The school board held its regular session yesterday. Inspector Brenan was the only absentee, and Stiles left before the meeting was adjourned. Adoption of a new kind of steam pump....leases.....

German Instruction

Mr. Vocke, a member of the school board, spoke about the petitions for German instruction at the Pickard and Foster schools and made a motion to grant the requests.

Mr. Stone protested against the motion. In so far as the Pickard School was concerned, he said that the petition had not been signed by reputable citizens and parents, but by human derelicts such as one finds in dives and disreputable 2saloons, and for that reason Vocke's predecessor had denied it. He would have to protest against the petition unless proper evidence could be produced to show that the signatures were genuine. In regard to the Foster School Mr. Stone found there was no demand for German instruction and therefore he would also protest that petition. He made a motion to postpone both applications indefinitely.

Mr. Vocke strongly objected to Mr. Stone's aspersions. He said the assertion that the petition was withdrawn by his predecessor was just as untrue as the accusation that the names were collected in dens, and the statement was slanderous; that Mr. Stone would not be able to prove this. If Mr. Stone happened to be opposed to German instruction, then he should be candid about it and not take recourse to falsehoods and baseless suspicions. The petition had been received by the school board a long time ago, giving Mr. Stone sufficient opportunity to investigate whether the signatures were admissible or not, but regardless of this, he stooped to vile insinuations.

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Mr. Richberg proved by the minutes of the school board that Mr. Pruessing had not withdrawn the petition as Mr. Stone claimed, but on the contrary, had always objected to the board's deferring action whenever he mentioned the matter. Mr. Richberg was willing to assume full responsibility for the validity of the signatures appearing on the Pickard School petition. Nobody would have any interest in supplying fictitious names in behalf of German instruction. Mr. Stone's statement was on a par with the fantastic claims of an alleged German, in reality a Swiss adventurer, who said that only 2,000 children out of 50,000 wanted to study German, and that this subject in our schools was a political humbug.

Mr. Richberg then showed, by referring to official figures, that nearly on half of the pupils who were given an opportunity to learn German enrolled in the course, in spite of the inhibitory rule that twenty pupils must apply before the subject is included in the curriculum, a provision which excludes hundreds from taking German instruction. It was a disgrace that the school 4board quoted the nonsense so glibly disseminated by a political adventurer, when the absurdity of it all was plainly apparent in the official records. Mr. Richberg said that he was fully aware that many members of the school board were opposed to German instruction and that they were bitterly disappointed because the "Rule of Twenty" excluded only two hundred children from the German classes instead of one thousand. He favored the German language study, and also singing and drawing in the public schools, because he considered them to be necessary subjects.

Mr. Curran asserted that German lessons were a luxury which the people could not afford as long as we had 8,000 children who obtained only partial schooling and 7,000 pupils who were compelled to attend school in badly ventilated and unsanitary rented buildings.

Mr. Stone insisted that the Pickard School petition was only humbug and that the signatures were fraudulent. Besides, it was a fact that participation in 5German instruction dropped fifty per cent during the last five years. The records showed that registration for German lessons had dropped in the lower grades; at the Newberry School, for instance, from five hundred to a mere one hundred.

Mr. Richberg read the official report, showing that out of 198 pupils in the lower grades at the Newberry School, 119 were studying German. Mr. Stone did not react, but insisted that participation in German instruction was diminishing consistently, was on the verge of collapse, and like all sick people, required increasing expenditures each year. At present it costs three times more to teach a child German than to give tuition in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mr. Richberg retorted, that every German teacher had one hundred pupils while the average in all other branches was fifty children for one teacher.

Mr. Stone did not want to hear anything about it, so Inspector Keith 6interrupted him by making a motion for adjournment, but only Messrs. Keith and Frake favored it. Mr. Curran made a motion to continue with the agenda but the matter was declared out of order, whereupon a motion was offered to postpone the argument for an indefinite period; this was defeated, as follows:

In favor: Messrs. English, Stone, Keith, Frake, Curran and Stensland.

Opposed: Messrs. Vocke, Armstrong, Bartlett, Frankenthal, Delaney, Richberg and Hoyne.

Encouraged by this result, Mr. Richberg succeeded in having the debate closed. Before the issue came to a vote, however, Mr. Stone objected and declared that a two thirds vote was necessary, but he was overruled.

The motion to teach German in the two schools mentioned above passed, as the following vote indicated:

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In favor: Messrs. Vocke, Keith, Armstrong, Bartlett, Frankenthal, Delaney, Richberg, and Hoyne.

Opposed: Messrs. Stone, English, Frake, Curran, and Stensland.

Absent: Messrs. Stiles and Brenan.

Mr. Stone changed his vote, in order to make a motion for the reconsideration of the question, but Mr. Richberg forestalled him by making a motion of his own to reconsider the question; adding his motion to the previous motion, he asked that all motions be tabled. After a lengthy argument about the admissibility of the procedure, which Mr. Stone violently opposed, Mr. Richberg withdrew his second motion, which was then offered by Mr. Delaney. The motion passed as before, with no change in vote.

Mr. Armstrong then made a motion that the City Council acquire a building site 8for a school in the vicinity of Indiana and St. Clair Streets. [Translator's note: Indiana Avenue apparently was called a street at that time.]

The meeting then adjourned.