Crusade In Delaware

His wife wanted to go bowling that evening, so Henry Toy Jr., a Du Pont executive, went to the Parent-Teacher Association meeting himself. He learned a thing or two. The public school in Oak Grove, Del., where his five-year-old son went, was so crowded that the kids had to wait in line to get into the bathroom. Were conditions that bad in other Delaware schools? He learned that they were generally far worse.

Within a few weeks, he organized the Council for Delaware Education, Inc., a group built around an executive committee of ten parents. Soon, before Rotary Clubs, American Legion posts, local P.T.A.s and women's clubs, council members were talking about teachers' salaries, overcrowding and lack of equipment.

They translated the school laws into everyday language, and had them published in newspapers throughout the state, so that everyone could judge them. They denounced the state administration for spending $25,000 to investigate the school system, and then hiding the report from the public. Finally, the council began its most ambitious project: it sent out committees to investigate the condition of every one of Delaware's 164 public schools. Last week, the first report went out to educators, legislators, and civic groups all over the state.

Outside of Wilmington, the council found, Delaware has no fully equipped high school for Negroes. The average school is 24 years old. Fifty have no playground equipment, 48 have only one teacher, 22 have no electricity. There are no towels in 22 schools; in eight others the pupils furnish their own. Thirty schools lack soap; only 85 have provisions for serving hot lunches. Some schools have no hot water, others have no water at all.

With facts like these, Toy hopes to shame Delaware into action. Members' speeches, once buried in the back of newspapers, now make the front pages. Some school districts have taken an interest in trustee elections for the first time in years. Others have even voted to raise their own school taxes. Toy doesn't expect to lick the whole problem once & for all. Says he: "Interest will die down, and the schools will deteriorate. That will be the time for someone to start the cycle all over again."

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