Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/128



118 JOHN C. ALMACK

Upon this recommendation, Monmouth and Weston were granted their second appropriations.

Two years later Ashland and Drain 23 pushed their claims for support. The latter school was particularly fortunate in having a supporter in the senate in the person of Senator Reed. The founder of the village was also a man of considerable political influence. The original appropriation bill gave Ash- land $12,500 and excluded Drain. Through the influence of Senator Reed 24 a special committee of the house and the senate was appointed to visit the normals and report on their con- ditions and needs. A favorable report was rendered on all. On the final passage of the Ashland appropriation measure, an amendment was added giving Drain $5,000 and Ashland $7,500. In rather a whimsical manner, President Anderson, of Drain, put the needs of his school before the legislature :

"If the state expects the child of its own creation to be strong and healthy, it should supply it with the same kind and quantity of nourishment it has given to other offspring of like nature. We cannot keep pace with the others with- out state aid."

Separate boards of regents of nine members each were pro- vided, and the schools transferred the title to their holdings to the state. Oregon then had four state normals, drawing state aid.

The course of the normal schools was not even then a smooth one. Opposition and criticisms were springing to

23 Senator Reed of Drain introduced the bill giving Drain normal an appro- priation, and steered it through the senate. During the same time, E. V. Carter of Ashland had put the Ashland bill through the house. When the Ashland normal school bill appeared in the senate, Reed asked to have it referred to the com- mittee on fisheries, of which he was chairman. His colleagues jocosely concurred, thinking 1 the senator from Drain wanted to kill the measure. With the Ashland bill in his pocket, Reed called upon Carter and said: "This bill will never see the light again unless you get the Drain normal school bill through the house." An agreement was thereupon concluded and both schools given aid.

24 The state superintendent in his report, 1898, makes the following recom- mendation: "The (normals) at Weston and Monmouth are organized under special legislation, the governor being authorized to appoint the boards of regents, and to these school appropriations have been made. The other two (Drain and Ashland) are simply permitted to prosecute their work under tuitional and private support, and to their graduates the state board of education is to issue diplomas of the same degree as those granted to graduates of normals controlled and owned by the state.

. It is therefore a fact that the normal schools without state aid must necessarily be crippled in their work. To maintain existence even they are com- pelled to resort to various means to increase attendance, and there is great tempta- tion to present a limited curriculum that the short and easy course may induce attendance, the main object of many being the obtaining of a state diploma, real merit and ability to teach being a secondary matter. This course cannot long continue without awakening criticism, and it is also detrimental to the teaching force. The logic of the situation is that there should be one taken under the care of the state."