CHAPTER II

THE RELATION OF STATE AID TO STATE CONTROL OF

EDUCATION

AMERICAN interest in popular education early took the tangible form of munificent State aid. As early as 1786 New York set apart two lots in each township of the unoccupied lands of the State for "gospel and school purposes," and fifteen years later ordered that the net proceeds of onehalf million acres of vacant and unappropriated lands should be devoted to the school fund. In 1795, when Connecticut sold the Western Reserve for one million dollars, she turned this sum into the school fund, which had been started as early as 1733 from the proceeds of the sales of lands in the northwestern part of the colony. Tennessee, in 1806, prompted by Congress, devoted one million acres of land each to colleges and academies, and one-thirty-sixth of the remaining unoccupied lands to common schools. Other States soon followed suit by starting school funds of various descriptions: Virginia and New Jersey in 1810, South Carolina in 1811, Kentucky and New Hampshire in 1821, Maine about the same time, North Carolina in 1825, and Massachusetts in 1834.

But it is neither necessary nor profitable for present purposes to trace at all in detail the rise and development of thesc State school funds. Suffice to say that at present the principle of State aid to common school education is firmly established, every State in the Union adopting the principle either by setting apart special funds or by providing various

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forms of taxation or appropriation for the same. It may be worth while, however, to note some of the almost endless varieties of State aid for education developed in the different States. The following are only part of the many species of funds and taxation for education: tax on banks, savings banks, trust companies, etc.; tax on dogs and other animals; tax on railroads; fines for intoxication and other offences against the State; licenses for auctioneers, brokers, circuses, liquors, taverns, restaurants, marriages, etc.; percentage of fees of justices of the peace, prothonotaries, recorders of deeds, and other public officers; poll taxes; proceeds of the sales of public lands; moneys arising from the lease of oyster lands; proceeds of the sale of escheats, estrays, unclaimed dividends, etc.; proceeds of tax sales; dividends on State. Bank; riparian rents and sales; saline funds; convicts' hire; mill tax, etc., etc. The proceeds from the various funds. and taxes are usually apportioned to the counties or towns by the State superintendents and paid out by the State treasurer (sometimes by the State auditor) on warrants issued by the apportioning authority. Sometimes, however, the apportionment is made by the State board of education, the school fund commissioners, the State treasurer or the State auditor. The usual basis of apportionment is the number of school children of school age, but sometimes the number of schools or teachers in the local area.

But from the standpoint of the present chapter it is only important for us to note the bearing of State aid upon State control of education. The one naturally and necessarily led to the other. The granting of aid on the part of the State implied conditions upon which the aid should be received by the localities. These school funds and systems of taxation were not established simply for the benefit of the localities as such. Had this been the case the support of schools might have been left wholly to the localities. But the estab

lishment of these funds is an evidence in itself of a dawning sense of the need of a State system of education under State supervision and control. These funds were established for the promotion of the public good in a wider sense. The State had interests of its own to foster, and a policy of its own to carry out. The establishment of State school funds, then, became the basis of a distinctive State policy, and inaugurated a system of State control and intervention in the field of education.

In the first place these State funds led to a better system of school returns, with all that this implies. Prior to the granting of regular State aid to the localities, it was all but impossible to get even the most meagre statistical returns from the same, because there was no adequate incentive for compliance and no effective penalty for refusal and neglect.1 Now, when the localities understand that their share of the State appropriation will be withheld in case of non-compliance with the statistical demands of the central department, it is needless to say that even very extensive and detailed statistics are quite readily obtained. The very great value and importance of such statistics in developing a real system of public education is too apparent to require further mention.

But this vast fund of statistical information is not the only result of the granting of State aid to the schools, nor the only form of State control growing out of the same. It is primarily by the power of withholding appropriations from the localities that the State exerts its strong arm of control in other directions. It is the fear of losing their share of the State moneys that serves as the most effective method of inducing the localities to maintain schools during the entire period prescribed by law; to provide instruction in all the

'The earliest school reports and still earlier sources of information abound with evidence of the careless neglect and indifference of the localities in this respect.

required branches of study; to employ only those teachers who conform to various requirements made by law and by the various school administrative authorities of the State; to comply with numerous and important State regulations as to school property; in some cases to raise a certain required sum by local taxation; in some cases to enforce compulsory attendance laws and factory legislation with reference to children; in some cases to follow a State course of study, and to use text-books prescribed by the same authority; to carry out various rules of the State superintendent or State board too numerous to mention.

It is very evident, therefore, that State aid to education has proven a condition precedent to any and all effective State control over the same. The one led necessarily but almost insensibly to the other. Without detailed treatment, then, I point to the establishment of State school funds and State systems of taxation for public education as the first important step taken in this country towards a centralization of school administration.

CHAPTER III

GENERAL OUTLINE OF PRESENT STATE EDUCATIONAL

ADMINISTRATION

THE usual title given to the chief educational officer of the State is "Superintendent of Public Instruction." In some States, as in Georgia, Ohio and Rhode Island, he is called "State Commissioner of Schools;" in some, as in Connecticut and Massachusetts," Secretary of the State Board of Education;" in some, as in Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Vermont, "State Superintendent of Education." A few other titles are in vogue.

In the majority of the States this official is elected by the people, but in quite a number of cases he is an appointive officer. He is appointed by the governor, generally subject to confirmation by the Senate, in Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma and New Mexico; by the State board of education in Connecticut and Massachusetts; elected by the legislature in New York, Vermont and Virginia. The term of office of this official varies from one to four years in the different States, but the evident tendency is to lengthen the term. At least seventeen States 1 now prescribe a four years' term, and four States a three year term. Several States, which have a shorter legal term, make a practice of frequent reëlections.

'Cal., Fla., Ill., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nev., N. C., Or., Pa., Va., W. Va., Wash., Utah, Wy.

2 Me., N. J., N. Y., O.

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