School trustee

“ A pride in the attractiveness of the school will have its influence on the pupils in the wider life of the community.
A knowledge of the machinery of government may be based on the pupils' knowledge of the organization of the school. The appointment, power, and duties of the teacher are the starting-point. The next step will be to investigate the composition of the board of school trustees. This may be done at the time of an election for school trustees. The following questions may serve as an outline of study for all the political bodies by which we are governed:
1. ”

“ By the existing law Grammar School trustees have of themselves no power to raise money for Grammar School purposes, but in case of the Common and Grammar Schools becoming united the joint boards may levy money for the support of the united schools. This being so, it is easy to comprehend how strongly the trustees of a Grammar School who feel their hands tied up from doing anything to put the school in an efficient state may be tempted to make with the Common School Board a league which will give them a voice in the important matter of taxation.... ”

“ School trustees in incorporated villages were governed by the same rules as trustees of towns and cities, except in the manner of the annual election.
One very important feature of the new Act was the setting apart of £3,000 a year for the establishment and support of school libraries, and £25 a year for each District Teachers' Institute. A sum was also set apart for procuring plans and publications for the improvement of school architecture. The Chief Superintendent [154] was authorized to issue provincial certificates to Normal School graduates. ”

“ Each trustee has a franchise, and if he be disturbed in the enjoyment of it, he would have redress, on appealing to the law, as promptly as for any other injury. If the other trustees should conspire against any one of them to prevent his equal right and voice in the appointment of a president or professor, or in the passing of any statute or ordinance of the college, he would be entitled to his action, for depriving him of his franchise. It makes no difference, that this property is to be holden and administered, and these franchises exercised, for the purpose of diffusing learning. ”

“ VII. That the trustees do insist upon it with parents, as a necessary condition on which their children are to be taken into school, that they send them clean washed and combed, regularly and constantly, at the hours of schooling; that they comply with all orders relating to them, and freely submit them to be chastised for their faults, without quarrelling or coming to the school on such occasions; that children be not countenanced in their faults, or masters and mistresses discouraged in the performance of their duty. ”

“ The boards of trustees are almost always made up of "practical men," and if their faiths, ideas, and prejudices are to make the norm of education, the schools will turn out boys and girls compressed to that pattern. There is no wickedness in any disinterested and sincere opinion. That is what we all pretend to admit, but there are very few of us who really act by it. We seem likely to have orthodox history (especially of our own country) , political science, political economy, and sociology before long.2213 It will be defined by school boards who are party politicians. ”

“ At every meeting of the legislature the superintendent of education shall certify to the senate the names of all who shall have been so elected since the last session of the legislature, and the senate shall confirm or reject them, as it shall determine is for the best interest of the university. If it rejects the names of any members, it shall thereupon elect trustees in the stead of those rejected. No trustee shall receive any pay or emolument other than his actual expenses incurred in the discharge of his duties as such. ”

“ At the next meeting, on the 4th of March, only a fortnight later, this committee reported that the way was clear to draw up a constitution, buy a lot of land, erect a brick building two stories high, for which funds should be raised by subscription, and that [Pg 137] the school should be put under the charge of trustees. These trustees, seven in number, were: Rev. Milton Badger, pastor of the South Church, Andover; Rev. Samuel C. Jackson, pastor of the West Parish Church, who served until his death, a period of more than fifty years; Samuel Farrar, Esq., treasurer of Phillips Academy; Hon. ”

“ Or, if they have themselves disappeared, it becomes a subject of serious and anxious inquiry, whether those whom they have legally empowered to represent them for ever, may not assert all the rights which they possessed, while in being; whether, if they be without personal representatives, who may feel injured by a violation of the compact, the trustees be not so completely their representatives, in the eye of the law, as to stand in their place, not only as respects the government of the college, but also as respects the maintenance of the college charter. ”

“ School boards were empowered not only to acquire sites for schools under powers of compulsory purchase, but also to take transfers of existing voluntary schools from their managers. The section which enables managers to transfer schools to the school board or local education authority for the purpose of board or council schools freed from religious trusts unquestionably marks an important inroad by the state upon the sanctity of trusts. ”

“ The trustees, unable to collect unpaid subscriptions, became discouraged, and offered the building and furnishings to the not-discouraged principals for the contract price of the building, the free use of the ground for five years, and permission to improve the grounds, if they would promise to continue the school for ten years. At the end of five years the trustees would either pay for the added improvements or sell the land at a reasonable price. ”

“ The trustee's first duty is to see that the library receives adequate municipal support. This is seldom an easy matter. It generally requires a good deal of missionary work,—through the newspapers, through personal appeals to councillors, through public addresses before the council or otherwise. The public must be told of its need, which it frequently does not recognize. The trustee must exercise the influence of an educator. ”

“ If the incumbent of this office is fairly willing and capable, is he not suffered to do pretty much as he pleases, except it may be with regard to such large measures as the construction of buildings and the management of investments?
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Proportioned to the authority of trustees, however, is their responsibility. To whom much is given, of them much is required. And the position of the better sort of trustee valuable to the best work of the librarian, is not that sinecure seat sometimes depicted. ”

“ Being now a member of both sets of trustees, that for the building and that for the academy, I had a good opportunity of negotiating with both, and brought them finally to an agreement, by which the trustees for the building were to cede it to those of the academy, the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep forever open in the building a large hall for occasional preachers, according to the original intention, and maintain a free-school for the instruction of poor children. ”

“ The Lecturers to choose yearly a Public Tutor, and to reprehend or displace him if there be reason. This Tutor without a new election to take none but those admitted in his year of office until their course of lectures be gone through. No Private Tutor to take two years together. All [248] sizars, poor scholars, and scholars of the House to be under Public Tutors, except Westminster scholars of Trinity College when the Tutor is of another school. ”

“ The supervision of the public school is more [Pg 193] responsible, and consequently more perfect. In private schools, academies and free high schools which are endowed, there is a board of trustees, who perpetuate, as a corporation, their own existence. Each member is elected for life, and he is not only not responsible to the public, but he is not even responsible, except in extraordinary cases, to his associates. Responsibility is, in all governments, the security taken for fidelity. ”

“ These nominations should be subject to approval by a board of advisers, consisting of professors from the school concerned, from related schools and from outside of the university; but final election should be by the university senate, and subject to veto by the trustees. Each school should have educational as well as financial autonomy and its property should be a trust fund for its benefit. Representatives from all schools should be elected to a senate, which should legislate for the university as a whole and should be co-ordinate with the trustees. ”

“ This board should be composed of certain officials in both the church and the Sunday-school, so that their action may be wise and intelligent. Certainly the pastor, superintendent, church treasurer, and school treasurer should be members of this board. They should be empowered to carry out the financial policy of the school, direct in all matters of financial detail, audit all bills, and see that these are promptly paid, so the good credit of the school may be maintained. ”

“ It is for the Board of Trustees and for the university executive to act as the balance wheel, guarding jealously the funds of the institution, that the generous present may not starve the future, and to see that no neglect or perversity of student or teacher shall work any permanent harm to the university whole. ”

“ If he chooses to break the rules he knows beforehand what it will cost him, and he has no right to complain. In the second place, the trustees have not put you here to govern the school or judge how it ought to be governed. ”

“ In very many institutions most of these powers are still vested in the board of trustees, which means simply that in these matters the whole control is in the hands of one or two members; since no board of trustees can possibly be competent to decide respecting qualifications of candidates for professorships or upon changes in curricula, decisions respecting these matters are most likely to be rendered in deference to the opinion of some trustee or officer who is suppposed by the rest to know something about them. ”

“ Stephen Girard, by a will probated in 1831, left a fund in trust for the erection, maintenance, and operation of a 'college.' The will provided that the college was to admit 'as many poor white male orphans, between the ages of six and ten years, as the said income shall be adequate to maintain.' The will named as trustee the City of Philadelphia. ”

“ Effect on the Trustees.—On one hand, the growth of financial interests has made compulsory the appointment of successful business men to the boards, while the urgency for additional funds has led to selection of men very prominent in all callings—extremely busy men. On the other hand, the extraordinary growth, internally, of the colleges and universities has made no longer possible for the trustee that familiar acquaintance with professors and with the departmental needs which he ought to have. ”

“ They are for the most part boarding institutions, in a few cases being departments of larger institutions. Their controlling purpose is to surround their pupils with religious influences, and to provide them with religious instruction. All but one are under Roman Catholic auspices, as a usual thing in the hands of the Sisters. The single Protestant school is in the care of the Lutheran Church, and is controlled by the synod, with the direct management vested in a board of trustees. ”

“ Their pupils have a sense of being team-mates with the superintendent or principal and so are frequently in his company.
The scope of official jurisdiction is by no means sufficiently wide to cover all the useful points of comradeship in school management. There need to be occasions of voluntary assistance that extend beyond the range of ordinary school routine. This coöperation is unofficial and very powerful in dissipating mild antipathies between teacher and pupil. ”

“ There are then, it must be recollected, three different parties connected with every establishment for education; the parents of the scholars, the teacher, and the pupils themselves. Sometimes, as for example, in a common private school, the parents are not organized, and whatever influence they exert, they must exert in their individual capacity. At other times, as in a common district or town school, they are by law organized, and the school committee chosen for this purpose, are their legal representatives. ”

“ The Governors may, with the approval in writing of the Board of Education, make special provision in or in connexion with the School for the education of boys who intend to qualify as teachers in Public Elementary Schools. For these boys, subject to the like approval, the Governors may make such modifications as they think fit in the foregoing provisions relating to ages, instruction, and examination, and the Rules for Payments may prescribe such tuition fees as may be thought suitable. ”

“ It was further provided that its affairs should be managed by eleven trustees, "selected from the different liberal professions and employments of life and the classes of educated men." The mayor was also to be a trustee by virtue of his office. The entire fund was vested in this board, with power to expend and invest moneys, and to appoint, direct, control, and remove the superintendent, librarian, and others employed about the library. The first trustees were named in the will, and Washington Irving was chosen president. ”