School-Wrecking in Chicago

Carpenters and laborers clumped into 300 Chicago schools last week, began dismantling manual training and "household arts" equipment. The Chicago Board of Education had awarded contracts for converting eleven junior high schools into senior high schools. The Board's program to throw $5,000,000 worth of "frills" out of the schools (TIME, July 24 et seq.) was under way.

Public opposition was no less loud and fervent than it was last month. Since then, with Hearst's Herald & Examiner shouting daily encouragement, a Save-Our-Schools Committee had been sniping at the Board on all sides. It held mass meetings, getting such speakers as Clarence Darrow who flayed the Board for "selling the school children down the river."

The Herald, & Examiner sought an injunction against the Board, and won a point. The Board had planned abolishing physical education and parental schools. Counsel for the Hearst paper showed this was illegal. The Board backed down.

The Chicago Tribune has approved defrilling Chicago schools on the ground that retrenchment is the only way to head off a chaotic year like the past one. Last week it was pleased to note that the Save-Our-Schools Committee and its rival the Herald & Examiner were wrong about one thing. They had insisted that it would cost $800,000 to make the old junior high schools suitable for seniors. The contracts let last week totaled only $87,686. The Herald & Examiner countered that this was merely the preliminary cost, that there would be more to pay later.

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