It would seem possible to go no further in the matter of decentralization unless the requirement of a teacher's certificate should be abolished. Indeed, we find that in 1841 this was left to the option of the district trustees. But the same year showed a slight reaction from this extreme individualism. All the property within the district was made subject to any tax imposed for building school houses. A closer supervision of school funds was provided and the township treasurer was required to distribute the revenue of his township among the districts in proportion to the number of children between the ages of five and twenty-one years.

The legitimate fruits of this ill-conceived system of district schools were shown to be: (1) inequality in the length of the school terms, in the efficiency of schools, and in the cost of the maintenance of schools within the same township; (2) a greater expensiveness, because of the multiplicity of officers and the continuance of small schools; (3) incompetency of teachers, because of frequent changes and partiality and favoritism in their selection; (4) inefficiency in instruction, because of diversity of text-books and difficulty in grading and classifying pupils; (5) laxity in the enforcement of school laws, because of the absence of supervision and the ignorance and indifference of the petty school officers; (6) wasteful administration of public school funds and revenues ; (7) neighborhood quarrels over the sites of buildings and boundaries of districts; (8) narrow and selfish views as to the ends of public instruction. All this was the outgrowth of an exaggerated idea of the virtues of local self-government.

During the seven years prior to 1843, the unfavorable condition of school affairs received most serious consideration by the leading educators and statesmen. It is evident from the speeches and addresses of prominent men and from the reports of officers and legislative committees that the most intelligent opinion was in favor of some attempt at a centralized system. The revelations made by these utterances finally moved the legislators to action. We find in the revised school law of 1843 an important step towards

1 In 1840 the House Committee on Education in an elaborate report on the subject of schools, declared that the existing plan" scarce deserves the name of system." "It is a multitude of systems, having no accountability to each other, or to any higher powers." "We present almost the only example of a state professing to have in force a system of common school education, which does not know the amount or condition of its school funds, the number of schools and scholars to be taught and to receive a distribution of those funds." House Journal, 1839-40, p. 365. Governor Bigger in his message in 1842 declared: "Our schools are a mass of complicated statutory provisions, presenting difficulties even to the disciplined legal mind, which are almost insuperable to the ordinary citizen." Doc. Journ., 1841-2, House Rep'ts, p. 148.

an intelligent supervision under State authority. The Treasurer of the State was declared by law to be the Superintendent of Common Schools. His duties were chiefly financial and statistical. No authority to direct the educational policy was given him. However, the first thing necessary to develop a satisfactory school system was to secure full, reliable and accurate information as to funds, revenues, schools and children of school age. A beginning in this direction was made by this act.

This material advance towards centralization was attended by a considerable degree of local centralization. In the absence · of instructions by the district meeting, the district trustee was empowered to contract with a teacher. He also was given authority to determine what branches should be taught. Taxes levied by the district meeting were thereafter to be assessed and collected by county officers and not by district officers. Much more important was the requirement that any such tax should be assessed upon all the taxable property of the district, except that of negroes and mulattoes who were not entitled to the privileges of the schools.

Pursuant to the recommendation of the General Assembly at its thirty-first session a "Convention of the Friends of the Common Schools" met at Indianapolis May 26, 1847. Its committees drafted a bill to provide for the improvement of common schools and an address to the people. The report accompanying the bill was very exhaustive in its review of the situation of the schools and school funds. In the address to the people it was stated that in 1847 one-seventh of the people over twenty years of age could neither read nor write; that 30,000 voters in Indiana were illiterate; and that the annual expenditure for education was only about $125,000. The only important act of the General Assembly at this time was a law submitting to a popular vote the question of the support of the common schools by general taxation. The result of the vote was in favor of State-established, State-supported and State-controlled schools.

The Legislature soon afterwards proceeded to enact a law which gave greater security to school funds and greater accuracy to reports, inaugurated the policy of State support of the schools by means of general taxation, and strengthened the local centralization. The number of trustees in each district was reduced from three to one. Besides attending to the business of the district, the trustee was made "the organ of communication between the district and the board of township trustees" to whom he was expected to make "such suggestions as may advance the educational interests of his district." In addition, he was required to make reports to the clerk of the township board. Acceptance of

the offices of township and district trustees was made obligatory. The township was made the unit for the distribution of the school funds. The township trustees were required to provide a sufficient number of schools to accommodate the pupils of their townships for at least three months annually. All schools of the township were to have school terms of equal length. Schools established by private liberality were still entitled to their just and equitable allowance from the public funds. The worst defect of the law was the proviso that left it to each county to determine whether or not the law should operate within its jurisdiction. At the first election following its enactment, the law was adopted in fifty-four counties.

The definitive step in this tedious transition from the district to the township system was taken in 1852. This law was mandatory in character and applied to every county and every district. A uniform system of administration was created for civil townships, and the political functions were taken away from the congressional townships. Each civil township was declared to be a township for school purposes, and the township officers, to be school officers.1 The three trustees 2 had power to manage the schools and school lands in nearly the same way as at present. Incorporated cities and towns were for the first time made school corporations independent of the townships in which they were situated. They were declared to be entitled to their proportionate share of school funds, and given power to establish graded schools. All school corporations were empowered to levy taxes for building purposes and for the support of schools after the public funds were exhausted.

It has been said that Indiana was "the first State in the Union to incorporate it [the township system] into her educational code." However that may be, it was certainly an innovation of the greatest import. Gradually it came to mean the diminution of the expenses of administration, the equalization of opportunities within the township, the employment of more competent teachers with longer tenure, and greater professional interest and ambition. In the place of narrow localized interests and neighborhood quarrels and factions, it led to the expansion of interest, sympathy and civic pride so as to include the civil and educational welfare of each citizen of the larger community.

1 Rev. Stat., 1852, i. p. 440. In 1855 the county commissioners were instructed to make the boundaries of the civil townships coincide as nearly as possible with those of the congressional townships. This simplified the distribution of the revenue from the congressional township fund. Laws, 1855, p. 181.

2 Reduced to one trustee by the law of 1859.

CHAPTER VII

THE DISTRICT UNIT AND THE DISTRICT SYSTEM

THE nature and essential features of the district system of school administration can be seen from the following citations to and illustrative extracts from the school laws, and quotations from those who may be regarded as authorities.

I. FORMATION OF DISTRICTS, AND ALTERATION OF
BOUNDARIES

The school laws in all district-system states provide means for creating new school districts and altering district boundaries. The proceedings are often quite detailed, and must almost of necessity be so when the district unit of taxation is involved. Typical and illustrative methods can be found by looking up and comparing the legal procedure in the following states:

1. MISSOURI. A slow and an unnecessarily cumbersone method. (See Missouri School Laws (1913 Ed.), Sec. 10,837, and the Supreme Court decisions following the sections.) 2. CALIFORNIA. A better method, but with the initiative resting wholly with the districts. (See California School Laws, Art. V., Secs. 1577-1579, and 1543.)

3. TEXAS. A much better method, with the initiative resting with either side. (See School Laws of Texas (1913), Secs. 103-105.)

4. NEW YORK. The initiative resting with the county educational authorities. (See New York Education Law, Art. 5.) 5. GEORGIA. A simple and effective method. (See School Laws of Georgia, Part III.)

(See

6. OHIO. An almost equally simple and effective method. Ohio School Laws, Secs. 3921 and 3923, and Forms and Instructions, VIII and XVIII.)

II. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT MEETING

This institution once played a very important part in district school organization, and still remains strong in a few states. New York is a good example. This state is one in which New England traditions still remain strong, and where the townmeeting idea still prevails. The powers still retained by the annual school meeting are large, while many of the matters which the people are called upon to vote are of such a nature that they could be settled more easily if left to the district trustees for determination, or settled once for all by uniform state law. Progress must necessarily be slow under such a system. (See New York Education Law, 1914, Art. 7.)

Other illustrations of the Annual Meeting, arranged in a scale of decreasing importance, may be found, as follows:

1. ARKANSAS. Annual meeting required; large powers; and in the matter of maintaining a school extraordinary. (See Arkansas School Laws, Secs. 7588-7592.)

2. INDIANA. Subdistrict meetings only; limited powers. (See School Law of Indiana (1911 Ed.), Chap. VII, Secs. 125-127.)

3. CALIFORNIA. Meeting only occasional, on call; powers very limited; meeting approaching extinction. (See School Law of California, Art. VII, Sec. 1617, subdiv. 20.)

4. ILLINOIS. Meeting for election of trustees, and receiving the annual report only. (See School Law of Illinois (1909 Rev.), Secs. 106, 107, and 114, subdiv. 1.)

III. METHODS OF ELECTING TRUSTEES

1. NEW YORK, mentioned above, is typical of the method of electing the trustees in annual school meeting. Where the school meeting has disappeared, other methods must be employed, of which election and appointment are the common ones. California is a good illustration of the former, and Georgia of the latter.

2. CALIFORNIA. General election in the spring, on a day uniform throughout the state. (See California School Law, Art. VI, Secs. 1593-1602.)