Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/138



128 JOHN C. ALMACK

ways and means in the house had recommended one normal to be located at Monmouth, and had approved an appropriation for it of $110,000. Three days later the same paper gave its readers the statement that:

"In the house old time trades with normal school forces have been resumed with even more boldness than at preced- ing sessions. When the normal schools had to have votes to pass their three bills carrying $318,000 they got them from Eastern Oregon. So strong do the normal members think themselves, that they are threatening senate bills unless the senate shall provide for their schools."

C. N. McArthur, speaker of the house, was for the normals. In the fight in the house he defended the small enrollment in the normals by saying that the attendance would be much larger but for the fact of the "rotten policies this state has assumed towards these schools, which have been made political footballs without any consideration for their usefulness from an educational viewpoint." On this point the Eugene Register said on February 12th :

"There were only 285 students enrolled in the normals last year, so the taxpayers are the chief sufferers, while normal school education under such a scattering regime cannot reach the high state of efficiency necessary to place it on a high plane."

Introducing a remedy for the normal school issue, the Regis- ter on February 19th says:

"The normals plunge the state into extravagance, lower the standards of our state schools, cause them to fight for the meager appropriations they do get, and it will continue as long as our educational institutions stay in politics up to their eyes. ... A certain per cent of state tax ought to be set aside for each school."

New plans for bringing the deadlock between the house and the senate to an end began to appear. Representative Buchanan of Douglas introduced a bill dividing the state into five districts with a normal school in each. Portland under