The Last-Minute Fight Over Olympia's First Real High School

Editor Tribune:

It is unfortunate that the clerk of this school district, who has had ten days in which to argue the bonding proposition, should withhold from the public material facts in his possession until the very opening of the polls, and then give the public a statement calculated to create wrong impressions in the minds of the voters.

Aside from the mere expression of the opinions of the clerk, the impressions which his communication in the Olympian this morning will create in the mind of an uninformed reader are two.

First—That the two present buildings are large enough to contain all the pupils, therefore additional school facilities are unnecessary.

The problem before us is not to crowd all of the children into the two present buildings, but rather to so classify them and to systematize the school work as to give the pupils the best possible school advantages during the few brief years of their school age. The need now is for another teacher in the high school department as well as in a grammar grade. It is true that at present there is one vacant room in the Lincoln building; but does not every educational man or woman know that it is not practical to have a high school scattered about the city, necessitating an immense loss of time in traveling from one recitation room to another?

The furnishing of rooms in the attic is suggested by the clerk. To properly warm a room in the attic will require about 150 square feet of radiating surface. The boiler put into each of the Washington and Lincoln buildings is guaranteed to furnish 1500 square feet. The boiler in the Washington building is now furnishing 1030 square feet. This has been a mild winter, but the boiler there has been taxed to its utmost to keep the building warm and is furnishing better service than it was guaranteed to furnish. Will the clerk kindly state how he is going to warm two or three additional rooms in the attic?

Second—If the high school building is erected this summer it will be impossible to borrow money next year to build on the Westside and north of Hale's addition.

The valuation of the district, after the reductions made by the state board, is something over $6,000,000. The district can borrow 5 per cent of this, or over $300,000. If these bonds are voted, the bonded indebtedness of the district will be $99,000, leaving a borrowing capital for the district of over $200,000, less the amount of outstanding warrants at the time the loan is made. One-quarter of this will put up buildings on both the Westside and north of Hale's addition.

The district clerk is very solicitous about Tumwater. How would removing the high school site, a few years hence, toward Tumwater accommodate the Westside and the section north of Hale's addition? Is not the present site on Union street the most central location, even after Tumwater becomes a part of the district?

This city may or may not become a great commercial center, but a very little effort will make it the educational center of the state. A good high school and a high school building, let it be the first in the state, if you please, will attract to the city men of means from other parts of the state who will come, if for no other purpose than to give their children the benefits of a common school and a high school education, and thereby give the city a prestige in the state that can be enjoyed in no other way and is enjoyed by most other cities.

J. C. RATHBUN.