Show SCHOOL DISTRICT CONSOLIDATION CONSOLI-DATION SALT LAKE CITY Jan 13 1880 Editors Herald I was eomewtat surprised on Sunday Sun-day morning to read in your report of the proceedings of the Educational Association of this city that the section sec-tion which provided for the coiieoli dation of the mutiarfous districts in incorporated towns into one ditttricl had been stricken out of the proposed new Jaw I Lave attended a few meetings of the above association and heard Eeveral persons who have made addresses speak pointedly on the fact that in Salt Lake City the district were too numerous and to small and T thniioht T nnnlri PP tinl n point I am not acquainted with the cu cumatancea of the people in country places yet I may presume that the election of three trustees every two or three years who do not not know a a great deal about educational 1 mat torn and perhap bare not much time to devote t bothering aboit such things may suffice to satisfy the people because it may be the beat that can be done under tho circumstances c stances which surround the isolated districts of the agricultural portion ol f the community But there do appear ap-pear to me to be several rca sons why euch a system can be improved in the more populated popu-lated town I is illustrated very forcibly in Salt Lake City Every nine blocks are squared ofl to form award a-ward or district In one district the amount of apportionment for the children in the district suffices to pay for the services of a tutor t thoae who atend the school eo that the parents who patronize that district school have no tuition fees to pay Parents who live just across the road from the outer edge of that ward but in mother district cannot patronize hat school and receive the benefits of he apportionment and if they send heir children to the school in their own district have to pay the old fashioned tuition fees with only a small reduction by the aid of said apportionment because the trustees have a higher priced teacher or more children attending school or a smaller district or something else which causes the difference Again there are districts contiguous in one a good Echool is maintained and in the adjoining one is a poor school yet the proportion of the tax has to be paid by all alike in ono district a good schoolroom with many newly invented j appliances are available for the benefit bene-fit of the student in an adjoining one everything is crude and primeval Then in relation to the persons chosen to fill the office of trustees trus-tees there is i eo little honor and EO little room for pride in the scope of the otlice that pereona qualified for tho position do not tale much interest in it and the Hobrons I choice falls upon one or two of the very few who take any public interest i in tho meter Again the trustees are not so closely scrutinized in their official acts by superior officers as to stimulate them to greater efforts in the cause of progress thai many of the situations demand In San Francisco in New York and in other cities echcol boards are I appointed or elected as the charter may direct and there being some I honor and omolument attached to the I office the men selected study the I subject matter and aim to give all children tho same opportunities of obtaining a knowledge of the ordinary rudiments of education I obtained the impression from the discussion of the matter at the Educational AEEO ciation that this was to be attempted I in this and other cities in Utah and I am surprised at its abandonment Tho reasons for such abandonment have not been made public hence I can form no opinion as to their potency I it should have been the prospective trouble of inaugurating such a system that should not have had weight for it will be done someday some-day and it is practicable today i it should have been the creation of alaried offices that Ehould hays been weighed down by the good to bane omplishcd and the consequent and apparent saving to the citizens of the cites i it ebould have been the de sire to leave the wok to eomo other I persons that would cause a change I in the ideas many of us had formed oC several our present educators The syetem of laving sixtythree trustees in this one city ia a little tDO oldfashioned the discrimination against different children in different parts of this city is a little unjust the wentyone different styles of teaching and almost the came number of comparative com-parative advantaged and disadvantages disadvant-ages of those systems of government is unprofitable aud unnecessary The same schoolhouses could be utilized the same Lumber or even r less number of teachers could do the work better under the direction of one card > of trustees our schools could be partially graded an average graded ate of tuition could be charged and in a given number of years the pupils would make farther comparative compar-ative progress than the majority of them can do BOW The item of ccsesing and collecting special taxes taxed for furnishing and improving tcbODlhonsea and school iropeitj could also be much better attended to in a municipal capacity I than can now ha done in the small and poor isolated districts I has I happened in some places where the hx was not paid by 0 few that a large portion of the revenue from the assessment woald have been asessmont necessary neces-sary for attorneys fees to prosecute he delinquents while the act that the city was organized into one dis trict would give it a degree of dignity that would ensure rcepect and i a suit had t ba commenced i could be > prosecuted to a definite issue without any very material loss Si would not bo in the cases above cited TAXPAYER |