§ 4. Each city and school district in the state is hereby authorized to raise moneys by tax in the same manner as other school moneys are raised, or to receive moneys by gift or devise, for starting or extending or caring for the school library.

5. Any board of education in any city or union free school district, or any duly constituted meeting in any other district, is hereby authorized to give any or all of its books or other library property to any township or other free public library under state supervision, or to aid in establishing such free public library, provided it is free to the people of such city or district. A receipt from the officers of the said free public library, and an approval of the transfer under seal by the regents of the university, shall forever thereafter relieve the said school authorities of further responsibility for the said library and property so trans

ferred.

§ 6. Any books or other library property belonging to any district library, and which have not been in direct charge of a librarian duly appointed within one year, may be taken and shall thereafter be owned by any public library under state supervision, which has received from the regents of the university written. permission to collect such books or library property, and to administer the same for the benefit of the public; provided, that said books or other library property shall be found in the territory for which such public library is maintained, as defined in its charter or in the permission granted by the regents; and further provided that, on written request of the school authorities, any dictionaries, cyclopedias and pedagogic books shall be placed in the school library of the district to which such books originally belong. Any person, association or corporation having possession of books, or other property belonging to any school, district or other public library, except books regularly borrowed and charged for a period not yet expired, shall deliver the same within one month from the passage of this law to the legally appointed librarian of such library, or of the free public library, duly authorized to take the same as provided in this section, and willful neglect or refusal to comply with this provision shall be a misdemeanor.

§ 7. The public shall not be entitled to use any library, now or hereafter in the custody of the school authorities, but said authorities may appoint three trustees who shall have the powers, duties and responsibilities of trustees of public libraries incorporated by the regents, and thereafter the school authorities may transfer to

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the custody of said trustees for the purposes of a circulating library any of their library property as provided in section five.

§ 8. The state superintendent of public instruction is hereby authorized to withhold its share of public school moneys from any city or district which uses school library moneys for any other purpose than that for which they are provided, or for any willful neglect or disobedience of the law or the rules or orders of said superintendent in the premises.

TITLE XIV.

Appeals to the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

SECTION 1. Any person conceiving himself aggrieved in consequence of any decision made:

1. By any school district meeting;

2. By any school commissioner or school commissioners and other officers, in forming or altering, or refusing to form or alter, any school district, or in refusing to apportion any school moneys to any such district or part of a district;

3. By a supervisor in refusing to pay any such moneys to any such district;

4. By the trustees of any district in paying or refusing to pay any teacher, or in refusing to admit any scholar gratuitously into any school;

5. By any trustees of any school library concerning such library, or the books therein, or the use of such books;

6. By any district meeting in relation to the library;

7. By any other official act or decision concerning any other matter under this act, or any other act pertaining to common schools, may appeal to the superintendent of public instruction, who is hereby authorized and required to examine and decide the same; and his decision shall be final and conclusive, and not subject to question or review in any place or court whatever.

§ 2. The superintendent, in reference to such appeals, shall have power:

I. To regulate the practice therein.

2. To determine whether an appeal shall stay proceedings, and prescribe conditions upon which it shall or shall not so operate.

3. To decline to entertain or to dismiss an appeal, when it shall appear that the appellant has no interest in the matter appealed

from, and that the matter is not a matter of public concern, and that the person injuriously affected by the act or decision appealed from is incompetent to appeal.

4. To make all orders, by directing the levying of taxes or otherwise, which may, in his judgment, be proper or necessary to give effect to his decision.

3. The superintendent shall file, arrange in the order of time, and keep in his office, so that they may be at all times accessible, all the proceedings on every appeal to him under this title, including his decision and orders founded thereon; and copies of all such papers and proceedings, authenticated by him under his seal of office, shall be evidence equally with the originals.

TITLE XV.

Miscellaneous Provisions.

ARTICLE I.

OF LOSS OF SCHOOL MONEYS APPORTIONED; OF FORFEITURE BY SCHOOL OFFICERS BY REASON OF Neglect to SUE FOR PENALTIES; OF COSTS IN SUITS WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE SUBJECTS OF APPEAL TO THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION; OF COSTS IN SUITS, ACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OTHER THAN APPEALS TO THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

SECTION 1. Whenever the share of school moneys or any portion thereof, apportioned to any town or school district, or any money to which a town or school district would have been entitled, shall be lost, in consequence of any willful neglect of official duty by any school commissioner, town clerk, trustee or clerks of school districts, the officer or officers guilty of such neglect shall forfeit to the town, or school district so losing the same, the full amount of such loss with interest thereon.

§ 2. Where any penalty for the benefit of a school district, or of the schools of any school district, town, school commissioner district or county, shall be incurred, and the officer or officers, whose duty it is by law to sue for the same, shall willfully and unreasonably refuse or neglect to sue for the same, such officer or officers shall forfeit the amount of such penalty to the same use,

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and it shall be the duty of their successor or successors in office to sue for the same.

3. In any action against a school officer or officers, including supervisors of towns, in respect to their duties and powers under this act, for any act performed by virtue of or under the color of their offices, or for any refusal or omission to perform any duty enjoined by law, and which might have been the subject of an appeal to the superintendent, no costs shall be allowed to the plaintiff, in cases where the court shall certify that it appeared on the trial that the defendants acted in good faith. But this provision shall not extend to suits for penalties, nor to suits or proceedings to enforce the decisions of the superintendent.

4. Whenever the trustees of any school district, or any school district officer or officers, have been or shall be instructed by a resolution of the district, at a meeting called for that purpose, to defend any action brought against them, or to bring or defend an action or proceeding touching any district property or claim of the district, or involving its rights or interests, or to continue any such action of defense, all their costs and reasonable expenses, as well as all costs and damages adjudged against them, shall be a district charge and shall be levied by tax. If the amount claimed by them be disputed by a district meeting, it shall be adjusted by the county judge of any county in which the district or any part of it is situated.

5. Whenever such trustees or any school district officer shall have brought or defended any such action or proceeding, without any such resolution of the district meeting, and after the final determination of such suit or proceeding, shall present to any regular meeting of the inhabitants of the district, an account, in writing, of all costs, charges and expenses paid by him or them, with the items thereof, and verified by his or their oath or affirmation, and a majority of the voters at such meeting shall so direct, it shall be the duty of the trustees to cause the same to be assessed upon and collected of the taxable property of said. district, in the same manner as other taxes are by law assessed and collected; and, when so collected, the same shall be paid over, by an order upon the collector or treasurer to the officer or officers entitled to receive the same; but this provision shall not extend to suits for penalties, nor to suits or proceedings to enforce the decisions of the superintendent of public instruction.

§ 6. Whenever an officer or officers mentioned in the last pre

ceding section of this title shall have complied with the provisions of said section, and the inhabitants shall have refused to direct the trustees to levy a tax for the payment of the costs, charges and expenses therein mentioned, it shall be lawful for him or them, then and there, to give notice orally and publicly, that he will appeal to the county judge of the county; and in case of his disability to act in the matter by reason of being dis qualified, or otherwise, then to the district attorney of the county in which the school-house of said district is located, from the refusal of said meeting to vote a tax for the payment of said claim, and the inhabitants may, then and there, or at any subsequent district meeting, appoint one or more of the inhabitants of the district to protect the rights and interests of the district upon said appeal. And the officer or officers before mentioned shall thereupon, within ten days, serve upon the clerk of said district (or if there be no such clerk, upon the town clerk of the town) a copy of the aforesaid account, so sworn to, together with a notice, in writing, that on a certain day therein specified he or they intend to present such account to the county judge or to the district attorney, as the case may be, for settlement. And the clerk shall record such notice, together with the copy of the account, and the same shall be subject to the inspection of the inhabitants of the district. And it shall be the duty of the person or persons appointed by any district meeting for that purpose, to appear before the county judge or the district. attorney, as the case may be, on the day mentioned in the notice. aforesaid, and to protect the rights of the district upon such settlement; and the expenses incurred in the performance of this duty shall be a charge upon said district, and the trustees, upon presentation of the account of such expenses, with the proper voucher therefor, may levy a tax therefor, or add the same to any other tax to be levied by them; and their refusal to levy said tax for the payment of said expenses, shall be subject to an appeal to the superintendent of public instruction.

§ 7. Upon the appearance of the parties, or upon due proof of service of the notice and copy of the account, the county judge shall examine into the matter and hear the proofs and allegations presented by the parties, and decide by order whether or not the account, or any and what portion thereof, ought justly be charged upon the district, with costs and disbursements to such officer or officers, in his discretion, which costs and disbursements shall not