ex officio its president. The latter was formerly the case in Washington and in Boston. A rather unusual provision is made in a few cities, of which Rochester, N. Y., and Detroit, Mich., are examples, by which the approval of the mayor is necessary to acts of the board of education. In cases of this kind the board may generally override the mayor's veto by a two-thirds vote.

In one city in the United States there is a school system in which there is no school board, namely, Buffalo, N. Y. All school legislation there is done in the city council, and the city superintendent, an officer elected by the people, is the head of the city department of education. Though there is no exact parallel to the Buffalo plan of organization, there are other cities in which the school board is the creature of the city council and is so subordinate as to have no authority whatever save that which the council choose to delegate. Precisely this is the case in Atlanta, Ga. The mayor and council have legal authority to maintain a system of public schools and to "provid› for appropriate agencies to regulate, improvise, and carry on said system of schools and render the same efficient." All the rest is in their discretion. To

their credit be it said, however, the mayor and council have provided a board of education with very full powers, practically the only power retained being the appropriation of money. It is a matter of pride to the city that the board of education has always been composed of men of high character, that they have the hearty support of the rest of the city government, and that they are permitted to perform their duties without vexatious interference.

Substantially the same power over the schools is given to the council of Baltimore, Md., though the city school board is provided for by State law. The board of St. Paul, Minn., has been since 1891 constituted somewhat similarly, though their functions are more minutely specified by law. The St. Paul board have full power to appoint teachers and to divide between them the money appropriated for salaries, but in Baltimore nearly every act of the board may apparently be reviewed, altered, or annulled by the council.

The contrast between the Minneapolis and the St. Paul boards is striking. Though the two cities are practically one, on one side of the river that divides them the board has very large powers, even to the right to levy its own taxes, while on the other side the board is not even a corporation, and can not hold property.

CONTROL OF REVENUES.

The best criterion of the power of a school board is the degree of their independence in money matters. If they must prepare detailed estimates that may be refused as a whole or in any item by some other body, their functions are so restricted as to be almost entirely ministerial. They can not introduce any novelty or provide for any extension without the concurrence of the authority which holds the purse strings. This is usually the state of affairs, and as tending to conservatism and economy it has its advantages when a board develops an inclination to foster expensive fads. But that can seldom be charged; it more often happens that the board is deprived of funds urgently required to provide for the actual needs of the children in the way of buildings and teachers.

The powers of the Western cities in this respect are usually much more extensive than those of the East. St. Louis, Denver, and Minneapolis are types of cities whose school boards enjoy the right to levy whatever tax they require without submitting their estimates to any other body. The maximum that may be levied is, however, always limited by State law.

In Milwaukee, Wis., a variation is introduced by which the school board determines the amount of the levy unless the city council decide otherwise by a two-thirds vote. In Detroit all money asked by the board for current expenses must be granted if it does not exceed a certain fixed sum per pupil, but if that is not sufficient the council decides