The fine work which is being done, the great and rapid progress which is being made, excite our admiration, and every project of school betterment, including the movement for higher pay for underpaid teachers, has received our endorsement. Our motives will not be misunderstood, therefore, when we criticize Superintendent Chandler's attitude toward the school budget.
After expressing his understanding of the city's financial condition and his appreciation of Council's disposition to do everything in its power for the cause of education, Dr. Chandler says: "All the school officials will gladly cooperate with them in trying to live within our means... I feel sure that in the event we are not able to adjust matters without cutting out some important features of our work, the City Council will gladly make a supplementary appropriation."
We hope Dr. Chandler will approach the solution of his financial problem—a problem not peculiar to the schools, but common to all branches of the city government—in a somewhat different spirit. Not only must he try to keep within his appropriation; he must succeed. If the Police Department, the Fire Department, and the Health Department, the Gas and Water and Street-Cleaning Departments content themselves with "trying" not to spend more than they have been allowed. We shall return in the course of the year to that condition from which the Finance Committee and the Council are endeavoring to lift us. The only way to live within an appropriation is to make up one's mind in advance that more than the appropriation will not be expended. 