as a hostile critic,
not even as an impartial observer viewing and commenting upon something
belonging to another. Rather, I come as a sympathetic friend to talk
about an institution in which I am vitally interested and of whose good
work I am proud. Indeed, I am to discuss a great business industry, if
you please, in which you and I are joint stockholders and for whose
success we are alike responsible. And, too, I have been for so many
years a teacher and so closely connected with educational work that I
feel akin to every other man and woman engaged in that occupation.
Knowing how easy it is to make mistakes and thus fall short of attaining
our high ideals in this most trying and most difficult work, I am
temperamentally inclined to magnify the difficulties and to overlook the
shortcomings of educational workers. To be sure, in speaking upon
"Improvements," I am admitting that improvements are possible. But the
best friend of a person or an institution is one who talks frankly and
honestly, admitting weaknesses, if such there be, and suggesting
assistance. Such an attitude can not well be interpreted as a criticism
either of men or mesures.

A gentleman met me on the street a day or two ago and said, "I
understand that you are going to find fault with our schools next
Tuesday night. What for? I want you to understand that our schools are
all right. Let well enough alone." A few days ago one of the local
papers said of the schools, "The public schools of Grand Forks are
recognized as the finest in the Northwest and the school system is
up-to-date in every respect."

And that idea seems to be chronic. Such expressions are common in our
papers and from many of our people. The impression sought to be given is
doubtless that of "Let well enough alone," or "Hands off." Now, Mr.
Chairman, while this feeling clearly betokens a general confidence in
the management of the schools of which those directly in charge may well
take pride, nevertheless, it is not an altogether healthy condition of
affairs.

While I believe in a wise conservatism as against an unthinking
radicalism, I am in no sense of the term a "stand-patter." The
individual who has earned this picturesque title, I care not whether in
the halls of Congress or in the ranks of the educators, is a foe to
progress. A "stand-patter" is such because he is in a rut and either too
lazy or too corrupt to get out.

Things ought not to remain long as they are in any busin