CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

ALTHOUGH popular education, since the earliest days of New England history, has been fondly cherished as one of the chief characteristics and safe-guards of our American polity, and although public schools early became quite generally diffused, especially throughout the North, yet at the opening of the present century it could scarcely be said that any of the States had what could be dignified by the term a "public school system." Almost everywhere throughout the country the establishment and continued maintenance of free public schools depended chiefly upon local initiative and local public sentiment, while so far from there being any effective control and supervision of the schools, this factor was almost entirely wanting in every State. What little control and supervision existed was local, and took in no larger area than the township or county, and with the general establishment of the so-called "district system" was ushered in an era of the most extreme decentralization conceivable, during which a multitude of petty local boards and "directors" ruled supreme in their infinitesimal districts. Each district was a law unto itself; of uniformity and system there was none.

This extreme decentralization in educational administration lasted till quite late in the present century, but gradually as population advanced and wealth accumulated the primitive conditions gave way to modern complexities, and as a result the early decentralization has also been obliged

to give way at many points. During the first half of the present century (roughly speaking) township and county supervision over the expenditure of school moneys, the levying of local school taxes, the erection and repair of school houses, the fixing of school terms and salaries, and other matters of a purely business character, was constantly becoming more and more thorough. During the latter half of this century this control has been gradually extended to an oversight of educational methods and courses of study, the qualifications and selection of teachers, grading, classification, discipline and sanitation. And, furthermore, during the latter period, township and county supervision has been quite generally supplemented by more or less thorough State control over many branches of school administration. First of all there were developed in most of the States special school funds and a general system of taxation for the encouragement and partial support of public schools. Parallel with and closely connected with this movement was the differentiation and development of separate State educational departments, and this movement has in many States been attended with the downfall of the "district system" and the establishment of a quite thorough central control over such branches of educational administration as text-book supplies, courses of study, the examination and qualifications of teachers, compulsory attendance and truancy.

The first State to develop a permanent educational department was New York. In 1812 this State created the office of "Superintendent of Common Schools." A little later there was a retrograde movement in this State. In 1821 the above office was abolished, and until 1854 the Secretary of State was made ex-officio State superintendent of schools. In 1841, however, the office of deputy superintendent was created, and the duties of the Secretary were largely turned over to him. In 1854 the office of

superintendent was revived. In the meantime, eighteen other States had established similar offices, among the earliest of which were Vermont, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri and Connecticut. For a time most of the States merged the office of superintendent of public instruction with some other office already established, and the former office was regarded as merely nominal. For example, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Louisiana, like New York, merged the office in that of the Secretary of State; Colorado, in that of the State Treasurer; Oregon, in that of the Governor. Of course there was no logical or organic connection between the offices thus merged, and whatever development there was in the public school system under this regime was in spite of the fusion; yet owing largely to political reasons, it proved very difficult to get the two offices permanently separated. But after a long and rather tedious development, there exists to-day a separate educational department in the administrative system of every State and Territory, except Alaska, headed in each case, except in Delaware, by a separate chief administrative officer. In every State public education is looked upon as primarily a State affair subject to State regulation.

Furthermore, this changed condition of educational administration has already found clear and emphatic expression in the organic and statute law, and in the judicial decisions of nearly every State and Territory. The constitutions of all the States, except Delaware and New Hampshire, make it compulsory on the part of the legislature to provide a system of public schools, free to all children of

1In Oklahoma the superintendent of public instruction also acts as territorial auditor. In Maryland the principal of the State normal school is ex-officio superintendent of public instruction. The schools of Alaska are supervised by a resident general agent of the Bureau of Education.

school age in the State. Most of the States have gone further, and provided in their organic law for State school funds the principal of which is not to be diminished, and the interest on which is pledged for the support of schools and forbidden to be used for any other purpose. Many of the State constitutions also make quite specific provision for central supervision by a State board or superintendent, or both. The underlying doctrine of these constitutional provisions for education is that "knowledge and learning, as well as virtue, generally diffused throughout the community, are essential to the preservation of a free government and of the rights and liberties of the people." This principle, so early enunciated in the Massachusetts constitution, is found to-day, expressed in but slightly modified form, in at least fifteen of the State constitutions, and, as said above, is really the basis of all these provisions. Several other lines of State control are laid down in the constitutional law of some of the States, as for example a minimum school year, the prohibition of sectarian instruction, the prohibition of grants of public money to sectarian schools, and compulsory edu

cation.

It would seem, therefore, that State control is quite clearly asserted in the organic law of the States. We find also that the courts fully sustain the principle. The following extract from the opinion delivered in the case of State v. Haworth 3 will serve as a typical expression of the opinion of the courts

1 Const. Al., art. xiii, sec. 7; Cal., ix, 2; Col., ix, 1; Fla., xii, 2-3; Ga., viii, 1; Id., ix, 2; Ind., viii, 8: Ia., ix, 1st, 1-10; Kan., vi, 1 and 9; La., art. 225; Mich., xiii, I and 9; Miss., viii, 2-4; Mo., xi, 4; Mont., xi, 11; Nev., xi, I and 7; N. C., ix, 8-12; Or., viii, 1; S. C., x, 1: Tex., vii, 8; Va., viii, 1-2; W. Va., xii, 2; Wis.. x, I; Wy., vii, 14.

2 Const. Ark., art. xiv, sec. 1; Cal., ix, 1; Id., ix, 1; Ind., viii, 1; Me., viii; Mass., chap. v, sec. 2; Minn., viii, 1; Mo., xi, 1; N. H., art. 83; N. C., ix, 1; N. D., viii, 1; Rh. I., xii, 1; S. D., viii, 1; Tenn., xi, 12; Tex., vii, 1.

regarding the present legal status of the schools in the different States: "Essentially and intrinsically the schools in which are educated and trained the children who are to become the rulers of the commonwealth are matters of State and not of local jurisdiction. In such matters the State is a unit. . . . The authority over schools and school affairs is not necessarily a distributive one to be exercised by local instrumentalities; but on the contrary it is a central power residing in the Legislature of the State. It is for the lawmaking power to determine whether the authority shall be exercised by a State board of education, or distributed to county, township, or city organizations throughout the State." In the Pennsylvania case of Ford vs. Kendall Borough School District the court went still further in its assertion of the power of legislature to centralize educational administration. The following brief extract from the opinion in this case will enable the reader to understand the doctrine of the court on this point: "We may assert positively and without hesitation that school districts are but agents of the commonwealth and are made quasi-corporations for the sole purpose of the administration of the commonwealth's system of public education."

1 121 Pa. St., 547.