Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 286, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1920 — MUST IMPROVE STATE SCHOOLS [ARTICLE]

MUST IMPROVE STATE SCHOOLS

‘A WAVE OF EDUCATIONAL EN- ' TH US I ASM IS SWEEPING OVER.THE STATE. I The report that Indiana stands seventeenth in the ranks of the states in the Union in educational matters has aroused a spirit of determination on the part of the people of the state to prove that the ranMng is false and to see to it that educational conditions in this .state are second to no other state in the United States of America. To this end important educational meetings are being held all oyer the state and this week a most important meeting was held at Indianapolis. The Indianapolis News -has the fallowing editorial on this meeting: - “Indiana made educational history last night when George L. Mackintosh, president of Wabash College, asked for divine guidance in a conference having for its primary object the raising of more funds for Indiana and Purdue Universities and the Indiana State Normal School. At this conference, the three state institutions of higher learning not only ' threyr aside their- differences and abandoned their policy of making independent bids for support, but asked and received the aid of the church colleges and universities as distinguished from the state colleges.

“The stories of conditions at the three state institutions as related by President Parsons, Stone and Bryan reflect the greatest discredit upon the state.* When citizens are obliged to. go to banks 1 and pledge their credit to obtain funds with which to meet state school pay rolls, when the state sees faculty members that it tan not afford to lose taken by neighboring state universities where the average salary is above the maximum paid in Indiana institutions, when the state falls so far behind in the amount of money appropriated for every SI,OOO of taxable property that citizens are ashamed to the figure, then rt may be said that Indiana has reached a crisis in which the church schools may well feel obliged to take a hand for the cause of Indiana education in general. “The meeting' was the first of its kind held in the state. , Ordinarily each of the institutions would have organized its lobby and appeared before the legislature with a tale which none but a few members of the legislature would have heard. The leaders last night told their troubles fran k ly to the public. The case is before tjie people, and the remedy is in their hands. They have over a month in which to make their wishes known to the members of the legislature, and if they fail they will have no one but themselves to blame for the decay of a school system. The church schools did not miss the opportunity to say that they, as well as the state schools, need money. And both must be helped, the one by increased tax<es, the other by gifts from publicspirited citizens. By this means .and by this means alone can Indiana be helped to regain its rightful place as among the leading school states.”