A Plea for Better Schoolhouses
Walla Walla’s school superintendent warns that log-cabin schools are a poor substitute for real investment in public education.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It becomes my duty to make one more report on the condition of the Public Schools. It is gratifying that there has been more interest taken in the erection of school houses during the past year than at any previous time. There are now seven school houses either complete or in process of erection in the county. I think five of these are of logs, a fact to be deplored, for though they are better than none, they do not exhibit any great amount of public spirit on the part of citizens and are really the dearest house that can be built. They are seldom made convenient, or comfortable; are considered no better than a cabin by the children, and, after being patched up every year, are finally abandoned for better ones. It is a fact beyond dispute, that the value of property, in any community, is in proportion to the degree of education, the value of school property and the grade of schools. San Francisco built one house for school purposes last year at a cost of $45,000. Surely this county can afford $10,000 for their own benefit; a benefit that would result in the addition of $100,000 to the value of your property.
“They are seldom made convenient, or comfortable; are considered no better than a cabin by the children.”
Superintendent Wood’s argument that school quality correlates directly with local property values echoes modern debates about school levies and civic growth. The tension between bare-bones infrastructure ('log schools') and the ambition for a prosperous future is as relevant to 21st-century Walla Walla as it was to the 1860s frontier.
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