It is understood that the committee is to treat of city school systems, which are so large that persons chosen by the people to manage them, and serving without pay, cannot be expected to transact all the business of the system in person, nor to have personal knowledge of all business transactions, and which are so large that one person employed to supervise the instruction cannot be assumed to personally manage or direct all of the details thereof, but must, in each case, act under plans of organization and administration established by law and through assistants or representatives.
The end for which a school system exists is the instruction of the children, attaching to the word instruction the meaning it attains in the mind of a well-educated person, if not in the mind of an educational expert.
To secure this end, no plan of organization alone will suffice. Nothing can take the place of a sincere desire for good schools, of a fair knowledge of what good schools are, and what will make them, of a public spirit and a moral sense on the part of the people, which are spontaneous, or which can be appealed to with confidence. Fortunately, the interest which the people have in their own children is so large, and the anxiety of the community for public order and security is so great, that public sentiment may ordinarily be relied upon, or may be aroused to action, to choose proper representatives and take proper measures for the administration of the schools. If, in any case, this is not so, there is little hope of efficient schools. Wherever it is so, it alone will not suffice, but proper organization may become the instrument of public sentiment, and develop schools which will be equal to the needs of all, and become the safeguards of citizenship. Efficient schools can be secured only by providing suitable buildings and appliances, and by keeping them in proper order on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by employing, organizing, aiding, and directing teachers, so that the instruction shall have life and power to accomplish the great end for which schools are maintained.
The circumstances of the case naturally and quickly separate the duties of administration into two great departments, one which manages the business affairs, and the other which supervises the instruction. The business affairs of the school system may be transacted by any citizens of common honesty, correct purposes, and of good business experience and sagacity. The instruction will be ineffective and abnormally expensive unless put upon a scientific educational basis and supervised by competent educational experts.
There will be a waste of money and effort and a lack of results, unless the authorities of these two departments are sympathetic with each other; that is, unless, on the one hand, the business management is sound, is appreciative of good teaching, looks upon it as a scientific and professional employment, and is alert to sustain it; and unless, on the other hand, the instructors are competent and self-respecting, know what good business management is, are glad to uphold it, and are able to respect those who are charged with responsibility for it.
To secure efficiency in these departments, there must be adequate authority and quick public accountability. The problem is not merely to secure some good schoolhouses, but good schoolhouses wherever needed, and to avoid the use of all houses which are not suitable for use; it is not to get some good teaching, but to prevent all bad teaching, and to advance all the teaching to the highest possible point of special training, professional spirit, and of life-giving power. All of the business matters must be entrusted to competent business hands and managed upon sound business principles; and all of the instruction must be put upon a professional basis. To insure this, there must be deliberation and wisdom in determining policy, and then the power to do what is determined upon must be present and capable of exercise, and the responsibility for the proper exercise of the power must, in each case, be individual and immediate.
It is imperative that we discriminate between the legislative and executive action in organizing and administering the schools. The influences which enter into legislative action, looking to the general organization and work of the schools, must necessarily and fundamentally flow directly from the people and be widely spread. The greater the number of people, in proportion to the entire population, who can be led to take a positive interest and an active part in securing good schools, the better will the schools be, provided the people can secure the complete execution of their purposes and plans. But experience has clearly shown that many causes intervene to prevent the complete execution of such plans, that all the natural enemies of sound administration scent plenty of plunder and are especially active here, that good school administration requires much strength of character, much business experience, much technical knowledge, and can be only measurably satisfactory when the responsibility is adequate, and the penalties for maladministration are severe. Decentralization in making the plan and determining what shall be done, and centralization in executing the plan and in doing what is to be done, are, perhaps, equally important.
It should be remembered that the character of the school work of a city is not merely a matter of local interest, and that the maintenance of the schools does not rest merely or mainly upon local authority. The people of the municipality, acting, and ordinarily glad to act, but, in any event, being obliged to act, under and pursuant to the law which has been ordained by the sovereign authority of the state, establish and maintain schools. They must have the taxing power which the state alone possesses in order to enable them to proceed at all. They must regard the directions which the state sees fit to give as to the essential character of the schools, when it exercises in their behalf, or when it delegates to them the power of taxation.
The plan should be flexible for good, while inflexible for evil. Meeting essential requirements, the people of the municipality may well be empowered to proceed as much farther as they will in elaborating a system of schools. The higher the plane of average intelligence, and the more generally and the more directly the people act in deciding what shall be done, and the greater the facility and completeness with which the intelligence of the city is able to secure the proper execution of its plans by officers appointed for that purpose, the more elaborate and the more efficient will be the schools, and this should, of course, be provided for.
It is idle to suggest that centering executive functions is unwisely taking power away from the people. The people cannot execute plans themselves. The authority to do it must necessarily be delegated. The question simply is, “Shall it be given to a number of persons, and if so, to how many? Or to only one?” This question is to be decided by experience, and it is, of course, true that experience has not been uniform. But it is doubtless true that the general experience of the communities of the country has shown that where purely executive functions are conferred upon a number of persons jointly, they yield to antagonistic influences and shift the responsibility from one to another; and that centering the responsibility for the proper discharge of executive duties upon a single person, who gets the credit of good work and must bear the disgrace or penalty of bad work, and who can quickly be held accountable for misdeeds and inefficiency, has secured the fullest execution of public plans and the largest results. To call this “centralization,” with the meaning which commonly attaches to the word, is inaccurate. Instead of removing the power from the people, it is keeping the power closer to the people, and making it possible for the citizen in his individual capacity and for organized bodies of citizens to secure the execution of plans according to the purpose and intent with which those plans were made. Indeed, it is safe to say that experience has shown that this is the only way in which to prevent the frequent thwarting of the popular will and the defiance of individuals whose interests are ignored or whose rights are invaded.