Is This What He Wishes us to Infer?

No doubt the astute political leader in question counted on there being no definite "desire" in the majority of the community for any specific changes in our charter and sought to create the superficial inference that our people are hostile to a better machinery of municipal government.

Is this the fact? Decidedly no! People struggling for a livelihood or wrapped up in the homely concerns of everyday life have no opinions or very few-on the principle of the short ballot, on theories of budget-making, on the intricacies of municipal contracts, on how the council should be formed. They have, however, a general desire to get what is broadly known as "good government" and will, we believe, respond to intelligent and disinterested leadership.

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After any group or groups tell their story, after there has been abundant discussion, after each suggested change has been tested by searching criticism, the mass of citizens will have opinions, and it will then be in order to ascertain their approval or disapproval of the suggestions before them.

Our prediction is that, given a fair opportunity to present its plan, given an honest discussion without "red herrings" and without insincerity, any group will receive widespread support for a great many fundamental charter improvements.

Let us see.

"A lot of people will pick up their 1913-14 thoughts right where they laid them down.". New York Evening Sun.

Where is our School Survey?

The New ork ali Library,

No. 348

New York

January 23, 19

"You cannot run away from a weakness; You must sometime fight it out or perish, And if that be so,

Why not now and where you stand?"

-Robert Louis Stevenson.

Why Educate, Anyway?

The end of all real education is service. The public school is not only a means of preparing pupils for college, it is not only a means of producing a high grade of scholarship and culture. Scholarship as an end of education may be a high ideal, but it is an outlived ideal. Scholarship and culture are by-products, service is the true object of education. If a school turns out steady, honest, manly boys and sincere, self-reliant, capable girls, that school is a good school, no matter what it may do otherwise. On the other hand, a school that fails to turn out such graduates is a poor school, no matter what it may do from the view-point of scholarship. How does our public school system measure up to this standard of efficiency?

Are Our Schools Perfect?

In order to portray truly our school system we must have "a moving picture not a photograph." A school system is alive, and like all other living things, it is constantly growing, developing, changing. We must know not only where we were yesterday, and where we are to-day; but most important of all, whither we are going to-morrow. What is the present status of our schools? Have they made progress in the past few years? In which direction are they going; what are their present tenden

cies? We, the citizens of Philadelphia, have the right to ask such questions; indeed, it is our duty to ask them; and, moreover, we should expect answers. If our school system is perfect, if it is all that we can desire or expect, we have a right to know; if it is not all that we want or expect, we have just as much right to know that also.

Would not a school survey answer these questions?

But how are we to learn the condition of our school system? A school survey would be the most natural answer to this query. An investigation made by trained specialists would meet the needs-an investigation effective but sympathetic, one that would point out the good of our system as well as the bad. The need of a survey has been felt here in Philadelphia for some time. We feel it still more now, as we face an increase in our school tax rate. Before the Board of Education is allowed the expenditure of more money, it is only fair that it should show that our schools are managed efficiently, economically, and progressively.

Mislaid the Philadelphia school survey

More than a year ago a school survey was suggested, a thorough investigation of the schools to be made by trained workers, pre