News Editorial, School Matters Again

This editorial by Oregonian editor Harvey W. Scott appeared in the newspaper on February 16, 1880. In it, he criticized the public school system in Portland—high school in particular.

Prior to 1901, when laws required school districts in Oregon to provide high school, individual districts decided the value of extending public education beyond the primary level. Portland established its first public high school in 1869. Periodically, especially when local tax levies were at stake, opponents of public high school rallied against the institution. On March 1, 1880, for example, voters decided the fate of a tax measure to support the school district for the coming year. In the months leading up to the election, editorial sections of newspapers debated the issue.

Harvey W. Scott was among the most outwardly-spoken against the public schools. Having worked to fund his own education, Scott believed that the discipline gained from acquiring schooling through one’s “individual exertions” was as important as the education itself. He criticized the public school system for slighting basic and practical subjects in favor of giving high school students a taste of subjects such as trigonometry or Latin, courses he thought were of limited use to most students. At the heart of his critique was the assertion that funding high school education laid an “unjust tax” on the public.

Scott printed a counter to his article by T.H. Crawford, Portland School Superintendent. Crawford denied flatly that public schools taught primary subjects inefficiently. He noted that such sweeping accusations came from opponents who had never set foot in a public school. He extended an open invitation for the public to visit the schools and to comment on specific teaching methods. 

Perhaps the most forceful response came from Scott’s sister, Abigail Scott Duniway. An editorial in Duniway’s newspaper, the New Northwest, asked voters to support the tax—especially women, who had gained the right to vote in school board elections in 1878. For Duniway, the key issue was equal access to education. In describing the opponents’ efforts to close public high schools, the editorial stated, “It is a step toward aristocracy.  It is a struggle to keep the children of the poor from competing with the offspring of the rich in the race of life.”

The outcome of this school funding struggle favored the tax levy—voters passed the school tax at the annual district meeting on March 1, 1880.

Further Reading:
United States. Works Project Administration, Oregon. History of Education in Portland. Edited by Alfred Powers and Howard McKinley Corning. Portland, Oreg., 1937.

Robbins, William. Oregon: This Storied Land. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 2005.

Written by Sara Paulson, © Oregon Historical Society, 2006.