NEW SCHOOL BUILDING, BIG FIGHT IN SYRACUSE, EDITORIALS AND BREVITIES

 

Cortland Semi-Weekly Standard, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1901.

NEW SCHOOL BUILDING.

STATEMENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Present Condition of School Accommodations—Why the Proposed Addition to the Central School is Best—Policy of the Board Estimate of Cost and Capacity of Proposed Addition.

   In order that all the taxpayers of the city may be fully informed as to the present insufficient school accommodations, and in view of the approaching special election to vote on an appropriation for the proposed addition to the Central school building, the board of education has thought best to submit the following statement, which is intended to show both the urgent need of additional school room and the best way to supply it. The statement presented by the board is clear, straightforward, forcible and convincing. It is as follows:

   TO THE PUBLIC—The board of education has passed a resolution asking the city for $19,500 with which to build an addition to the Central school.

   This resolution was passed after a careful consideration of the needs of the public schools. We are not unmindful of the necessity for economy but we were forced to the conclusion by the necessities in the case and on account of the welfare of our public school children.

   The problem is a very simple one as far as the question of more room is concerned. Our attendance now is over 1200 pupils. The city has twenty-one grade rooms, two academic rooms and one kindergarten. It does not take a mathematician to see that the city must provide more school accommodations.

   To meet this demand at present we have rented a room in Collins hall on Main-st., and pay therefore $240 per year rent, or the interest on $6,000 at 4 per cent. This is not a desirable place for a school but the best room that could be found in the city.

   We have partitioned off the halls in the Central school for schoolrooms. Two of our teachers are teaching classes in the halls of this building, one on the second and one on the third floor.

   It will not require but one more teacher, even with the new building, than we now have.

   It costs the city much more to conduct schools in such cramped quarters, and it is not right as a matter of public policy. We think that no one will urge that a continuation of this policy would be wise. The children are always the ones to suffer by such conditions and the taxpayers gain nothing.

   Reasons for building [expansion] the Central school:

   First. It is central and accessible from all parts of the city.

   Second. The city owns the lot.

   Third. This building was erected with a view of an addition if the future needs of the city should require it.

   Fourth. The expenses in future would be much less to have the grammar grades concentrated in one building.

   The advantage in grading we are advised by the superintendent can be done much better under this plan, resulting in great saving of time to the teachers, and in a much more equitable division of the school work.

CITY CHARTER.

   The city charter provides that a school-building cannot be built or enlarged without a vote of the people at a special election. It is very clear that the people do not wish special elections for school purposes held frequently. We have attempted to make provisions in this estimate for the public schools for the next ten years. We may have erred in judgment, but this is the view we have attempted to take.

   Ten years ago the village built the Central school. No one now doubts the foresight or wisdom of the board of education at that time.

HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.

   The policy of the board of education in regard to the high school is simply this:

   We have felt it our duty to provide for the academic students in our city who are not provided for at the Normal school. This is all we have attempted to do, it is all we expect to do. It has been a vexed question with us and much correspondence has passed in regard to it.

   Last spring we attempted to get at the facts and the enclosed correspondence passed between State Superintendent Charles R. Skinner and the board of education. The correspondence speaks for itself. The state refuses to be committed to a policy that will require it to take all of the academic students in the city, now and in future. The state seems to be content to continue the same relations as now exist. We are not entirely sure but that the city would lose all if it attempted to compel more. We deem the present policy by far the safest for the city.

OUR ESTIMATE.

   We have had preliminary plans drawn by a firm of competent architects. These plans have been studied and are suited to our particular needs.

   The first floor of the addition provides for four grade rooms which will accommodate forty-eight pupils each. The second floor is designed for an academic department and an assembly room. It must be remembered that the city schools are without an assembly room of any kind. Parents who have attended school exercises have been painfully aware of this with seventy-five to 100 people crowded in to a grade room for an hour.

   The estimate of the cost of the addition is based upon an itemized statement by the architects.

   It has been our purpose to make a careful estimate, and one that will not leave us with a deficit at the end.

   Respectfully submitted: G. J. Mager, A. W. Edgcomb, A. F. Stilson, C. L. Kinney, Frank P. Hakes, E. Keator, W. H. Newton, W. J. Greenman, F. D. Smith, members of the board of education, Cortland, N. Y.

  

James K. McGuire.

BIG FIGHT IN SYRACUSE.

Politics Will be Hot from Now Till After the Election is Over.

   A big political fight is on in Syracuse. The Democrats have re-nominated for mayor, James K. McGuire, who has held that office for several terms and who has the machine well oiled and in perfect working order. Mayor McGuire has seemed to do all in his power to avoid a re-nomination and stated at the convention that he would not accept a nomination, but his party recognized in him its strongest candidate and put him at the head of the ticket in spite of his protest. He finally accepted the nomination.

   The Republicans have put up Jay B. Kline, who has been a remarkably successful district attorney and who is believed to be an accepted candidate and a vote winner and vote getter. It is said that many Democrats will vote for him. The contest is already a hot one and is on in earnest.

 

BRIEF EDITORIALS.

   ◘ The inhabitants of Poughkeepsie are after a schoolteacher because, they allege, he has been kissing his girl pupils. It will be hard to get young men to go into the education business if their perquisites are thus ruthlessly taken from them.

   ◘ The return of the Chinese court to Peking is again announced. After her summer in the mountains the dowager empress ought to be in fine health and ready for another massacre of foreign envoys.

   ◘ The story of an attack on the guards at the McKinley tomb in Canton, O., bears certain marks which suggest the hand of the ingenious space writer.

 

BREVITIES.

   —The Dryden band will hold a fair at the Dryden opera house Nov. 26, 27 and 28.

   —A successful surgical operation was Thursday performed by Dr. F. D. Reese upon Horace Wilson of Homer for the removal of a cancer.

   —Mr. D. W. Van Hoesen has purchased from Mrs. D. H. Randall of Syracuse the property recently owned by her on East Court-st. Consideration $4,000.

   —Friday was a record breaking day for [voter] registration in both New York City and Cortland—for the former because it was so large, for the latter because it was so small.

   —Mr. H. B. Pomeroy of the Gillette Skirt Co. has moved his family from Syracuse to Cortland and has rented the residence of the late Judge A. P. Smith on West Court-st.

   —Lackawanna milk train No. 44 leaving Cortland at 11:20 A. M. southward will hereafter make all the stops from Cortland to Binghamton except Chenango Bridge on flag and will carry passengers.

   —The annual session of the Cortland county board of supervisors is noticed to begin this year on Monday, Nov. 11, at 1:30 p. m. All bills to be audited by the board must be presented before the third day of the session.

   —Norwich is planning for a big day next Wednesday. The annual inspection and field day of the fire department occurs and then Governor Odell has accepted an invitation to be present as the guest of the village and make an address.

   —On Friday C. B. Peck was appointed by Surrogate Almy, the guardian of Grover C. Hart, D. W. Hart and Mildred Hart of Dryden, and to act in their interest in the division of the estate of the children’s deceased father—Dryden Herald.

   —The thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Lincoln lodge, No. 119, I. O. G. T., will be held Oct. 24. Elaborate plans for a large demonstration are being perfected, and the members of the local organization will make it a time for general rejoicing.

   —A young man from Syracuse returned Saturday from a bicycle trip to Binghamton and stopped at the Standard office. He paid a very high compliment to the Cortland county [bicycle] sidepaths, but said that those in both Onondaga and Broome counties on the road traveled were wretched. He said he had rode extensively and he believed that the Cortland county paths were the best in the state.