[236]. Fifty years ago these water supplies were usually controlled by private companies operating under franchises. Today there are very few public water-supply companies in the country. Among the sixty-five cities of over 100,000 population there are only six which do not have municipal ownership of this service.
[237]. The city of Glasgow, in Scotland, is sometimes cited as an example of a community which has gone the longest distance in the way of municipal ownership. The citizen of Glasgow, it is said, may be born in a municipal tenement, be fed on milk from the municipal dairy (which is warmed on a municipal gas stove), be transported to school on municipal tramcars, and when he dies be carried off in a municipal hearse to the municipal cemetery.
[238]. There are about thirty municipal gas plants and several hundred municipal electric lighting plants in the United States; but the great majority of them are in small communities.
[239]. There are municipal street railways in San Francisco, Seattle, and New Orleans. Public operation of street railways, without public ownership, is the policy of Boston and several other cities. These street railways are operated on a service-at-cost plan. The government of the state or city takes over the street railway, appoints officials to manage it, and charges whatever fares are necessary to pay the expenses of operation (including whatever rate of interest is to be paid to the owners of the street railway). When wages go up, fares go up. In some cases service-at-cost has been proved to be a costly plan. When wages went up during and after the war, fares rose correspondingly. But although wages have come down since 1920 in private employments, they have not been reduced to the same extent on publicly-owned street railways, hence the fares remain where they were. To be fair to the public, the system ought to work both ways.
[240]. The national, state, and municipal governments can borrow money at five per cent or less; the companies have to pay six or seven per cent under present conditions.
[241]. Notice the way in which gas and electric lighting companies try to increase their business by selling gas stoves, electric irons, and other appliances at low figures and on the installment plan. Telephone companies place public pay-stations in every nook and corner to pick up a few extra nickels and dimes. Telegraph companies give special rates on night letters to get messages which would be sent by mail if the regular rates were charged. Can you imagine the post-office keeping open at night in order to obtain more business?
[242]. By naming these three purposes of education, first, second, and third, it is not intended to imply that this is their order of importance. Some would put service to the community first of all. Over one of the main gates at Harvard University, through which the students pass out into the world after they have been graduated, is this timely inscription: “Depart to serve thy country and thy kind.”
[243]. The laws and the practice differ greatly from state to state, and sometimes from one community to another. It would be futile to attempt the task of presenting here even the most important variations. Those who desire to know exactly how the schools are controlled and managed in different parts of the country will find full information in S. T. Dutton and David Snedden, The Administration of Public Education in the United States.
[244]. In 1917 Congress provided that each year a grant from the federal treasury should be made to the several states in order to encourage vocational education. This money is distributed among the states on condition that each shall contribute an equal amount, the distribution being made, not by the Bureau of Education, but by a body known as the Federal Board for Vocational Education. This board is made up of seven persons, the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the Commissioner of Education and three other persons appointed by the President. A considerable part of its work for the present is connected with the providing of vocational training for American soldiers and sailors who were disabled in the World War.
[245]. The Smith-Towner Bill, now the Towner-Sterling Bill.