Education is paramount in Idaho. One of the measures in particular, now pending in the house of representatives, would do away with the office of state commissioner of education and thus break down and scrap what is known as the "Idaho educational system." Incidentally, the measure also proposes to fix the salaries of the presidents of the institutions at a rate below what their present contracts call for.

In approaching the subject and the system of education, legislators should proceed with great caution and we believe that the members of the present legislature will go so. Now it is asserted that in the offices of commissioner of education and state superintendent of public instruction, there is unnecessary duplication of function and expense. The allegation is clearly in error. There is no duplication. The situation is anomalous, but the objection is not on the grounds of duplication of function or of cost.

The action and has for its prime motive and most important effect, the prevention of unnecessary duplication and cost. The function of a state superintendent before 1913 in Idaho and in most states related to the elementary schools and chiefly to the rural schools. With the county superintendents, this state official had large and important duties. The practical relation of the state superintendent, to city systems and high schools, was small. The relation of the office to the unification and adjustment of the state's affairs, that the subject has been brought squarely before the people and the legislature, it is well to ascertain what the facts are. 