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Reasons and Authorities
FAVORING
EDUCATIONAL UNIFICATION
UNDER THE
i	'	■
Regents of the University
“ It would be a great mistake not to secure unification. I have
believed strongly from the beginning that the Regents should
be the appointing power!” * * .*
“I am absolutely opposed to having one iota of politics in the
administration of the public schools system.”
— Governor Theodore Roosevelt.A BRiEFt of Reasons Why Appointment of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction Should be Vested in the Regents of the
University of the State of New York.
I.
Because the Regents are a continuous body, laboring constantly in the field of pub-
lic education, and dealing with the subject from a scientific point of view. Chosen
primarily because of attained prominence as high-minded and capable men, their offi-
cial experience gives them personally, and their board traditionally, an expert ability
to judge more accurately concerning the natural and acquired fitness of candidates for
so important an educational office as that of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
II.
The independent action of the Regents, free from harmful outside influences or
constraints, is assured by the tenure of their office, which is for life—or rather during
continued capacity and faithful attendance upon their duties ; and as they receive no
compensation for their serviced, it must be obvious that, as a rule, the position would
be accepted only by men whose guiding motive is a sincere desire to promote the
public welfare.
III.
The educational system of the State should be kept free from the contaminating
influence of partisan politics.
That can be assured only by taking the appointment of educational administra*
tive officers out of the field of such political contention.
As now selected, the choice of Superintendent of Public Instruction is invariably
dictated by partisan political considerations, which naturally must impose hindering
constraints upon his administration of the office; and (of equal ill consequence) no
matter what useful expert efficiency such an official may possess or develop in office,
experience has demonstrated, that he will be required to retire therefrom and give
place to some new and untried man when another political party comes into power.
IV.
There is no administrative position in the government of this State which affords
greater opportunity for far-reaching public usefulness than that which supervises
and guides thfe instruction of the rising generation. It should have the services of
the most capable of men.
But under the present method of choosing the Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion, men of the most desirable qualities cannot well hope to compete successfully
for appointment to that office-—could hardly be induced to seek the same, or to under-
take its duties, knowing so well that scientific and conscientious devotion thereto
would avail but little toward their retention in such official position.
V.
Their willing and vast expenditures therefor attest the deep and earnest interest
of the people of this State in the cause of public education, They will be quick to
approve any measure that promises to increase the efficiency of our educational
agencies, and will not hesitate to commend and vote to sustain action so clearly
for the welfare of the children of the State as that herein suggested..CONTENTS
Brief for Appointment of Supt. . . cover
Prefatory Words.................... 2
Unite for Unification .......	3
No Reason for a New Board ...	4
In re Constitution of Regents . . .	5
Education and Politics ......	6
Brooklyn Eagle
Meeting and Protest of the Regents 7
New York Sun
Spoliation in, the Name of Education 8
Brooklyn Eagle
Educational System of the State . .	11
Syracuse Herald
This Bill is Revolutionary .....	13
New York Mail and Express
An Unsound Measure............. 15
New York Mail and Express
Why the Bill should not pass . . .	16
New York Tribune
Educational Interests........... .	17
Syracuse Herald
Action of Academic Principals . . .	19
White Educational Bill......... 20
Brooklyn Eagle
The White Educational Bill ....	21
New York Times
Some Light Upon a Dark Subject .	23
New York Sun
A Blow at the High Schools . . . .	25
New York Tribune
A Bill to Degrade the Schools ...	26
New York Tribune
A Good Piece of Work . ......	27
New York Mail and Express
Unity in the Educational System . . 2S
New York Times
White-Brown Bill Killed . .... 29-31
Brooklyn Eagle
Senator Brown’s Plan....... 32
Meeting of Regents ... . . .	32
Hon. C. M. Depew’s Speech . .	32
Governor Roosevelt’s Speech .	33
Regents’ Action and Committee 34
Extract from a Principal’s Letter .	34
FROM NEWSPAPERS OF 1894.
The Supt. of Public Instruction . .	35
New York Times
The Convention and the Schools . .	36
New York Tribune
Regents freer from Entanglements 37
Niagara Falls Cataract
Regents Should Appoint Supt. ...	37
New York Morning A dvertiser
An Educational Reform ......	37
Harper's Weekly
Regents Work and Politics . .	.39
Buffalo Express
The University of the State ....	40
New York Sun
Keep the Schools Undefiled ....	41
Troy Press
Give Regents Power to Elect Supt. 43,
The Outlook
Unify the Educational System ...	44
Rome Daily Sentinel
The Regents and the Schools ...	44
New York Times
Educational Reforms . . . ....	46
Review of Reviews
School Reform and Improvement .	46
New York Mail and Express
The Regents and the Schools ...	47
New York Tribune
Regents Should Choose the Supt. .	47
The Tidings.
State Supt. of Public Instruction . .	49
Utica Press
A Chance for Improvement ....	49
Saugerties Daily Post
Regents Should Appoint the Supt. .	50
The Outlook
Take the Schools Out of Politics . .	51
Brooklyn Life
Educational Reform Needed . ...	51
South Side Observer
Should be under the Regents ...	52
William Warren Potter, M.D.
Regents were originators of Common
Schools; should elect the Supt. . cover
Hon. A. S. Draper, LL. D.
List of the Present Regents , „ . coverPREFATORY WORDS
Much of the within selected matter was evolved in the active
opposition made in April, 1899, to a bill in the New York State Senate,
whose especially objectionable provisions sought to remove the High
Schools of the State from the care of the Regents of the University,
and to commit the supervision of all public schools to a department
obviously liable to partisan political control.
Selections have been made also from newspaper utterances of like
tenor, made during the session of the Constitutional Convention, in
1894, and to which attention is especially directed.
Some of the not easily separable matter is, of course, ephemeral,
but there is v' enduring value in all of the clear affirmations of reasons
why educational unity is desirable and can best and most safely be
accomplished by placing the entire educational system of the State
under the long tested and demonstrated efficient- and non-partisan
supervision of the Regents of the University.
Before considering the leading questions raised by the within com-
pilation, the reader’s mind should be disabused of any bias that may
have been caused by the erroneous, if not insincere accusations that
the Regents of the University selfishly seek to enlarge their preroga-
tives and powrers. The history of the action of the Board of Regents,
for over a hundred years, gives unbroken testimony against the truth-
fulness of such imputations. But if that were not so, their unreasona-
bleness and improbability should be self-evident, when it is considered
that members of such an official Board who receive no salaries—whose
'time and labors are gratuitously given to the service of the public—are
not likely to wish needlessly to multiply their duties, or to add to the
necessary demands upon their time for any reasons other than conscien-
tious convictions that the public welfare will be thereby helpfully
promoted.
If in any degree this pamphlet merits criticism, it should not be
visited upon the Regents of the University, who have had no official
relation to its compilation or output. Responsibility therefor rests
solely upon an individual friend of sound educational reform.
And the compiler disclaims any purpose of making or suggesting
reflections upon individuals; it is only with systems that his thoughts
are concerned.
Pliny T. Sexton.
Palmyra,. N. Y.3'
Unite for Unification
The obvious moral of the within compilation is the supreme impor-
tance of unifying the educational system of the State under the super-
vision of the Regents of the University, and the necessity for the
friends of such unification uniting, with exclusive singleness of pur-
pose, in efforts for its accomplishment.
However views may vary, as easily they sincerely may and do to
some extent, as to just what powers should be vested in the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction, or as to the best method of constituting
such a supervising State educational board as the Regents of the Uni-
versity of the State of New York, it cannot be doubted that by a vast
majority the sincere, thoughtful friends of public education in this State
earnestly believe that unification of our educational system, under the
supervision of the Regents, is the fundamental educational reform
chiefly to be desired.
And that being so, clearly the logic of the situation is to seek to
do, first, only that one thing upon which all sincere friends of genu
ine and desirable unification can easily agree—that is, to lay the corner-
stone of such unification by committing to the Regents of the Univer-
sity the selection, appointment and protection of the Superintendent
of Public Instruction.
Having thus, by united efforts firmly fixed the indispensable
foundation, upon which alone can be erected the superstructure of an
enduring, satisfactory and comprehensive non-partisan State system of
education, we may then, but not safely until then, freely consider, and
differ if we must, concerning the details of such superstructure,—such,
for instance, as suggested changes in the existing executive functions of
the Superintendent, or the various propositions for altering the constitu-
tion of the Board of Regents.
Until the said foundationary unification shall be accomplished, it
assuredly will be wiser to defer all dividing contentions over subordinate
matters. The friends of unification should warily remember that their
really weaker opponents will naturally have recourse to the old-time
strategy of the weak, which ever seeks to “ divide and conquer. ”
Do ONE THING AT A TIME.
THE FUNDAMENTAL FIRST.4
No Reason for a New Educational Board
There were presented to the Constitutional Convention of 1894,
and inventive minds at other times have suggested, various plans for
the creation of a new educational board, to have power to elect the
Superintendent of Public Instruction, or his analogue, and to take over
the educational work of the Regents of the University. None of such
plans, however, have stood the test of logical analysis.
Their suggestion is, of course, an admission that the present
method of electing the Superintendent of Public Instruction needs to
be changed; that his election should be committed to an educational
board, and that educational unification is desirable.
But why create a new body for that purpose? Is it probable that
it will be constituted of men of higher character and capacity than the
existing Regents of the University? The latter may not all be the
greatest of men, but they average high; and in sincerity of purpose
and faithfulness in the performance of their official duties they will not
be excelled. Their experience in educational work also has given them
an expert capability for wise and efficient educational service such as no
new body of men, however well disposed, could soon acquire. The
length of service of the Regents, which averages about fifteen years,
makes the changes in their membership gradual, so that new members
always have the benefit of immediate association with those well
informed by the traditional wisdom of a conservative Board.
In such a Board, rash and ill-considered experimenting is not prob-
able, while steady and safe progress is made—building upon secure
and well-tested foundations. Such has been the development of the
secondary schools of this State, which, under the fostering care and
direction of the Regents of the University, have attained to their pres-
ent marked supremacy.5
Concerning the Constitution of the Board of Regents
Objections have been made, at times, to the constitution of the
Board of Regents of the University:—to the method of their election;
to their number; their gratuitous service and their life tenure.
While it is clearly seen that the stated objections are not sus-
tainable, no discussion thereof will be here attempted, for, as before
suggested, until fundamental educational unification shall be accom-
plished, its sincere friends will prefer to refrain from dividing conten-
tions over matters of secondary importance. It is confidently believed,
however, that careful investigation will convince most candid persons
that the criticized features in the constitution of the Board of Regents
of the University have been essential elements in the combination of
influences which heretofore have secured for that public service men of
such unusual, marked high character and capacity, and uniformly molded
them into a harmonious public board of unequaled singleness of thought,
earnestness of devotion to their beneficent work, independence of action
and entire freedom from partisan political control. Upon the roster of
their membership are names of many men—scholars, professional men,
statesmen and men of affairs—who during the past century have been
foremost in giving to and maintaining in and for the State of New
York—the Empire State—its recognized leadership in all directions.
They have been of those who have given justification to our State’s
proud motto—Excelsior]
The value of the method and features of the constitution of the
Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, is
attested by more than a hundred years of conspicuous and unparalleled
success, and assuredly it will be wise to move with great deliberation
and caution in making any changes that possibly might break the
charm of a combination which has so long and so uniformly worked
with such beneficence.
If changes be admissible at all, propositions therefor should have
full and independent consideration, unclouded by association with other
matters, and should be accepted only upon their abstract merits;—cer-
tainly should never be demanded, or consented to, as compensation for
the adoption of other, although concededly desirable, measures. Re-
forms should be determined upon principle; and should advance, each
in its turn. And, above all, dissatisfaction with individuals can never
justify iconoclastic attacks upon systems. Individuals will quickly pass
away; beneficent systems should endure.6
SELECTIONS FROM NEWSPAPERS
Education and Politics
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 5, 1899]
A bill has been favorably reported to the State Senate by the com-
mittee on education, to abolish the Department of Public Instruction
and to create a new department of government in its place. The head
of this department, by the bill, is to be called a State Commissioner of
Education. His salary is to be $7,000 a year. He is to take office '‘next
July 1,” though we presume the date will be put forward; and he is to
assume all the duties and powers of the present Superintendent of
Public Instruction, as well as a lot more.
The term of the present Superintendent, Charles R. Skinner, will
not end for some years yet, and why he is to be or should be super-
seded is not known. He has done nothing to call for it of which the
public is aware. This new officer is to have entire control of the 5 23
high schools now under the Board of Regents, with power to conduct
examinations, to issue diplomas and certificates for admission to
colleges, and with right of appointment and removal at pleasure of
directors of sub-departments and of other employees, including one
deputy at $6000 a year, and three others at $5000 a year, each. * * *
At present the Superintendent of Public Instruction is elected by
the Legislature on joint ballot for three years. •	*	*	*
There always has been a reason for unifying the educational system
of the State. That should have made this department a bureau within
the Board of Regents. But there is no reason why disunity in educa-
tional affairs should be continued and intensified by the creation of
another department to efface this, with greater and grosser powers, at
a greatly increased expense.
This would not be taking the public schools with which this
department has mainly to do, out of politics; it would be taking them
further into politics; and it would drag all the high schools into the
same mire or pool, at the same time. Until explained, the purport of
the bill seems to be bad, the. tenor of it evil, and the purpose of it to
provide places either for a lot of political spoilsmen or for an even worse
lot of “professional educators” who are as inferior to spoilsmen as
hypocrites are to highwaymen, or as incapables are to men of efficiency.
No Governor should ask for the power to put the school system ot this
State into politics, the same as the canals and the prisons are, or can be,
put under the appointive system carried into this measure. A good7
Governor might make good appointments or might wish to, but a good
Governor might also make fool appointments; and a bad Governor
would be pretty apt to make scandalous appointments. *	*	*
The people of this State will be likely, and likely ere long, to
set going a terrible day of judgment for those whose errors or wicked-
ness have led the politicians to realize that “the State” can “work”
the schools in the future just as it has “worked ” the canals in the past.
MEETING OF THE REGENTS
A Protest Against the Bill to Create a State Commissioner of
Education
[New York Sun, April 7, 1899]
Albany, April 6.—At a largely attended meeting of the Regents
of the University this afternoon there was a three hours’ discussion of
the White Educational bill, creating a new officer as Commissioner of
Education at $7000, with power to appoint and remove at pleasure one
deputy at $6000 and three more at $5000 each, with all needed direc-
tors of departments and other officers and employees. The following
resolution was adopted on roll-call by unanimous vote, except Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction Skinner, who strongly favored the bill.
Resolved, That the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor and Regents
McKelway and Sexton be authorized and instructed to prepare a state-
ment to be presented to the Chairmen of the Committees on Education
of the Senate and the Assembly, and to the Governor of the State,
expressing the opposition of this Board to, and its protest against, the
bill to create a State Commissioner of Education, with the powers set
forth in that measure now pending in the Legislature.
Regent McKelway submitted a statement of the objections to the
bill, which was referred to the committee and, with verbal changes,
adopted as follows:
“The Regents protest against this bill as unnecessary, violent,
revolutionary and unjust. It would wipe out the Department of
Public Instruction without cause shown for its effacement; it would
build upon its ruins a new department of Government, the creation of
which has been asked for by none of the high schools, academies or col-
leges of this State; it would make that department liable to the abuses
of political mismanagement and of partisan error and evils which have
more than once in other fields involved our State in scandal and our
people in difficulty and disgrace; it would bring, far more -than at
present, our system of common school instruction within the play and8
purview of politics and within the methods and schemes of professional
politicians; it would aggrandize powers in the Commissioner and his
deputies which no educator should approve, no statesman sanction, and
no friend of upright or scientific government contemplate without
indignation and alarm. By needless multiplication of high-salaried
officials, and by duplication of administrative machinery it would add
unwarrantably to the burdens of the taxpayers.
This board particularly protests against the proposition in the bill
to separate from the University the high schools, which have been its
peculiar care and are the especial pride and the beloved wards of this
department of the Government of the State. The high schools have in
nothing deserved the proposed enforced separation of their interests and
of their powers and of their privileges from the University system, in
which they have rejoiced and prospered from the first. Futhermore,
the high schools are the foundation upon which is built the higher work
of the University as the agent of the State in the supervision of pro-
fessional study. Their graduation certificates give the right to pass on
to professional study and to the license which the University has been
set to guard, and if those certificates are removed from the control of
the University, the latter is deprived of the power to fulfil the duty laid
upon it.
4 4 The bill is a subversion of conditions under which education has
been well conducted in this Commonwealth since the organization of the
University in 1784. In all that time it has been the pride of the State
that partisan political considerations have never dictated the action or
influenced the policy of the Board of Regents. This Board, therefore,
protests against this measure as one under which the absorption of its
powers by evil influences and for bad ends could be easily effected.
4 4 The Board favors unification of the educational system of the
State. . Pending that, it prefers the maintenance of existing conditions
to those proposed, which would be far worse. The proposed measure
would increase and intensify disunity; would long postpone the attain-
ment of unification, and introduce a violent change certain to be
deplorable in all its results.”
Spoliation in the Name of Education
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 7, 1899]
There are two departments of the government of the State 'which
have to do with education. One is the Board of Regents—as it is popu-
larly called—which was created in 1784, and the perpetuity and powers
of which are established by the constitution of this State. The other is9
the State Department of Public Instruction, established nearly 50 years
ago by statute, and intended to represent the powers and policy of the
State with reference to common school education. Most of those powers
are delegated, by law, to municipal and other communities, through
local boards elected by the people, or appointed by elected authorities
of the people. The State department is a sort of clearing house through
which powers delegated by the State reach those local boards, and back
to which the reports and returns of local educational bodies are sent on
appeal or for record, classification and the like.
This sub-division of State powers over education into two bodies
was strictly in historical order. The earlier organization and the con-
stitutional recognition of the Board of Regents followed the rule of
governments in the world, which provide, by law, for education at the
top, or for the higher education, first, in the justified confidence that
the people themselves, in their local bodies, will provide for elementar}'
education in their own way. For this reason, everywhere, before
common schools, universities, colleges and academies were the objects
of legislative attention. The history of education has been from the
top downward—like the rain, the sunshine and other benign natural
forces. By and by, the community or local bodies providing for
common school facilities came under the regulation of state law, so
soon as the States themselves became homogeneous and government
partook of the same character.
For a long while, the common school system did not extend beyond
the grammar schools. There, taxation for educational purposes ended.
Beyond that, academies, colleges and universities, supported by private
means, carried on advanced education, the academies being fitting
'schools for the colleges, and the colleges either fitting schools for the
universities, or the university itself a collection of colleges for the
sciences and for the arts. As early as 1784, the State of New York
grouped all academies, colleges and other departments of higher
instruction under the title of the State University, by which all institu-
tions of higher teaching are meant. The Board of Regents was then
created for the management of that collective body, and the body, as a
whole, is the most representative institution of instruction in any State
in the Union.
After a while, local communities—especially municipal communi-
ties—established high schools. Those schools virtually took the place
of academies. The high schools were, as the academies were, a con-
necting link between the two systems of instruction, and were naturally
the beginning point of higher education, on which account their courses,
their inspection, their reports and their examinations naturally fell, byIO
law, under the cognizance of the Board of Regents. As they were
supported by taxation, and as they were an evolution of the system of
elementary education, they bore an economic relation to the State
Department of Public Instruction But the distinction between their
position in taxation and their position in education was recognized by
the State itself. The State could have acted with more clearness and
authority than it did, but the intention was plain to discriminate the
educational side of the high schools, in the hands of the Regents, from
the economic or taxation side of those schools which was left to the
local authorities, just as the common schools, in the same respects, were.
This dual system of the State was either a mistake at the outset or
has become one since. Unification has been made the State policy,
with reference to public works, to public charities, to public prisons
and to other large public interests. The argument against its applica-
tion to the largest public interest—namely, education—is artificial,
selfish and unscientific. Resistance to unification involves waste of
funds, waste of effort, duplication of inspection, of machineries and of
powers, and consequent loss by friction, confusion and division. It has
been the aim of statesmen and reformers to unify the educational
system of New York by concentrating all the powers of the State over
education in the hands of the constitutional body, the State University,
managed by the Board of Regents, who are elected for life, and by
doing away with the State Department of Public Instruction, of which
the head is elected by the Legislature every three years, under circum-
stances which make the incumbent a politician, his office a political
office and the powers and patronage of that office an asset in party
politics, always to the injury, and not seldom to the scandal, of educa-
tion and of politics both.
Before the State Senate is a bill not to unify the educational system
of the State, but to create a State Commissioner of Education, with a
brood of high-salaried deputies, and with powers to plunge the entire
common school system into “practical politics.” The bill is a step
backward. It aggravates an existing system of duality, seeks to make
it permanent, and would result in worse confusion, in worse scandal
and in worse evils than those which even now unhappily prevail. * *
Not only is the new department to have all the present powers
of the department which it supersedes, but the control of the
high schools is transferred to it by the bill in question. The Regents
have made a vigorous protest—not at all on personal or official
grounds, but on grounds of the highest interests of the community—
against this bill. Their protest is published in this paper to-day. It
should speak for itself to the friends of education, of good governmentand of pure methods in this and in every other community in this land,
wherever it is published. High School officers and teachers and all
supporters of a clean and progressive moral civilization should make
that protest their own. They should renew it on their own behalf to
every Senator and Assemblyman and to the Governor A measure of
worse intent, worse liabilities and worse probabilities has been intro-
duced in no Legislature in this century, for the design of it is spoliation,
the nature of it is barbarism, and the effect of it would be on the most
nefarious side of its most nefarious qualities. That the Legislature will
pass such a bill should be difficult to believe. That a reform Governor
would let it become a law should be a proposition too monstrous for
belief at all.
Educational System of the State
[Syracuse Herald, April io, 1899]
The educational system of the State of New York has been for
nearly a century upon the dual plan, viz, the supervision of the inter-
ests of higher education by the Regents of the University, and of
primary education by the Superintendent of common schools or the
Department of Public Instruction. The Board of Regents is composed
of nineteen elective members, chosen by the Legislature, and four State
officers, ex officio members of the Board, viz, the Governor, Lieutenant-
Governor, Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The University is a supervisory and administrative, not a teaching
institution. A Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Secretary are its officers.
While a State department, it also is a federation of about 800 teaching
institutions of higher and secondary education—universities, colleges,
academies, seminaries and high schools. All institutions of higher edu-
cation are members of the University, and such other libraries, muse-
ums and other institutions as may, in conformity with the ordinances of
the Regents, be admitted to or be incorporated by the University. Its
great work is divided into five departments, viz, administrative, exami-
nation, extension, state library and state museum. The library devel-
opment has been remarkable. The work of the Regents in the past
eight years has increased four-fold, and it has brought high renown
to New York’s educational operations.
The Department of Public Instruction is under the Superintendent,
who is chosen by the Legislature in the same manner as the Regents,
and who has a large corps of subordinates, and himself has manifold
duties: the general superintendence of the public schools, normal
schools, Indian schools, teachers’ institutes, district school libraries, the
apportionment and distribution of school moneys, teachers’ examina-12
tions, the hearing and decision of appeals on school interests, and the
enforcement of the compulsory education law. He is an ex officio mem-
ber of boards, trusteeships and committees in the State’s interests.
About $5,000,000 in school moneys are under his management, and
nearly 12,000 schools.
Each department has a large force of subordinates, and in some
instances, as in examination and inspection, there is duplication of labors.
The point of direct collision is over the high schools; these schools
(now numbering 523) have grown up and multiplied under the Regents
fostering care, and by their number and importance have attracted the
attention and stimulated the desire of control by the Department of Pub-
lic Instruction. Out of this difference has arisen a new plan of legisla-
tion, which is fathered by Senator Horace White, and was formulated
by Statutory Revision Commissioner Charles Z. Lincoln, which has the
favor of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Charles R. Skinner,
and is opposed by the Regents.
The Board of Regents, constituting the University of the State, was
created by statute in 17 84, and by Constitutional Convention action in 1894
was embodied in the fundamental law* It is recognized as a corpora-
tion, under the name of the University of the State of New York, whose
number (of Regents) shall not be less than nine, and whose appointment
and powers shall be under legislative action. The original formation
of the University was on distinctly American ideas, in the shaping of
which the Old World experiences were utilized to the utmost. The
system was American and the outgrowth of progressive conditions in
this land.	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
The public schools, at first under the supervision of the Regents,
gradually, in the course of time, from the organization of a common
school system of 1812, came to be ranged first under the Secretary of
State, whose deputy was superintendent of common schools, until,, in
1854, the Department of Public Instruction was organized under, law,
and since has been independent of the Board of Regents. The common,
schools became free schools in 1867. The Superintendent is ex officio a
member of the Board of Regents, in order that he may be in touch with
that body.
There has been entertained for several years the purpose of the
unification of the two departments of the State educational system.
This should have been accomplished by the Constitutional Convention;
but the good intention was frustrated by those in the educational ser-
vice having a personal interest in the continuance of the dual organiza-
tion. It was a distinctive gain when the University of the State was
put in the new constitution. It gives the starting-point for unification,13
in the constitutional recognition (which should not and can not be
ignored), and the University, as thus constituted, becomes the nucleus
of the desired unification of the State’s educational supervision. The
White bill ignores this favorable condition; it has no purpose of unifica-
tion; but on the contrary, proposes to reduce the powers and functions
of the Regents, and on abolishing the Department of Public Instruction,
places its powers in a new body under a Commissioner of Education,
and gives this Commissioner powers and duties taken from the Univer-
sity. The effect would be, were this bill to be enacted into law, to
postpone unification indefinitely, to create a batch of new and high-sala-
ried officials, and to humiliate and reduce to insignificance the Univer-
sity and its Regents. The bill, evidently in spirit at least, conflicts with
the constitutional provision creating the University and recognizing the
Regents; it would install a more diffuse and expensive educational sys-
tem; it would transfer the high schools from the University, under
which they have grown into importance and usefulness, to the new
supervision, without any gain or improvement; and instead of uni-
fying or harmonizing or systematizing the State’s educational plan, it
would inevitably operate in the opposite direction.
The Regents never have been a political body. Political consider-
ations do not enter into the University plan. The new scheme is liable
to develop into a political machine, and indeed, it is asserted, such has
been the tendency of the Department of Public Instruction under sev-
eral of its Superintendents.
This Bill is Revolutionary
[New York Mail and Express, April io, 1899]
As early as 1784 our State united the academies, colleges and uni-
versities of the State under the title of the University of the State of
New York, and created the State Board of Regents, who were invested
with the care and supervision of all the institutions of higher education
in the State. The Board of Regents is.formally recognized by the consti-
tution. The men who compose it (with the exception of four ex officio
members) are elected by the Legislature for a life term. They are not
politicians. They work without pay. At great sacrifice of private
interests these nineteen gentlemen, selected by the people’s representa-
tives with reference to their peculiar qualifications as trustees of so im-
portant and delicate a trust, are devoting earnest and faithful service to
the development and unification of the State’s system of higher
education.14
So admirable is the organization of the Board of Regents and so
symmetrical its plan of work that the State University is to-day
probably the most representative and harmonious institution of public
instruction in any State of the Union. Fifty-five degree-conferring
institutions, all the academies of the State and 523 high schools, report
annually to the Board of Regents, and are under their inspection and
control, and among the academies and high schools are apportioned by
the Regents the funds annually appropriated for that purpose. The
system of examinations which has been established by the Regents, and
which is known by their name, not only sets a uniform standard of
scholastic attainment throughout the academies and high schools of the
State, but serves to protect the professions, as well as the universities,
from the admission of unworthy members. The whole system of
higher education in New York is, in fact, the admiration and the
model of the best trained educators of other States who have examined
its carefully adjusted workings.
This system, however, is sought to be overthrown by a bill, known
in the Senate as the ‘‘White education bill, * * which in some of its pro-
visions is so unjust, so violent and so revolutionary that we can not see
how a Senate committee could tolerate it, much less report it, as seems
to have been done. The bill is reactionary and deplorably retro-
gressive. It wipes out the State Department of Public Instruction, the
Superintendent and deputy of which now receive together $9000, and
provides for a Commissioner of Education at a salary of $7000, one
deputy at $6000, and three more at $5000 each, or $28,000 in all,
more than three times the present expenses of administration. The
method of appointment provided for would inevitably make the incum-
bents politicians, and the whole field of public education a stamping ,
ground for spoilsmen. As the Board of Regents say in their dignified,
yet scathing protest, published in another column:
It would make the department of education liable to the abuses of
political mismanagement and of partisan error and evil which have more
than once in other fields involved our State in scandal and our people
in difficulty and disgrace; it would bring, far more than at present,
our system of common school instruction within the play and purview
of politics and within the methods and schemes of professional poli-
ticians; it would aggrandize powers in the Commissioner and in his
deputies which no educator should approve, no statesman sanction and
no friend of upright or scientific government contemplate without
indignation and alarm. By needless multiplication of high-salaried
officials and by duplication of administrative machinery, it would
unwarrantably add to the burdens of taxpayers.i5
A still more indefensible feature of the White bill is that it proposes
to remove from the care of the Regents the 523 high schools of the State,
which have been the peculiar care and are the special pride of the
University Regents. It expatriates them entirely, depriving them
of their long-enjoyed and cherished right of membership in the univer-
sity, and excluding them from the privileges and immunities incident
thereto. It cuts them adrift from the fostering care of the Regents who
brought them into being, and commits them to an alien and hitherto
often unfriendly guardianship.
The civilian members of the Board of Regents last week approved
with perfect unanimity the vigorous protest published in another
column. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction voted alone to
approve the White bill. Outside of the officials of the Department of
Public Instruction, possibly not entirely disinterested, there is no public
demand for such revolutionary legislation.
In the closing weeks of the Legislature, this legislative tome of
sixty-two pages, containing, among many others, the violent changes
we have noted, is thrown on the desks of the Senators. Can the Senate
afford, in the face of the protest of the Board of Regents and of every
true friend of higher education in the State, to overthrow an honored
system which time and experience have amply vindicated, and, at an
enormous expense to taxpayers, throw the jewel of our model
educational system into the arena of partisan politics, to become the
football of selfish office-seekers in whatever party may be in control
of the State—which will not always be, let the majority at Albany
remember, the party now in charge of the state government.
This legislative monstrosity is a special order in the senate
tomorrow, and we confidently look for its defeat, thus saving the
governor the trouble of vetoing it.
An Unsound Measure
[New York Mail and Express, April 12, 1899]
The Superintendent of Public Instruction is elected by the Legis-
lature every three years. The White bill proposes that he shall be
appointed by the Governor for a term of six years. It proposes to take
from the Board of Regents the control and management of . the 523 high
schools of the State and turn them over to the new Commissioner of
Education. Such a system would inevitably cram the department of
education full of politics. The commissionership and deputy commis-
sionerships, and all the subordinate officials, would become scrambling
points of political strife, whichever party should be or should come in
power. In the selection of the principals of these 523 high schools16
there would enter the same petty bickering and political log-rolling
which has often come pretty close to a scandal in the various normal
schools of this State.
The State Board of Regents, however, who have built up the high
school system of the State to such a degree of perfection that it has
become a model for other States, are not a political body. They are
elected by the Legislature for life and receive no salary except their
bare expenses while in the performance of their often arduous duties.
They have no interest at stake except their own good reputations and
the promotion of higher education in the State of New York. Why,
then, should these 523 high schools, which are the especial pride of the
State University, and which in turn prize and cherish their intimate
connection with it, and the substantial benefits which flow therefrom,
be severed from their parent, and be thrown into the arena of partisan
politics?
THE WHITE EDUCATIONAL BILL
Why in its present form it should not be passed
[New York Tribune, April 18, 1899]
Whatever merits the White educational bill now before the Legis-
lature may have originally possessed, it ought not to be passed in its
present form. The most important amendment, and the one which
should prevent its passage during the last days of the session, takes
from the Regents of the State University that measure of authority
over the high schools of the State which they now exercise and confers
the entire supervision and control of that branch of the State’s educa-
tional system upon a State Department of Education created by the bill
to replace the existing Department of Public Instruction. This pro-
posed change of name is not a vital matter, nor are the objections to an
enlarged establishment of the first importance, but the endeavor to
remove the high schools from the care of the Regents, by whom they
have been so prudently and devotedly served, without any adequate
discussion of the question or any general demand for such a change,
ought to fail.
The dual system of public school administration which prevails in
this State has been justly condemned, and the force of the argument
against it is not seriously impaired by the contention that it has not
done so much harm as it might have done or may do hereafter. The
administration of the schools ought to be unified, and the proper way
to do that as the Constitutional Convention of 1894 was strongly urged
to declare, is to vest the appointment of the Superintendent of Public17
Instruction in the Board of Regents, thus taking the educational .branch
of the State government entirely out of politics. The Convention did
not see fit to make that change in the organic law, and subsequent
Legislatures have done nothing to repair the defect. There is no pos-
sibility that any step will be taken in that direction at this session, but
it is to be hoped that the Legislature will not be persuaded to take a
step in the opposite direction. The proposed bill would tend not to
the destruction but to the perpetuation of the dual system, and instead
of diminishing would increase the inclination and the opportunities for
political manipulation of the schools.
It is not necessary to disparage the character and motives of those ,
who are most eagerly supporting this proposition. It is, or ought to
be, sufficient to say that there is nothing in the bill which warrants a
belief that it would produce important benefits of any sort, while it
would almost inevitably foster some of the worst evils of the present
arrangement.
Educational Interests
[Syracuse Herald, April 19, 1899]
It is known that Governor Roosevelt would like to see, what the
members of the Board of Regents would welcome, viz, legislation that
would truly unify the educational systems of the State. *	*	*
There is no purpose of unification of the school departments in the
White bill. This bill makes a new department from the public instruc-
tion department and certain interests of the Regents; but it will no
nearer approach unification than does the existing arrangement. It
will rather alienate the two departments, and thus postpone unification.
It actually begins at the wrong end to facilitate unification. The right
end is in the constitutional provision, which recognizes the Regents,
otherwise the University, as the head of the State’s educational system.
The real object of the bill is to get around the constitution, and by
creating a Commissioner, in place of the Superintendent, elevate the
primary education over and above and place it in control of secondary
education. It is simply “ putting the cart before the horse. ”
The Regents, as a body, oppose the White bill for excellent reasons,
which they have set forth to the people and the legislators. They
demonstrate that the bill is unnecessary, unjust, wrong in principle
and in purpose; that unification is not its purpose, but instead, separa-
tion and disintegration; that it is not in any respect a commendable
plan, and that it can not work to the advantage of the cause of educa-
tion. "The Regents favor unification, and ask that this be accomplishedi8
at the earliest practicable day. No Regent stands in the way of a thor-
ough plan of unification, but all will do anything in their power to fur-.
ther it. The Superintendent and officers of the Department of Public
Instruction approve and advocate the bill; why, is palpable on the face
of the matter; ist, because the Regents are to be deprived of the high
schools, which that department has contended for for years; and
secondly, that the place-holders in that department are to have offices
of longer terms and higher salaries than those they are to give up.
They complain of the Regents for reaching out for new schools to bring
into their system, when the fact is that the Public Instruction Depart-
ment is the only one that has so reached out, with the 523 high schools
as the objects of acquisition.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1894, the question of the unifi-
cation of the educational interests was pretty thoroughly considered.
There should have been a final settlement then. But the Convention
was not an especially able body of men, and in some respects its work
was but half done. This was true of the educational action. The
common schools were put in the constitution, but only as an obligation
to be sustained by the people. The University of the State, under the
Regents, was recognized definitely as a corporation of long standing and
usefulness, to be continued. Had the provisions gone a step further,
as ex-Superintendent of Public Instruction Andrew S. Draper, now
president of the University of Illinois, went before the committee of
the Convention and cogently urged, to the effect that unification should
be consummated under the Regents, with the Department of Public
Instruction merged in the University, and its Superintendent appointed
by the Regents, there would have been a finality of the subject, and the
cheap and selfish men and interests who are attempting to reverse the
good work done by the Convention would now have no occupation.
The report of the educational committee of the Constitutional Conven-
tion on this subject was able and seasonable. It pointed to the long
existence of the Board of Regents, much beyond that of any other
board or commission in the State, its uniform high standing, its more
than a century of excellent service, without salary or other compensa-
tion other than the satisfaction of well-doing, and the really great
results of the Regents’ system and work in the educational affairs of
the State and the large influence exercised by them over the educational
progress of the country. When newspapers, like a local contemporary,
reflect upon the interest and activity of the Regents in their official
relations—falsely stating that it is with difficulty that meetings are
gotten together, and that little regard is paid to the matters that should
have their attention—it is charitably felt that the writers of these19
slanders are misinformed by those who falsify the facts for some pur-
pose and have not the enterprise to ascertain the truth. The facts are;
that the Regents are thoroughly faithful to their official duties, that
frequent meetings, well attended, are held during the year, besides the
annual and quarterly meetings, and the individual Regents are well
informed and closely attentive to the manifold concerns and affairs that
constantly come before that body. The system, and the work done
under it, challenge the public attention and the fullest inquiry. A
knowledge of what is done by the Regents would put a new phase
upon the public opinion to their disparagement, which has been created
by diligent misrepresentation for no worthy purpose. The legislators,
before finally acting upon the ill-contrived and mischievous bill before
them, should take pains to inform themselves in respect to the present
educational system and its operation, and the actual work accomplished
by the departments. Such an inquiry should lead up to the taking of
time for the formulation of a really needed and thorough plan of unifi-
cation of the State’s educational machinery.
Actipn of Representatives of Academic Principals
Fellow principals:
The White bill, which would revolutionize the educational system
of the State, is being pressed to final passage in the Legislature. This
bill transfers the high schools to a new department, with grave danger
that these schools for the first time in their history will be brought into
partisan politics. The advocates of this measure claim that this bill
has been under discussion for two years, and that a majority of the
high school principals favor the transfer. If you wish to disabuse their
minds of this latter supposition, you should communicate at o?ice with the
Governor and with, your representatives in the Legislature.
To sa}^ that those interested in education have had an opportunity
to consider this bill is disingenuous, for the new features, introduced
with the several hundred amendments first printed in April, change its
entire character.
This bill leads directly away from the unification which all educa-
tors desire. It creates a new department of education, but it re-enacts
the University laws, and then exempts Cornell from the provisions that
apply to all othejr colleges and universities in the state, thus increasing
the confusion that arises from divided responsibility and control.
The White bill will increase greatly the cost of administering the
school system of the State, paralleling, still further examinations,
inspection, apportionment and reports. It may bring about a change20
in the policy of the State toward the maintenance of secondary schools.
At all events, we have a right to demand that a bill which touches our
interests so closely should not be passed withoiit careful consideration.
Up to the present time our high schools have been free from
political influence. Under the provisions of the White bill we feel sure
that this would not long be the case.
^ Fraternally yours,
John G. Allen	D. C. Farr
J. C. Norris	C. T. R. Smith
Committee on legislation of the Associated
Principals of Nezv York State
White Educational Bill
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 18, 1899]
The Eagle republishes to-day the leading editorial in the Tribune
and a letter from a prominent educator on the White educational bill.
The bill takes its name from the Syracuse Senator who introduced it.
It is a measure which should not pass in its present form. The
Tribune gives reasons why it should not—and there are others.
These others range from the personal purpose behind the measure
to the confusion it would work if it were adopted. The measure is the
offspring of some politicians who see the end of their present service
approaching, and of others who desire to get service which has been
denied to them for public and party cause. Both those who would
hold on and those who would catch on have united to make places for
themselves under the bill, in case it becomes a law. This personal
motive may not be illegitimate. It is certainly not lofty ■ *	*	*
Of course there is a pretext for the bill. Its pretext is the division
of State-supported schools from State-aided schools, to place the former
under the “ State Commissioner of Education,” and to keep the latter
under the Board of Regents. The common schools. from primary to
grammar schools are now under the Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion. The high schools and academies, as well as the colleges, are now
under the Board of Regents as to all their scholastic features, but the
high schools bear a relation of support by local taxation to the Depart-
ment of Public Instruction. The scheme of the bill is to take the high
schools wholly from under the Board of Regents—and to create five
giant offices with great powers to accomplish that object. The offices
are to be created by politicians and for politicians. A result would be
to make the high schools a tender to whichever State machine was m
powerThe late Constitutional Convention favored the unification of the
educational system of the State. It anchored the Board of Regents in
the constitution and left merging of the State Department of Public
Instruction with that Board to the law-making power. The Governor is
in favor of that unification and of that merger. He has said so officially
and publicly. He has suggested legislation to that effect. He has
suggested the change of the White bill for a measure to that effect.
He ought to count for considerable in legislation. As he has said : “ I
may not be able to secure good legislation. I can prevent bad legisla-
tion, for then my say begins. ”
There ought to be unification of the educational system of the
State. Unification is the order of the day. It is science, business,
reform and responsibility in one. The dual system of the State pro-
duces confusion, expense and collision. It begets just such grab
schemes as this White bill is. Passage of that bill would indefinitely
postpone unification. It would grievously injure the rights and
interests of the high schools. It would put back the hands of progress
on the dial of time in this State. The State University system of New
York is the admiration of every American and European State. It was
organized in 1784. As administered by the Board of Regents that
system has been kept out of politics. The public school system has
not been kept out of politics. Jt will not be until the Department of
Public Instruction has been merged in the Board of Regents—thus
unifying the educational system of the State.
The Eagle believes that Governor Roosevelt will prevent the
spoliation of the high schools by politicians and for politicians. It
believes that he will contend that all the schools should be taken out of
politics instead of more of them put in politics. He may not be able to
have the first done, but he can, we think, prevent the second from being
■don.6	^	^
The White Educational Bill
[New York Times, April 20, 1899]
The fundamental criticism of the bill to create a Department of
Education with a Commissioner at the head, in place of the Superinten-
dent of Public Instruction, is that in transferring to this Commissioner
the functions of supervision and control of the high schools now exer-
cised by the Board of Regents, it makes a move in the wrong direction.
The Superintendent now has the supervision, inspection and control of
primary education, the common schools; the Regents of secondary
education, the high schools. There is great force in the argument that22
the educational system would be bettered by bringing both primary
and secondary schools under one control. But many of the wisest
friends of the schools would accomplish this concentration of authority
by putting the common school's under the control of the Regents, not
by handing over the high schools to the Superintendent, who is now an
officer chosen in a partisan manner for political reasons, nor to the new
Commissioner, who will be appointed by the Governor.
This bill would work a revolution in the administration of the system
of secondary education, so long most usefully supervised, and step by
step elevated, by the Regents of the University. The new proposition
is to take them away from their mother department and turn them over
to the Department of Public Instruction, at the same time baptizing that
department anew with the name of the State Department of Education,
but in no substantial particular changing its fundamental characteristics,
which never can be entirely satisfactory while it remains, as it would in
greater degree in the proposed new form, subject more or less to partisan
domination.
On the other hand, the Regents of the University, by reason of the
method of their constitution, their high personal character, the perma-
nence of their tenures, and the fact that their services are gratuitous—
uncompensated except by the gratification of being useful—may with
confidence be relied upon to maintain the long, unbroken traditions of
their organization for independent and intelligent action, animated
solely by the sincere wish to promote the highest welfare of our schools.
Instead of withdrawing the Regents from any part of their hitherto
allotted public service, it would be wiser to make them the responsible,
discretionary head of the entire educational system of the State, unifying
it by making the Superintendent of Public Instruction their lieutenant
by committing to them his selection and appointment. His usefulness
would be thereby greatly increased, for he could with singleness of
thought devote himself entirely to his legitimate educational duties,
freed from partisan political importunities or control, and would be
assured of permanence of tenure so long as his work should maintain a
proper high grade of efficiency. Under present conditions, no matter
how perfect his work, a change of political control in the State is
almost sure to turn out of office a Superintendent of Public Instruction
and replace him by a new and untried man—with resulting dismissal
of experienced subordinates.23
THE WHITE EDUCATIONAL BILL
Some 1'ght upon a dark subject
[New York Sun, April 19 1899]
To the Editor of the Sun:
#Sir: The measure known as the White educational bill has trav-
eled only a little way on its passage through the Legislature, but it has
traveled plenty far enough. It is a meddlesome, impracticable and
thoroughly vicious piece of proposed legislation, and it deserves defeat.
There is little doubt that it will be defeated, but its condemnation
should be a vigorous one.
It is admitted by all who are familiar with the present educational
system of our State that it is a complicated one, suffering in a general
way from divided authority, and in need of some process of unification.
The question of amending and bettering it is, however, a very large
one. The interests involved are widespread and delicate. All of these
interests ought to be consulted and studied, and when the time comes
for a wise codification of our educational statutes, a bill which is the
product of serious investigation and mature thought will be the proper
way to accomplish what is desired. *	*	*
Senator White’s educational bill provides that the present Depart-
ment of Public Instruction shall cease to exist on July 1, and that a
State Commissioner of Education, to be appointed by the Governor and
confirmed by the Senate, shall be named within twenty days after the
passage of the act. The new Commissioner is to receive a salary of
$7,000, instead of a salary of $5,000, allotted to the present Superin-
tendent, and is to have the power of appointing and removing at pleas-
ure one deputy at $6,000, and three deputies at $5,000 each, as also all
needed directors of departments and other officers and employees. It
is naively stated by the advocates of the bill, first among whom is Mr
Charles R. Skinner, the present Superintendent of Public Instruction,
that the primary advantages of all this are the merits of a better tenure
of office than the present one of three years and of a better method of
appointment than the present degrading logrolling in joint ballots of
two houses of the Legislature. Mr Skinner puts himself before the
public in the very laudable and self-sacrificing attitude of legislating
himself out of existence for the good of the public service. Of course
it has not occurred to him as it has, however, emphatically occurred to
many of his warm personal friends, that if the bill passes he will be the
most likely candidate for the new Commissionership of Education
and will hold office until 1905 rather than until 1901, as under the
present arrangement, with a very much larger salary than he gets now,24
and with enormous powers of patronage. Even if Mr Skinner only-
gets the deputy commissionership in the shake-tip he will be very
much better off than he is now. The new Commissioner of Education
is to have all the present power of the State Superintendent and is to
control all the high schools and academic departments which are now
under the supervision of the Regents of the University. Five hundred
and more of these schools will no longer have representation in the
University convocation, which has been a matter of so much pride to
them in the past, and will have none of the privileges which they have
heretofore enjoyed because of their University connection. Power to
establish and conduct examinations and give certificates for admissions
to colleges is vested in the new department, which power is also given
to the Regents of the University and is at present actually exercised by
the latter.
Another provision of the bill which is so extraordinary as to seem
almost incredible is a clause which exempts Cornell University from all
provisions in article 21 of the act, and as that article is simply a
codification of all the laws of the State now regulating and controlling
colleges and universities, the effect of the clause is to exempt Cornell
University from the operation of all the present regulations of the
statutes. Other clauses in the bill give to Cornell University the same
power and dignity as representing the State that the Regents have now
in issuing credentials and diplomas, and make Cornell University, in
fact, more powerful than either the University or the new State Depart-
ment of Education. It is impossible that any true friend of Cornell
could have asked for such astounding powers and exemptions, and
these provisions of the act are obviously the work of some would-be
friend, gone mad.
Apart from the private and self-interested motives which a mere
glance suffices to show are impudently and scandalously at work in this
bill, the measure intensifies rather than lessens the present dual
educational system which it purports to remedy. Both University and
Commissioner still exist under the new system with very largely the
same powers. The provision increasing the salary of the head of the
educational department and creating new assistants to him, also at
much larger salaries, is a piece of outrageous extravagance; while the
power given to the Commissioner to appoint and remove at his pleasure
all the heads of departments and all the employees under him and to fix
their compensation as he chooses, is a reckless and semi-criminal
creation of irresponsibility, which can only result in mismanagement
and scandal, and could only have been intended for the purposes of a
political machine.	S.25
THE WHITE EDUCATIONAL BILL
Said to be a blow at the High Schools of the State
[New York Tribune, April 20, 1899]
To the Editor of the Tribune
Sir :	The more the White education bill, in its later changed
form, is considered, the more apparent it becomes that the recent
wholesale amendments thereto are mainly in furtherance of the inter-
ests of the Department of Public Instruction, which seeks to aggrandize
itself by wresting the control of the high schools of the State from the
encouraging and elevating supervision of the Regents of the University.
The high schools have not asked for any such change in their guardian-
ship, nor can it in any way conduce to their welfare.
The proposed change of name of the Department of Public Instruc-
tion to that of State Department of Education, and a similar change of the
title of its. chief from Superintendent to Commissioner, signify nothing,
except possible obscuring of the essentially selfish purpose sought to be
subserved, which it is strange that some very good men fail clearly to
see.
One of Supt. Skinner’s claims has been that he should have
the control of the high .schools, because they are supported by
public money. But why for that reason? Obviously the plea is falla-
cious. The Regents of the University are public State officers, equally
with the Superintendent, elected in the same way—by the Legislature in
joint session—and equally for a public service.
No thoughtful, unbiased person will believe that the Department
of Public Instruction, or the essentially same department—under what-
ever baptism of new name—or any public educational department con-
stituted otherwise than most happily is the Board of Regents of the
University, can be kept as free from political domination as the Regents
conspicuously have been throughout their entire existence of over a
hundred years. And no blight more baneful could fall upon our now
most excellent high schools than to have them become the subjects of
partisan political strife for their control and exploiting.
They are well off where they are. Let them alone! And tamper
not with the method of constituting the Board of Regents of the Univer-
sity. A system well tested and hallowed by the trials and experience
of a century, from which naught of evil has come and which has
evolved so much of public good, should be. speeded on in its beneficent
work, and not be threatened with or hampered by idly conceived and
immaturely considered alterations, however superficially attractive.
Syracuse, N. Y., April 18, 1899.	M.26
A Bill to Degrade the Schools
[New York Tribune, April 25, 1899]
Recent changes to which we have called public attention have
strengthened the opposition to the White educational bill now before
the Legislature. The latest amendment, devised by Senator Brown
and accepted by Senator White, ought to kill it outright.
Without the Brown amendment, the bill, in brief., provides that the
Department of Public Instruction shall be converted into a Department
of Education, with a Commissioner appointed by the Governor for six
years at the head of it, and that the inspection, supervision and control
of the high schools of the State, now shared by the Board of Regents,
shall be wholly vested in the new department. The plea is that by this
means various evils resulting from the dual administration of the public
school system would be rectified, but we cannot for a moment admit
the validity of the argument. On the contrary, it appears to us certain
that the proposed change would emphasize and tend strongly to per-
petuate the division of authority of which just complaint is made, and
the mischief arising therefrom. The thing to aim at is a complete
unification of the educational establishment under conditions which will'
fully and permanently protect it from political influences. The Consti-
tutional Convention was urged to secure that object by giving the
appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to the Board of
Regents, whose composition and history for more than a century afford
an ample guarantee of its independence and non-partisanship ; but the
Convention chose to regard this matter as in the proper field of legis-
lation. It is to be regretted that successive Legislatures have failed to
apply so simple, logical and effective a remedy, but it would be far
more deplorable if a step backward should now be taken, and acknowl-
edged defects fastened upon the public-school system, perhaps for
many years to come.
• So much for the Educational bill as it was last week. It was bad
enough then, but the extraordinary amendment framed by Mr Brown
makes it far worse. Mr Brown proposes that vacancies occurring here-
after by reason of death or otherwise in the Board of Regents, as at
present constituted, shall not be filled; that a Regent shall be elected
by the people in each of the eight judicial districts of the State, to serve
fourteen years, and that the first Commissioner of Education shall be
appointed by the Governor, but that his successors shall be chosen by
the eight judicial district regents and the Governor, these nine constitu-
ting an elective body for that purpose after the first six years, and ulti-
mately becoming the whole board.27
It may be said that Senator Brown^ who advocated a similar
scheme before the Constitutional Convention, of which he was a mem-
ber, is creditably frank in explaining-his intentions. He is extremely
solicitous that the city of New York shall never control the school sys-
tem of the State, and he reckons that under his plan it never could, five
of the judicial districts being securely Republican. But Mr Brown’s
-candor does not justify his scheme for a deliberate reconstruction of
the educational establishment on a political basis. Moreover, he
appears with amazing fatuity to overlook the virtual certainty that Nthe
Democrats at the very first chance would knock .his arrangement to
pieces and rebuild it to suit themselves.
There is good reason to believe that the White bill, without the
Brown amendment, would considerably increase the opportunities for
political manipulation of the educational department. With the Brown
amendment, it would inevitably fill the department chock full of poli-
tics. The result would be such a miserable degradation of the schools
as all their intelligent friends must pray that they may escape.
A Good Piece of Work
[New York Mail and Express, April 25, 1899]
The defeat of the White educational bill, the grave defects in
which have been shown from time to time in The Mail and Express,
was assured in the Senate last night, when the enacting clause of the
pernicious measure was stricken out. At a meeting yesterday of
the Board of Regents, of which the Governor is ex officio a member, all
agreed that the measure was an intolerable one, and this expression
was sufficient to array a majority of Senators against the bill.
The frank talk of Regent Roosevelt indicated very clearly not
only that the present bill could not become a law, but that no other bill
intended to make the State’s educational system the football of politics
will be introduced while he is Governor. He declared that the work of
education should be entirely divorced from politics, and that the Board
of Regents should itself be the appointing and governing power. He
vigorously opposed Senator Brown’s amendment, which provided for
the popular election of Regents by judicial districts, and suggested their
appointment by the Governor instead of their election as now by the
Legislature. He declared in favor of the unification of che educational
system of the State under the Board of Regents, instead of its further
division, as proposed by the White bill. Finally, the Governor pro-
tested energetically against the bald favoritism and wholesale exemp-
tions in the White bill, which, if they had been enacted, would have28
made Cornell University the Gerry society among the New York
institutions of learning.
The systematic and intelligent opposition of the Board of Regents,
aided greatly by the press of the State, has been the effective cause of
the abandonment of this bold attempt to overthrow a system which the
experience of . over a century has sanctioned. Yet to the Regents, hold-
ing their honorable positions by a life tenure, and receiving no com-
pensation for their often arduous services, cannot be attributed any
motive except to guard at every point the interests of education in the
State of New York. In fact, at their meeting yesterday, the Regents
expressed their readiness to co-operate in framing for the next legisla-
ture “any well-considered law which will secure unification of the
educational system of the State, and its preservation from political
interference and intrigue. ”
The Senate did a good day’s work yesterday in defeating, probably
for all time, a bill so fraught with danger to our educational system.
Unity in the Educational System
[New York Times, April 26, 1899]
The contest over the White Educational bill has had a fortunate
issue. The bill has been killed, which is the first thing to be thankful
for. But as a result of the discussion Gov. Roosevelt and the Regents
of the University have come to an understanding, and from their union
of purpose a sounder and more maturely considered project of educa-
tional reform may be expected from the next session.
The fault of the White bill, as we pointed out last week, was that
its tendency was to bring the schools of the State under political con-
trol. The transfer of the control of the high schools from the Regents
to a Commissioner of Education appointed by the Governor, would unify
the system, to be sure, but in the wrong way. The proper and sound
way to get rid of the dual system of control, the Superintendent having
supervision of the common schools and the Regents of the secondary, or
high schools, would be to make the Superintendent an officer of the
Board of Regents, appointed by them and subject to their direction.
Some of the friends of a betterment of the educational system too read-
ily abandoned this ideal solution as not to be hoped for from the Legis-
lature, and so gave their support to the White bill.
The Governor has now assured the Regents that he favors a change
of the law to give them the power of appointing the executive head of
the department. The school system, primary and secondary, as well29
as the collegiate, to the extent that State supervision is exercised over
the higher institutions of learning, would then be under one control,
and that is a reform much to be desired. But it will doubtless be found
desirable to institute some reforms in the board itself. Governor
Roosevelt told the Regents at their meeting on Monday, that in order
to bring the board into closer touch with modern educational ideas it
might be well to fix a retiring age for Regents. Upon one point the
Governor spoke with strong emphasis. He assured the board that he
should strenuously oppose the introduction of politics or political con-
siderations in any part of the school system. The Regents on their part
passed resolutions pledging themselves to an earnest effort to come to
an agreement with the Senate committee on education and the Superin-
tendent upon a bill for the unification of the department to be submit-
ted to the next Legislature.
The need of well-considered legislation is illustrated by the vicious
attempt of the author of the Brown amendment to put the whole sys-
tem at once into the strifes of politics by proposing that the Regents
should be elected by the voters in the judicial districts. He was can-
did enough to confess that his purpose was to secure a perpetual Repub-
lican majority in the board. This amendment died with the bill itself,
but until a wise reform measure has been adopted the schools will not
be secure against political assault. ' The outcome of the present session
is satisfactory in that no evil has been done. Next winter, with the
help of the Governor,, a good bill ought to be got through.
White-Brown Bill Killed
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 25, 1899J
The letter from Albany, on the White-Brown educational bill, in
to-day’s Eagle, describes the meeting of the Board of Regents on Mon-
day and the killing of the measure by the State Senate that night. In
the meeting of the board, the addresses of Mr Depew and of Governor
Roosevelt, which are indicatively set forth in the letter, contained good
words for education and fortunate and needed words for the Republican
party. The telegram which Regent Whitelaw Reid took pains to send
from as far away as Milbrae, in California, condemned the measure in
even more severe terms than those employed by Messrs Depew and
Roosevelt.
Stress is laid here on the Republicanism of these men, because the
bill of Senator White, with the amendments by Senator Brown, for the
popular election of regents, in judicial districts, avowedly signified the
resolution of Republican politicians to seize and, if might be, to hold the30
educational system of the State for the political purposes of their party
—for the adequate reason that they felt they had the power to do so,
and for the hunger reason that they felt like doing it. Monday opened
with the most formidable indictment against a political party for a long
time presented in this State. Monday closed with the denunciation by
prominent Republicans of such a fell purpose. But, in part, the indict-
ment still remains, for the bill was killed in the senate by Democratic
votes, aided by a few Republicans against the protest of many of,the
latter party.
The Eagle was the first newspaper to open against this measure.
It has kept warring against it from the first. The Eagle was quickly
joined by the New York Mail and Express and the Syracuse Her aid,
and, afterwards, by the Tribune, the Sun, and other papers, which, in
turn, were .reinforced by the Association of the Academic Principals of
the State and by the committee on legislation of the Associated Aca-
demic and High School principals of the State, as well as by letters and
protests from prominent educators throughout the country. This paper
• opened on the measure before the Board of Regents reached its con-
sideration. We denounced it on the 5th of April, the Board protested
against it on the day following, and from then until- now the best
exponents of the educational interests of the State have been hostile to
the measure. Their success is a cause for profound gratification.
They have learned some things in this well*ended stage of a not yet
ended war which will help them in the future phases of the struggle.
No one was left in doubt of the mind of the Board of Regents on
the measure submitted for their opinion. The Board saw no reasons to
change and saw new reasons to adhere to the position it took, when the late
measure was submitted to it. It found the latest form more objection-
able than prior ones were to those who would take and keep education
out of politics. The plan to efface the Department of Public Instruc-
tion, without cause assigned, was explicitly condemned, unless such a
step should unify the educational system of the State. The White-
Brown bill added to the atrocity of the measure in its previous form
the intention to deprive the Board of its power over the high schools
against the protest of the high schools themselves. The insistence of
those schools that they should retain their position in the honored and
well-ordered higher educational policy of the State was entitled to the
respect of the Senate, and received it, on Monday night.
Unification with unification left out was condemned. The pro-
posed aggrandizement of one department, at the expense of another,
was not thought to have a good defense in the mere opportunity and
purpose presented to accomplish the intended robbery. Both the3i
Legislature and the Board practically declared the plan to elect sectional
Regents, instead of State Regents, to be revolutionary, violent and
monstrous. The reasons which led the late Constitutional Convention
to reject that plan were virtually sustained.
The scheme was stamped out, to have the election of Regents turn
on the result of partisan contests, in judicial districts, after their nomi-
nation had first turned, on the decision of partisan conventions or
partisan politics in those districts. Position was taken that every
Regent should have the warrant and the authority of the government of
the State for his election and for his action, as now. Tribute was paid
by the Senate on Monday night to the fact that in the 115 years of its
existence the Board has never acted from partisan motives for partisan
purposes, or under partisan dictation. The ground taken by the Gov-
ernor, by the Regents and by the Senate distinctly was that no board of
which the creation and control might require it to do so should be
authorized by this State, in the present condition of civilization, culture
and morality in the world.
Beyond question, the committee named by the Regents to confer
with the Senate committee on education should be able, before the next
legislature convenes, to agree upon a measure of unification that will
be just to all; that will free education from political intervention or
intrigue; that will save the expense and conflict of dual administration
and inspection. It may, and, we think, it should, incidentally, remove
any servants or factors or influences, whether in the Board of Regents
or in the State Department of Public Instruction, that keep those depart-
ments at cross purposes or the Legislature ill-disposed toward either.
WHITE-BROWN BILL KILLED
Board of Regents and State Senate peremptorily end the
measure—Work well done in a day—Meeting of the Board
of Regents—Resolutions passed—Remarks by Messrs Depew
and Roosevelt
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 25, 1899]
The quietus given to the White educational bill by the Board of Regents and by
the Legislature to-day was complete. Senator Horace White of Syracuse introduced
the bill. He is chairman of the Senate committee on education. Originally the
measure provided for the supersedure of the Department of Public Instruction by an
officer to be called Commissioner of Education, the Commissioner to be named by the
Governor, subject to Senate’s confirmation, to serve for six years at $7000, to have
three assistants, and to take from the Regents all the high schools now under their
charge.32
The Regents at a meeting on April 6 denounced the bill in the form in which it
then was and issued as their own an address to the people of the state, framed by
Regent St. Clair McKelway. The address has been widely published.
Seeing that the bill would be defeated, it was not pressed. Last Thursday the
committee added to it amendments by Senator Elon R. Brown of the thirty-fifth dis-
trict, a lawyer of Watertown, providing for a Commissioner of Education, as before,
and further as follows:
The Board of Regents shall be composed of the legislative, the elective and the
ex officio Regents. The Regents heretofore chosen by the Legislature, in office when
this chapter takes effect, and who shall be known as legislative Regents, shall con-
tinue to hold their office during good behavior. No vacancy shall hereafter be filled
in the office of legislative Regent. The Lieutenant-Governor and Secretary of State
shall be ex officio Regents until December 31, 1900. The Governor shall continue to
be an ex officio Regent and shall possess all the powers of an elective Regent.
At the general election in 1899, a Regent of the University shall be chosen in and
for each judicial district by the electors thereof. The Regents so chosen and their
successors shall be known as elective Regents. Their official term shall be fourteen
years from and after the first day of January next after their election, but no person
shall hold the office of elective Regent longer than until and including the last day of
December next after he shall be seventy years of age. An elective Regent at the
time of his election must be thirty years of age. When a vacancy shall occur other-
wise than by expiration of term in the office of an elective Regent, the same shall be
filled for a full term by the electors of the judicial district in which the vacancy
occurs at the next general election happening not less than three months after such
vacancy occurs; and until the vacancy shall be so filled, the Governor and elective
Regents may fill such vacancy by appointment, which shall continue until arid includ-
ing the last day of December next after the election at which the vacancy shall be
filled.
It was further provided that the successor of the first Commissioner of Education
would in 1905 be chosen by the elective Regents only, and be removable for cause,
after a hearing by them and the Governor only, the present Regents, elected for life
by the Legislature, to have no successors, to have no vote in chosing or removing the
State Commissioner, and in other respects being markedly discriminated against.
That was the situation when the Board of Regents reassembled on Monday.
•There were present Chancellor A. J. Upson, Vice Chancellor W. C. Doane, ex Officio
Regents Governor Roosevelt, Secretary of State McDonough and State Superintend-
ent of Public Instruction C. R. Skinner and Regents Martin I. Townsend, Troy;
C. M. Depew, New York; C. E. Fitch, Rochester; W. H. Watson, Utica; St. Clair
McKelway, Brooklyn; P. T. Sexton, Palmyra; T. Guilford Smith, Buffalo; Hamil-
ton Harris, Albany; L. A. Stimson, New York; A. Vander Veer, Albany, and
Chester S. Lord, Brooklyn.
The speeches in the Board on Monday were made .in the main by Mr Depew,
who led off, and by Governor Roosevelt. In the course of his remarks Mr Depew
said:
In educational institutions one of their greatest elements of strength and dignity
is their age, and this board is 115 years old. If the White bill passes those who study
politics know that the first time the Democrats come into power, as they surely will
in the natural changes, within thirty days they will amend this law so that the con-
trol of the educational departments will pass into their hands and they will make a
Democratic machine.
If the Republicans now pass a law, as the State is divided, they are sure always
to have a majority of the eight elective Regents. These attacks have been made on
the Board of Regents at regular intervals. Governor Hill tried hard to abolish us.
For twenty years I have been a trustee of Yale University. I have often attended
examinations in colleges and other institutions. When my son was going to college
I took pains to attend various Regents’ examinations. I am bound to say that I never33
in all my experience saw anything equal to them in dignity, thoroughness and
impressiveness. The boys and girls from all walks of life came to their work real-
izing its perfect justice, and knowing that if they succeeded their credentials would
bear the seal of an institution more than a century old. I have talked with many
competent observers, and with the exception of an occasional educational crank I
find that my high opinion of the examinations is generally shared. We must think
twice before we overturn the institution which was the product of the greatest con-
structive statesman this or any other country has produced. Our revenue system
stands to-day as he created it. The judiciary largely reflects the impress of his
genius. Hamilton adopted, in constituting the Regents, the principal of the survival
of the fittest. The people choose the Legislature and they in turn select the Regents.
A system that has produced such results for over a century must not be lightly modi-
fied. Unification should be had by putting the whole educational system of the State
under the Regents, just as the board is now.
The speech of Mr. Depew was in part intended as a reply to a statement in
Monday’s Tribune ascribed to State Senator Brown, in which he was reported as
saying:
My purpose in having these Regents elected from the judicial districts is perpetu-
ally to insure that the educational system of the State shall not ever be controlled by
the City of New York. New York now controls its own schools, and I do not wish it
ever, through gaining possession of the Legislature, to possess power to elect a State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, and thus grasp control of the school system of
the rest of the State. By providing that the elective Regents shall be elected from
the judicial districts there will be a certainty that the counties outside of New York
will always have the naming of the State Commissioner of Education.
The brutal (and fatal) candor of Senator Brown needed the speech of Mr Depew
to save the Republican party from the charge of putting the entire system of State
education into Republican politics and keeping it there. Governor Roosevelt then
spoke, saying in part:
There was not the slightest chance that the White bill would pass at this session.
It would be a great mistake not to secure unification. He had believed strongly
from the beginning that the Regents should be the appointing power, but they must
face the fact that the Legislature will not turn over the public schools to the Regents
as now constituted. When he proposed this he got no support in the Legislature, and
that represents fairly the outside attitude. He had no criticism to make of the work
of the Regents, but was simply stating facts. For the work the Regents had done he
had the greatest admiration. He was opposed to electing the Regents by the people.
The Governor will appoint better men usually than the Legislature will elect. He
should be glad to have the new system, if adopted, go into effect at the end of his
term, as he had too many appointments to make now. He would suggest that fif-
teen was a better number than the present nineteen elective Regents chosen by the
Legislature, and that it could be best reduced by not filling the first four vacancies
that occur. He would not say, “Here we are, do anything you can,” but would get
those interested to sit with them and make it evident that they would concede to
prejudices if necessary so that the common schools should all be put under the pres-
ent Board of Regents.
If you will seriously face this problem, you can have them all put under you.
Now keep the substance of your power and add to it, but yield immaterial things to
prejudices.
I need not say that I am absolutely opposed to having one iota of politics in the
administration of the public schools system, for you all know that I am anxious .to
have even the police taken out of politics. The exclusion of Cornell University, from
the operation of the law is absolutely unj ustifiable. Instead of having two educa-
tional boards, there should be but one, and the Regents should be that one. But you
ought not to say you will not break the crust of conversatism. Be willing to go into
not too close touch with the waves of popular sentiment.
The Regents after further discussion adopted the following:
The Regents, reconvened to consider certain proposed amendments to the educa-
tional la w, take occasion to state that their impression and interpretation of their con-
stitutional duty is that they should carefully guard all matters touching the interests34
of education in the State of New York. Created in 1784, and continued and made-
permanent in the constitution of 1894, they recognize the right of the Legislature of
the State to increase, modify or diminish their powers. But they believe that in the
discharge of their responsibilities they ought with all respect and courtesy to point
out the danger to the lawmaking body whenever they conceive that the educational
work of the State is liable to suffer damages. Under this conviction they have
declared their opposition to certain features of the White bill now pending in the
Senate.
Having said this, the Regents believe that the best disposition of a question of so
grave importance would be a postponement for another year, in order that these
new provisions of law maybe more clearly understood, and, after public discussion
by educators throughout the State, more clearly defined. But, inasmuch as the
Regents have only the strong desire to accomplish two things, namely, unification and
freedom from political control, it is hereby
Resolved, that the Regents declare themselves ready to favor heartily any well
considered law which will secure unification of the educational system of the State
and its preservation from political interference and intrigue and to accept any change
in the constitution of the Board which may become necessary in future legislation to
accomplish these two objects.
Resolved, that a committee on legislation, consisting of the Chancellor, Vice-
Chancellor and Regents Depew, McKelway and Sexton, confer from time to time with
the members of the Senate committee on education and theSrperintendent of Public
Instruction with a view of agreeing upon the form of a bill to be presented to the
next session of the Legislature, and having for its object the unification of the two
state departments of education.
In the campaign which the Regents have made against these measures politically
to spoliate education, the editorial utterances of the Eagle, the Tribune, the Suny
the Times, the Mail and Express, the Syracuse Herald and other papers have been
issued in sheet, circular and pamphlet forms, and received a large circulation in the
State and throughout the country. The efficiency of the work done in this respect
and in others, was shown on Monday night, when the State Senate in committee of
the whole voted to strike out the enacting clause of the White-Brown bill as the
most effective way of killing it.
Extract from Letter from a Prominent Principal
“The proposed movement to free our educational system from
politics ought to be carried through without fail.
“When every plan is likely to be overturned in three years, when
educational officials have to court the favor of political bosses, and
when a man’s political belief has more power to put him in the office of
Superintendent of Public Instruction than his fitness for the position
then it is time to inaugurate a different system.
“ The plan to place these matters in the hands of the Regents of
the University of the State of New York is the right one; for history
has shown that they are working on the right line—that of elevating
true education for its own sake and for the sake of the people. ”Selections made from Editorials in Newspapers During the
Constitutional Convention of 1894.
The Superintendent of Public Instruction
[New York Times, 12 August, 1894]
There is one subject with which the Constitutional Convention
should deal with courage and decision, if it does anything with it, and
that is the unification of the educational system of the State, by vesting
the appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the
Regents of the University. By thus removing the choice of the Super-
intendent from the field of partisan political contention it would be
possible to secure the services in that office of higher-minded and more
capable men and (of almost, equal consequence) to retain such a man so
long as his efficiency, pertinent to the duties of the office, should con-
tinue at high-water mark.
The present method of choosing Superintendents by the Legisla-
ture, once in three years, makes political considerations decide the
original choice, and is sure to turn out the experienced officer at the
end of his official term if the opposing political party is then in the
ascendency.
All parties should agree to take the educational system of the
State out of politics. There is plenty of room elsewhere for political
contention. All should unite in placing the schools of the State, from
the kindergarten to the University, under the scientific supervision and
unselfish care of the Regents of the University, who are high-minded
men, devoting their time and services to the cause of education, asking
and receiving no compensation for their labors and anxious only to
promote as best may be the enlightenment and elevation of the people
at large.
The Constitutional Convention can do nothing that will more
widely commend its work to the people of this State, of all shades of
political belief, than thus to safeguard the best interests of the public
schools of all grades.36
The Convention and the Schools
[New York Tribune, 12 August, 1894]
The proposal that the power and duty of appointing the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction in this State shall be transferred from the
Legislature to the Regents of the University is supported by strong
arguments. The advocates of this change, whose sincerity and disin-
terestedness can not possibly be suspected, have reason to hope that
the Constitutional Convention will adopt their views, but since its time
is limited and its work heavy, a preliminary discussion of the subject
may be helpful.
All judicious supporters of the educational establishment of this
State are doubtless agreed that it ought to be absolutely secured against
political manipulation, and therefore that it ought, if possible, to be
entirely outside the field of political contention. So far as the powers
of the Regents extend, that object has been already happily accom-
plished. It is solely with the desire and intention of carrying out this
principle still further that an extension of their powers in the way pro-
posed is now urged. Under the existing system, the choice of a
Superintendent of Public Instruction is inevitably influenced by politi-
cal considerations. The fact that the unfortunate possibilities of the
present method of selection have hitherto been generally avoided is not
a sufficient argument for fits retention, if a different method would
almost certainly afford a stronger guaranty of efficiency in that impor-
tant office and of popular confidence in the incumbent. Those who
have carefully considered the plan of vesting the appointment of the
Superintendent in the Regents of the University are convinced that the
change would be permanently beneficial. It is said truly that while
by the conditions of their existence and organization the Regents repre-
sent both parties in the sense that they are chosefi from both parties,
and must continue to do so, they are nevertheless as far removed from
the sway of personal or political prejudices as any official body however
constituted could be; that during the whole period of their history
they have never shown a desire for increased power or patronage, and
that the only argument for the proposed change to which they would
listen for a moment is to be found in the belief that it would enable
them to serve the State by unifying and strengthening its educational
system.
The Regents hold office for life without salary, and the natural
expectation that officials appointed to discharge a sacred trust on those
terms would cherish no other ambition than that of promoting the
common welfare within their sphere has been confirmed by experience.37
The people of this State have an immense interest in the educational
branch of the public service, and are more and more conscious of that
fact every year. They will certainly be prepared to ratify any measure
for increasing the efficiency of the schools so soon as they are convinced
of its merits. That the purpose of this proposal to lift the office of
Superintendent entirely above the range of party strife is as sure as it
is deserving of their sympathy no one can doubt, and we believe that
the method suggested will commend itself to their approval, as we
hope it may to the judgment of the Constitutional Convention.
Regents Freer from Political Entanglements
[Niagara Falls Cataract]
Much might be said in favor of the suggested change. The Board
is a more permanent body than the Legislature, is freer from political
entanglements; and is in closer touch with all matters educational,
dealing as it does with such subjects only. Any appointments they
might make would, in their own interests, necessarily be dictated
rather by a desire to secure a competent and capable man than by any
desire to serve party or party ends.
Regents Should Appoint Superintendent
[New York Morning Advertiser, 8 August, 1894]
The movement inaugurated by the teachers of the high schools of
the State to have the Superintendent of Public Instruction appointed
by the Board of Regents is one that deserves encouragement and
should receive the careful attention of the Constitutional Convention.
The educational committee has had the matter before it for some time,
but consideration of it^ is being too long deferred. The present method
of appointment—by joint ballot of the Legislature—is one which
passes this important office over to the control of politicians. The
salary attached is $5000. This is a bone worth picking, and it sets the
pack to quarreling.	*	.*	*	*	*	*
An Educational Reform
[Harper’s Weekly, 14 July, 1894]
It is understood that a proposition to vest the election of the superin-
tendent of Public Instruction in the Regents of the University is con-
sidered favorably by the committee on education of the New York
Constitutional Convention, and will in due time be reported to that body
for its action. It is auspicious, both for the character of the proposition38
and the prospects of its incorporation in the organic law, that it will
proceed from the committee with substantial unanimity. In the
Convention it will be advocated by leading delegates of both parties, and
there can be no question of its adoption and submission to the people.
Its inspiration is obvious, and that is the desire of intelligent friends
of education to relieve, so far as practicable, the conduct of its various
systems from political influences. There is, of course, no department of
government that should be so free from partisan inclination as that of
education, and yet it is to the reproach of New York, which in many
respects has conserved admirably the educational interests of her people,
that she has permitted too much of the evil indicated to obtain, and that
specially in the management of her elementary schools. This is true of
city boards, too often the creatures of ward caucuses, of county commis-
sioners quite as often the makeshifts of convention compromises, and of
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, chosen almost uniformly for
his skill as a manipulator of votes rather than for his worth as an educator.
That some of the officials thus evolved have become superior to the
method of their production is certainly to their credit, but the method
has endured with the lax or dictatorial supervision, the incompetent
subordinates with credentials from local bosses, and the tendency to
subordinate educational weal to political behests which it involves. A
drastic reform would at once resolve the elective into the appointive
scheme, with lengthened tenures and removals for cause, but this would
probably be so repugnant to the democratic sentiment of the Common-
wealth, fortified as it is by the generally beneficent operation of the con-
stitution of 1846, as to render it inexpedient and impracticable, but a
movement in the right direction may be made by taking the Department
of Public Instruction from the domain of party politics.
There is no need to rehearse the story of how this supreme and
sacred trust has been time and again abused and degraded, or how those
who have held it have been fashioned by the machinery of party, and have
in turn constructed machines for personal profit and partisan aggrandize-
ment. It is a story as familiar as lamentable. The evil should be
summarily remedied, and that remedy may be applied by the Conven-
tion at the request of the committee. *	*	*	*	*
The new departure is simply as to the mode of election. The
Regents are the most convenient, conservative, and serviceable agents
in whom to confide such election, while still preserving the integrity
and independence of public-school administration.
It is not essential in this connection to review the work which the
Regents have done through the century of their being, nor to emphasize
the opportunities for still larger usefulness which recent legislation has
♦39
afforded them, but it is true that their disposition, and their usages
would be the assurance that through them politics would be eliminated
in the selection of the Superintendent, who would be chosen in the same
manner and for the same term as is the Secretary of the Board. The
Regents have, indeed, been elected by the same body, viz, the Legis-
lative, as have the Superintendent and United States Senators, but
membership in the Board, with the life tenure attached to it and non-
compensated service, has informed them with a dignity and a sense of
responsibility inconsistent with political bias in their official action. This
is in the nature of things. It commends itself a priori, but it is also
justified historically. Some fresh illustrations are notably pertinent.
Four years ago George William Curtis was unanimously elected Chan-
cellor by a Board which was almost wholly opposed to him politically,
but he was by his eminence as a scholar, and his long and distinguished
career as a Regent, entitled to the distinction, which was freely bestowed.
Upon his death another scholar was preferred as his successor, and
William Croswell Doane, who had but a year previously been elected a
Regent by a Democratic Legislature, was made Vice-Chancellor. In
the selection of its secretaries and clerical force the Board has always
been equally solicitous that its appointments should be significant of
their educational and effective quality, and not of their political
affiliations. So it would appear that the Regents may safely be trusted to
choose the Superintendent, and that thus that official may be preferred by
educational standards. These are the proper standards, and thus far
no better nor no more rational plan has been outlined than that the
Regents should enforce them.
Regents Work and Politics
[Buffalo Express, 24 June, 1894]
The amendment before the Constitutional Convention proposing to
make the Superintendent of Public Instruction a subordinate of
the Board of Regents would do away with the existing inconsistencies
consequent upon a dual system of supervising education. It is difficult
to see how it would injure the power or opportunities of a good Super-
intendent, or how, with the Board composed as it is, it would be a
dangerous step for the State, If it “would t.end to bring the Regents,
who are appointed for life, more into politics, it would not be so desirable.
But with a Superintendent chosen as under present conditions, merely
because he is the henchman of a boss, it will be hard to make the public
believe that a change making him a subordinate would be an injury to
the interests of education.40
The University of the State of New York
[New York Sun, 14 August, 1894]
Among the thousands of college graduates who are inhabitants of
the Empire State there are few who could, offhand, give a correct answer
to the question: What is the University of the State of New York? Yet
the question is well worth answering, for under that title we possess an
institution of remarkable administrative capabilities of u tility which, if not
absolutely unique, is only paralleled in France, and approached within
a certain distance by the London University.
The history of the University of the State of New York is bound up
with that of the Commonwealth, with which it is nearly coeval. Organ-
ized in 1784, it had for its first Chancellor George Clinton, while De
Witt Clinton was its third Secretary; and Alexander Hamilton and
J ohn J ay were among its first and most active regents. The “University”
is a supervisory and administrative, not a teaching, institution. It is a
State department, and at the same time a federation of over five hun-
dred institutions of higher and secondary education. Like other States,
New York has a Department of Public Instruction in charge of elementary
schools, but no other State has a department devoted to the interests of
education higher than that which may be classed as elementary.
Considered as a State department, the “ University ”—we use
quotation marks to distinguish it from the meaning usually attached to
the term—unites various educational functions elsewhere scattered or
entirely unprovided for, and exercises unusual powers. Though most
of its work is executive, yet in granting charters to all educational
institutions, it performs functions usually discharged only by Legisla-
tures, On the other hand, in revoking charters and dissolving educa-
tional corporations, it exercises the judicial functions of a court. Its
examination department embraces not only the functions of the local
examinations of Oxford and Cambridge, and of the University of
London, but also the State licensing of physicians, and other work
peculiar to itself.
Its extension department corresponds to the similar departments
of Oxford and Cambridge and of the London Society for the Extension
of University Teaching. Its State library and State museum depart-
ments not only have custody of collections, among the most important
in the United States, but also conduct work allied to that of the
English science and art department of the British Museum, and of the
London Natural History Museum.
Regarded as a federation, the University of the State of New York
reminds one of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, each of4i
which represents a union of colleges; but in respect of comprehensive-
ness it differs from these, because it includes all the colleges, academies
and institutions for higher education within the bounds of the Common-
wealth. The law gives to incorporated institutions no option as to
their membership in the University. It says:
“The institutions of the University shall include all institutions of
higher education (the term ‘higher’ here is construed to embrace what
is generally termed secondary) which are now or may be hereafter
incorporated in this State, and such other libraries, museums, or other
institutions for higher education as may, in conformity with the ordi-
nances of the Regents, after official inspection, be admitted to or incor-
porated by the University.”
This means that no educational establishments except those of a
relatively elementary order, which fall under the authority of the
Department of Public Instruction, can have a legal existence in New
York without being subject to the regulations and entitled to the priv-
ileges provided by the University.
The University of the State of New York conserves the advantages
of individual initiative, while extending the benefits of systems, of
harmony, of coworking in the various members of the educational
body, and of organic connection with State life. The organization
most closely resembling it is that of the University of France, as
devised by the first Napoleon in 1808, twenty-four years after that of
the State of New York had been put iii operation.
Keep the Schools Undefiled
[Troy Press, ii August, 1894]
The Constitutional Convention, as we have previously suggested, should vest the
appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Regents of the Uni-
versity of the State of New York.—New York Advertiser.
The question of harmonizing the two departments of education in
the State of New York has been one which has caused a great deal of
thought on the part of leaders in educational thought in this State for
several years. All sorts of suggestions have been made. Many of the
practical politicians urge that the Regents of the University of the State
of New York be abolished, or put under the control of the Department
of Public Instruction. But this wish seems to be confined to the pol-
iticians or those who have not given the question particular attention..
The true friends of education, of advanced education in this State—and
we are glad to see the Advertiser taking a determined stand on this
ground—are appreciative of the grand work accomplished by the Regents,42
and are mindful of the wonderful progress made by that body in the
care of the higher schools and academies during the past few years,
especially since the reorganization of that institution. This phase of
the question is one which has been discussed frequently in this paper
and we do not propose to touch upon it here. ’ The immediate point at
issue is whether the Department of Public Instruction shall dominate.
*	*	*	The stand taken by the enemies of the Uni-
versity is indefensible, from our standpoint. The foremost educators
of Europe, repeatedly have commended the Regents for the work
accomplished by the University in recent years, and the University
stands to-day as the peer of any educational institution or system in the
world.
For years the Department of Public Instruction was kept out of
politics. The University always has been kept out of politics, and ever
will be free from contamination of that character, so long as its cardi-
nal principles remain unaltered and its executive officers continue to
be anywhere near the standard of the present staff. The Department
of Public Instruction, on the contrary, has been brought into politics.
We do not pretend to state the whys and wherefores, but that it has
been placed where it it is dominated, to a certain extent, by politicians,
none will attempt to refute.
It is against this domination that the friends of education in this
State are defending the Regents of the University. And it is with this
principle of complete autonomy on the part of the educational bureau in
view that we advocate exactly what the Advertiser does—that the
appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction should be
vested in the Regents of the University. This would take the depart-
ment entirely out of politics, and we can see no other present way in
which this most desirable end is to be accomplished. Partisan politics
is the bane of education wherever it obtains even partial control.
Such power should be throttled wherever it manifests itself, instantly
and without mercy. No branch of our public service is so close to the
people as that of public education; and it is becoming more sacred
year by year. Had the citizens of the State known the true status of
affairs or its possibilities, the change proposed would have been
effected the last previous time the constitution was revised.
The interest in the matter was never greater than now, and it is
increasing. Year by year the eyes of the people are opened wider and
wider, and the demand for the protection of public education from
political partisanship becomes stronger and stronger. With public
sentiment as it is to-day there is little room for doubt that the action of
the Constitutional Convention in making the change suggested would43
be emphatically endorsed by the people if they were called upon to
settle the question with their votes next fall.
Give the Regents Power to Elect the Superintendent
[Extracts from Editorial in The Outlook, 18 August, 1894.]
*	* * If in our educational systems there is one principle more
than another to be insisted upon, it is that schools should be totally
dissociated from politics. The present issue in New York State has
its lessons for the educational system in every other State in the
Union.	*	* . '	*	.
Now as to the dual system. The Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion, elected by a joint ballot of the Legislature, generally owes his
election to political influence. The Regents controlling higher educa-
tion are twenty-three in number; they are elected in the same manner
as are United States Senators, and they serve without salary. The
present Board is composed of the most eminent citizens of the State,
and instead of enlarging the political power of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction we need rather to enlarge the economical^ essential,
and non-partisan work of the Board of Regents.	*	*	*
The fortunes of politics affect our school officers from the Superin-
tendent down. Instead of reforming higher education, we need rather
to look at the incompetency of elementary instruction. *	*	*
Instead of abolishing the Board of Regents, we would give them
power to elect the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and would
make him amenable to them. A body over which George Clinton,
John Jay, George William Curtis, and Anson Judd Upson have pre-
sided would surely prove at least as desirable electors, of a Superin-
tendent as would any partisan legislature. The Regents would choose
a man without the slightest regard to political affiliations, and with
some regard to fitness for his work. This plan was unanimously
approved at the recent meeting of the University Convocation, the
most largely attended ever held, which voted to memorialize the Con-
stitutional Convention to provide for the recognition in the constitution
of the Board of Regents as a constituent part of the organic structure
of the Commonwealth, and to confer upon it the power to elect the
Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State.44
Unify the Educational System.
[Rome Daily Sentinel, 15 August, 1894.]
If the Constitutional Convention does any thing to the educational
system, let it unify the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
in the Regents of the University. A critic of the subject of the State
system of education well says:	‘ ‘ Let us all unite in placing the
schools of the State, from the kindergarten to the University, under
the scientific supervision and unselfish care of the Regents of the Uni-
versity, who are high-minded men, devoting their time and services to
the cause of education, asking and receiving no compensation for their
labors, and anxious only to promote as best may be the enlightenment
and elevation of the people at large.”
The unification would be desirable if for no other reason than that
of the equableness and progress guaranteed by having all affairs
germane to one department, kept under that department. But the
fact that the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is political
is strongly additional reason for the consolidation. Every three years
the Legislature elects the Superintendent, and there is partisan con-
tention over the office.
The political considerations likely to govern the original choice
are not such as attend to secure the services of high-minded and
capable men. If after three years the opposing political party is in
the ascendency, an experienced officer is sure to be turned out. And
so it goes. Capacity in the first place, and the retention of the cumu-
lative experience of the officer, the two vital principles of successful
administration, cannot be obtained under the present system. Let the
office cease to be a political foot-ball.
The Regents and the Schools
[New York Times, 21 August, 1894]
A few days ago the Times pointed out the advantages that would
accrue to the State by the unification of the system of public instruction
h>y a system under which the Superintendent should be appointed by
the Regents of the University.
There can be no doubt that this management is theoretically much
more eligible than that which now exists, under which secondary and
higher education, so far as the State has to do with it, is administered
by the Board of Regents, and primary instruction by the Superintend-
ent. . The Regents are chosen by the Legislature as vacancies occur in
their body, and each party makes a point of putting forward some man
whom it desires to honor on account of his scholarship As a matter45
of fact, the system has worked very well indeed in securing men of high
character and standing.
A real and valuable tradition has been established, and a body of
men assembled the imposition upon whom of any duties pertaining to
public instruction would command the public confidence beforehand.
The only complaint that has ever been made about the body is that its
duties are not very important. On the other hand, here is an advisory
board capable of supervising and administering public instruction so as
to command the public confidence. On the other, here is the desirable-
ness, admitted by every thoughtful citizen of the State, that the public
school system should be taken out of politics. What could be more
obvious, and, now that a Constitutional Convention is sitting, more
easy, than to symmetrize our whole system of public instruction by
intrusting to the Regents the appointment of the Superintendent?
Theoretical anomalies do not much distress ordinary Americans.
So long as an incongruous system worked well and was not attacked,
there was no good reason why it should be changed. But the present
Superintendent of Public Instruction has had the very bad judgment
to call attention to the incongruity of the system and to propose that
the incongruity be removed. He did this by recommending that his
own office should be magnified by adding to it the functions heretofore
exercised by the Regents. But, to people who consider the case, that
is an impossible solution. The chances are very great that a Superin-
tendent appointed under the present system will be a politician and
will owe his place to political influence. In fact, the present Superin-
tendent is an object-lesson as to that danger.
Even if he happened, against all the chances, to be a competent
and faithful Superintendent, he would be in imminent danger of
removal whenever the party opposed to his own controlled the Legis-
lature at the expiration of his term, and the State would at once lose
the benefit of his experience. If he were appointed by the Regents,
his appointment would be as far removed from politics as can be
expected of any State appointment. So far as we know or believe, the
Board of Regents is as free from political control as any body of public
servants in the State—as the Court of Appeals, for example. We do
not believe that the politics of a candidate for Superintendent would
cut any figure in the discussion or the consideration of his appointment
by that body. We believe the election would be decided solely by
what appeared to be his fitness for the place.
This would be an immense and obvious improvement over the
present system. In the first place, the chances are overwhelming
against che choices being decided by the unrestricted judgment of the46
Legislature, or the majority of it, as to the fitness of the candidate; in
the second place, the chances are overwhelmingly against the Legisla-
ture’s being so good a judge as the Regents upon the fitness of a candi-
date for this particular place.
Educational Reforms.
[From “A New Constitution for New York/' in Revi av of Reviews, March, 1894 ]
There is no public matter that lies in reality so close to the hearth-
stone of every family in New York as that of the proper provision for
education, so that a wise and practical intelligence for citizenship and
for self-support may be brought within the reach of the children of
every household. What can this Convention do to improve the school
system of New York and for education in general?
The opportunity is given to this Convention to place the entire
educational system of the State, from the primary sc’iool to its colleges
and universities, under a thoroughly competent and representative
State authority, and to prohibit interference by the Legislature or by
local officers in the sphere particularly reserved to the science of educa-
tion. The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New
York is a body which, although its powers have been enlarged within
two years, has never yet had that opportunity of doing effective work
which so representative and important a body of men should have.
School Reform and Improvement.
[New York Mail and Express, 20 August, 1894.]
Argument ought not be necessary to fix public sentiment in favor
of the reform in the educational department of the State which has.
been proposed to the Constitutional Conventian, and probably is not.
The change proposed is that the Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion shall be elected by the Regents of the University and be respon-
sible to them for the faithful and competent discharge of his duties.
At present the Superintendent, who is elected by the Legislature, has
charge of the elementary schools, while the Regents exercise some
supervision of the higher institutions.
The office of Superintendent has become a political prize. * '*	*
It is too much to expect that a Superintendent, chosen under such
auspices, would be satisfactory to the real friends of the public
schools.	*	*	*
The incongruity of two departments of education is admitted on
all sides and it ought not to be longer tolerated in our State. The
fitter should survive and control. The other should be abolished or47
merged in the better one The consolidation would provide for super-
intendence and take the public schools entirely out of politics.
The Regents and the Schools.
[New York Tribune, 23 August, 1894.]
The proposed amendment to the Constitution transferring the
appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction from the
Legislature to the Regents of the University is under consideration by
the Committee on Education. Approval of this proposition has been
so general as to suggest the probability of favorable action by the Con-
vention in case the committee shall recommend the change. We hope
that it will have that advantage. An open discussion of its merits is
likely, we think, to be convincing to disinterested persons who may not
have given much thought to the subject hitherto. Certainly the advo-
cates of the proposal are governed only by a desire to promote the
efficiency of the schools, and their argument is a strong one.
No reputable citizen of New York wants to have the selection of
the Superintendent influenced in the slightest degree by political con-
siderations. But, human nature being what it is, it is impossible under
the present method of appointment to escape such influences altogether.
A legislature is either Republican or Democratic, and its bias is always
liable to be disclosed in the dismissal of a Superintendent who ought to
be retained or the retention of a Superintendent who ought to be dis-
missed. Every three years the schools of the State are subjected to this
danger, and the fact that they may escape it for a considerable period
does not justify the risk.
The Regents constitute a permanent body, removed by the terms
of its official existence as far as possible from the influence of narrow
and selfish considerations. They have never asked for an extension of
their powers and patronage, and have no motive for incurring a new
responsibility except a laudable desire to render better service to the
State which honors and trusts them. It is believed with reason, and
so far as we know it is not openly disputed, that the proposed amend-
ment would operate to unify and strengthen our educational system.
That is the end, and the only end, which its supporters are seeking to
accomplish.
The Regents should choose the Superintendent of Public
Instruction
[The Tidings, 24 August, 1894]
The University of the State of New York is one of the oldest institu-
tions of the State, having been organized in 1784,, its object being the
promotion of education beyond the primary branches. Itis a supervisory48
and administrative body and not a teaching institution. It is a federation
of more than 500 institutions of higher and secondary education, suggest-
ing, as such, the form of Oxford and Cambridge universities, made by
the union of their various colleges.	*	*	* '
The University is governed by a Board of Regents who are elected
for life by the State Legislature and serve without pay. The Governor
of the State, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State and Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction are ex officio Regents. The most emi-
nent citizens of the State have served on the Board, men in every way
qualified to deal with the educational interests of the State. George
Clinton, the first Governor of the State of New York, was also the first
Chancellor of the University of the State of New York. George William
Curtis was at the time of his death Chancellor. De Witt Clinton, Alex-
ander Hamilton and John Jay have been members of the Board. * * *
It will be noted that the Regents exercise control, to a certain ex-
tent, over the higher institutions of learning, as distinguished from the
primary schools; the latter being under the supervision of the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction who is elected by the Legislature. It
is now proposed to vest the Regents with authority to choose the Super-
intendent, it being hoped in this way to unify the educational system of
the State and to secure that position and keep it free from political
taint.
The advantages of such a move are obvious. The Regents are
men chosen by reason of prominence as capable men; and receiving no
pay they are as a rule men actuated only by a desire to promote the
public welfare, in the faithful discharge of the duties attached to their
positions. In the selection of a Superintendent they will be moved to
appoint one only by reason of his fitness for the office. Needless to say
that fitness for the elective office is not a necessary qualification at the
present time.
It is urged against this that the office is too responsible a one for
its incumbent not to be directly responsible to the people; to which we
say that an incompetent Superintendent, we believe, would be far more
quickly disposed of by the Regents and at a far less cost to the educa-
tional interests of the State than if he were elected by the people, who
after all are most often called upon simply to choose the less of two
evils rather than the better of two goods.
We shall be glad to see the Regents invested with power to choose
a Superintendent of Public Instruction, for we feel assured that in that
event no political considerations, but fitness for the position will be the
prime requisite.49
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
[Utica Press, 22 August, 1894.]
The Constitutional Convention would do a service to the State by
putting an end to the continual clash between the State Department of
Public Instruction and the Regents of the University. As the admin-
istration of the public school system is now carried on, the Regents
have control over secondary and higher education, while the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction directs primary education. There is no
good reason why the State’s control over the schools should be thus
divided, and very important advantages would accrue to the State from
the unification of the educational system. The present Superintendent
has called the attention of the Convention to the incongruity and has
suggested that it be removed. He did this by recommending that his
own office should be magnified by adding to it the functions hitherto
exercised by the Regents. In other words, he would bring the school
system completely into politics. Apparently a better way of settling
the matter would be to provide for the appointment of the Superin-
tendent himself by the Regents.
The Regents are chosen by the Legislature for their scholarship
and high character, and their positions are entirely honorary. They
are as far removed from politics as any body of men can be. On the
other hand, the chances are very great that a Superintendent, under
the present system, will be a politician and will owe his place to polit-
ical influence. Even though he happened to be a competent and faith-
ful official, he would be in danger of removal whenever the party
opposed to his own controlled the Legislature at the end of his term,
and the State would lose the benefit of his experience. If the election
of the Superintendent were controlled by a non-partisan body of men
of the high character of the Regents, it is not probable that politics
would cut much of a figure in his appointment, and his election would
be more apt to be decided solely by what appeared to be his fitness for
the place, The Superintendent is properly the executive officer of the
department, and there are good reasons why his office should be more
permanent than it is at present.
A Chance for Improvement
[Saugerties Daily Post, 23 August, 1894.]
While the Constitutional Convention is being asked to work much
needed reform in many directions, there is one change in public admin-
istration which it seems could not well be passed by.5o
The safety of our country is in our public schools, and the safety
of our public schools is in their non-partisan administration; at present,
the head office of the State Department of Public Instruction is filled
by a joint ballot of our State Legislature, and the terms of office de-
pendent on the political desires of men, many of whom are in no way
qualified to select a worthy occupant for such a place.
Further, a change in the political condition of our State Legisla-
ture, coming at the proper time, cannot fail to bring about a change in
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, as it is a law of politi-
cal Medes and Persians, that to the victors belong the spoils.
The question of the appointment of this highest officer of this
highly important department in State affairs has long agitated the
minds of educators, and those closely associated with them, but not until
recently has the matter been brought so carefully to the notice of all.
The question as to in whom shall be vested the appointment of
our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has been so widely dis-
cussed in educational gatherings and by laymen in the press that there
seems but one opinion. With the Regents of the University of the
State of New York should rest this duty.
The reasons why are obvious; the Regents are a continuous body,
chosen because of their fitness, serving without pay, and holding office
until age or some other condition renders them unfit or unable to per-
form their duties. Therefore, as the Regents represent the highest
educational interests in the State, and are not in a position to be
influenced by political or any other than proper considerations it would
seem highly proper and only just that the Constitutional Convention
should give to the Regents, in addition to the powers .which they
already possess, that of electing the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction. Surely such an action would meet the approval of all
interested in the best and truest education of American boys and girls.
The Regents Should Appoint the Superintendent
[The Outlook, 25 August, 1894]
Last week we recommended that the Constitutional Convention
now in session in Albany should vest the appointment of the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction’ in the Regents of the University of the
State of New York. It seems wise to further emphasize that recom-
mendation, for the present opportunity is a welcome one for at last
getting oui schools out of politics. As is well known, the Legislature
in joint session elects the Superintendent of Public Instruction, whose
candidacy is generally the result of his labors for the party in power.5'1
But should he be chosen in the other way, the honor would be a real
one, because it would come from a continuous body, working in
unbroken tradition, not for politics, but wholly for education,' and
hence with an expert ability to decide accurately concerning the fitness
of the candidates. Furthermore, any action of the Regents would be
free from constraint, both because of the life-tenure and of the non-
compensation of their offices. They would not be likely to do what the
Legislature is forced to do when the opposing party gains the ascend-
ency—namely, to replace an efficient Superintendent by a new and
untried man. Under the present system, what inducement is there for
a really capable man to undertake the useful labors of the Superin
tendent, knowing that no amount of ability or devotion will enable him
to retain office against a hostile Legislature? We believe that the
people of New Yoik State will be quick to comprehend the value to
them of the present opportunity, for no matters touch their lives and
homes with greater directness than those of education. The action
which we recommend is clearly for the advantage of their children.
So far from giving to the Superintendent the power he seeks over all
the educational system of New York State, let that system be unified
indeed, but with the non-partisan Regents to guard its immunity from
politics.
Take the Schools out of Politics
[Brooklyn Life, 25 August, 1894]
There is too much “in it;” too many fat jobs connected with our
public schools to make it anything but easy to tear them from the
clutches of insatiable political machines. It is for this reason that we
doubt if the Constitutional Convention, with its diverse elements, will
be able to pass a resolution placing the entire educational system of the
State in the Regents of the State University. We believe that the
attempt to do this will be made, and Brooklyn Life for one would be
glad to have it succeed. The Regents are honorable and learned men
who are selected for what They have in them, and not for what they can
get out of it. The opposite may be said of those who now control this
most important of all State interests.
Educational Reform Needed.
[South Side Observer, 24 August, 1894.]
If there is anything from which politics should be abrogated, it is
the State educational system. The office of State Superintendent ot
Public Instruction is an appointive one. The present method is by52
joint ballot of the Legislature, and it is one which passes this important
office over to the control of politicians. The salary is $5,000 a year.
To politicians this bone is worth picking. Of late years the office has
been very well conducted, but no one can tell how long it will con-
tinue so. There is a movement now to induce the Constitutional Con-
vention to vest the appointment of the Superintendent in the Regents
of the University of the State of New York. Such a change should
manifestly be made. Many reasons may be given for it. The educa-
tional system of the State should be kept free from the contaminating
influence of partisan politics. That only can be assured by taking the
appointment of educational administrative officers out of the field of
such political contention.
As now selected, the choice of Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion is invariably dictated by partisan political considerations, which
must naturally impose hindering constraints upon his administration of
the office; and, no matter what useful expert efficiency such an official
may acquire or develop in office, experience has demonstrated that he
will be required to retire therefrom and give place to some new and
untried man, when another political party comes into power.
Because the Regents are a continuous body, laboring constantly in
the field of public education, and dealing with the subject from a
scientific point of view; chosen primarily because of attained promi-
nence as high-minded and capable men, their official experience gives
them personally, and their board traditionally, an expert ability to
judge more accurately concerning the natural and acquired fitness of
candidates for so important an educational office as that of Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction.
“I submit that in States where there is a State University governed
by Regents, the educational departments of the State ought to be placed
under their administration and thus kept out of the political powers and
free from the dangers which would entail if committed to their
hands. This is one of the most decided advantages for the system in
the State of New York, and is in itself strong enough to overbalance
almost all other considerations. ”—William Warren Potter, M. D., in a
paper read at the annual conference of the State medical examining and
licensing boards, Milwaukee, Wis., June 7, 1893.i
The Regents of the University were the Originators of
Our Public Common Schools.
“ For the initial and the decisive step which led to a State
system of elementary schools, we are primarily indebted to the
Regents of the University. In their annual reports to the Legis-
lature in 1793,1794 and 1795 they urgently represented the necessity
of State action for the organization of a general system of elemen-
tary schools. They were the foremost men in the State and they
were the custodians of the educational interests of the Common-
wealth. This gave them the right to speak and it gained atten-
tion to what they said. And they spake earnestly, forcefully and
effectively. What they said brought from the Legislature of 1795
the great statute whose approaching centennial anniversary has
suggested this address.”—[Hon. Andrew S. Draper, LL. D., in
address at the University Convocation, Albany, N. Y., July 6, 1894.]
Later, Mr. Draper, who it will be rememembered was for-
merly Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State,
voluntarily appeared before the committee on education in the
Constitutional Convention of that year, and expressed his con-
viction that such officer should be elected by the Regents of the
University.
And the Regents to-day, as they ever have done, clearly recognize the
supreme importance of fostering our common schools. Make the
Regents responsible for that field of educational work, and the prog-
ress and improvement in the elementary schools of the State would be
as marked as has been the development of the secondary schools,
with whose care the Regents have been especially charged.
Unify the educational system of the State, from the kindergarten to
the highest university—-make the ascent a continuous stairway from
bottom to top, and set the Regents to guard its safety throughout its
entire progress—and it assuredly will thus be made more fruitful of
beneficent results than can be possible under other conditions.LIST OF THE PRESENT
Regents of the University of the State of New York
ANSON JUDD UPSON, D. D., LL.D., L.H. D., Chancellor
WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE, D. D., LL. D., Vice-Chancellor
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, B. A., Governor
A
TIMOTHY L. WOODRUFF, M. A., Lieutenant-Governor
JOHN T. MCDONOUGH, LL. B., Secretary of State
>- Ex Officio
CHARLES R. SKINNER, M. A., LL.D., Superintendent of Public Instruction j
In the order of election by the Legislature
1873	MARTIN I. TOWNSEND, M. A., LL. D.
1874	ANSON JUDD UPSON, D. D., LL. D., L. H. D.
1877 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, LL.D.
1877	CHARLES E. FITCH, LL. B.,	M.	A.,	L. H.	D.
1877	ORRIS H. WARREN, D. D.	-	-	-	-
1878	WHITELAW REID, LL. D. -
l88l WILLIAM H. WATSON, M. A., M. D.	-	-
l88l HENRY E. TURNER	-	-	—
1883 ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY, LL. D., L. H. D., D. C. L.
1885 HAMILTON HARRIS, PH. D., LL.D.
1885	DANIEL BEACH, PH. D., LL.	D.	-	-	-
1888 CARROLL E. SMITH, LL. D.	-	-
1890	PLINY T. SEXTON, LL. D.	-	-	-
1890 T. GUILFORD SMITH, M. A., C. E.
1892	WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE, D. D., LL. D„
1893	LEWIS A. STIMSON, B. A., M. D.
1894	SYLVESTER MALONE -	-	-	-
1895	ALBERT VANDER VEER, M. D.,	PH.	D.
1897	CHESTER S. LORD, M. A.	-	-	-	-
TROY
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