Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/862

842 can be found combining the rare qualifications needed in a State Superintendent of Education; at the very best these qualifications can only be secured in a partial degree, but this makes it all the more necessary that no effort shall be spared to secure the best talent available for so responsible a trust. It is needless to say that this desirable object is impossible under the political régime into which our popular education has now passed. The superintendency of schools of the State of New York has become a foot-ball of partisan faction among the politicians of the New York Legislature. The former Superintendent resigned some weeks ago, to take a more profitable office; and the temporary incumbent of the place will vacate the office in April, to be succeeded by whomsoever the Legislature appoints. A crowd of applicants of all sorts are after the place, lobbying and intriguing in Albany by all the means that are necessary to secure "success" in the scramble for a desirable position. That a competent man will be appointed under these circumstances is virtually impossible, for no thoroughly competent and self-respecting man would enter the lists of competition under these circumstances. The appointee will win because he or his friends can beat all competition in the questionable arts by which politicians are influenced, and the result will be legitimate—a natural outcome of the system by which the instruction of the young has been brought under political and therefore, of course, under partisan control.

Another exemplification of the influence of politics upon education is seen in the "Blair Bill," which proposes that Congress shall make a gift of seventy-seven million dollars, to be divided among the States of the Union to help them maintain their schools. The success of the bill, as we write, is said to be uncertain; but, whether it pass or not, it has had so extensive a backing as to well illustrate the sort of influence which politicians would bring to bear upon education. The tendency to make education a charity, and to bring school-houses into the same category with poor-houses, is sufficiently strong; but this measure, by an audacious stretch of constitutional power, would give the stamp of nationality to the charity policy. The scheme proceeds upon the peculiarly American assumption that anything can be done with money, and that the Central Government has only to scatter millions enough and all the people will be educated. But the assumption is false: there are things which no amount of money can do, while the evils of its lavish distribution are not only palpable and certain, but may result in the absolute defeat of the object intended. That the distribution of this seventy-seven million largess among the States would be profoundly injurious to the interests of popular education does not admit of a doubt; and the American Congress would have to make the experiment but once more to paralyze and destroy the existing common-school system of the country. For, by the results of all experience and the very necessity of things, those who expect to be helped will depend upon help, and put forth less effort to help themselves. Whatever lessens the interest taken by parents and citizens in the working and character of the schools, whatever tends to diminish their direct responsibility in regard to them, and to weaken the sense of obligation to make sacrifices for the instruction of the young, strikes a demoralizing and deadly blow at the springs and incentives of all educational improvement. Our people have yet to learn that one of the highest benefits of a popular educational system is in training parents and citizens to the efficient discharge of their social duties, and a national policy which undermines these obligations can not be too strongly reprobated.