III. THE BATTLE TO MAKE THE SCHOOLS ENTIRELY FREE
THE SCHOOLS NOT YET FREE. The rate-bill, as we have previously stated, was an old institution, also brought over from England, as the term "rate" signifies. It was a charge levied upon the parent to supplement the school revenues and prolong the school term, and was assessed in proportion to the number of children sent by each parent to the school. In some States, as for example Massachusetts and Connecticut, its use went back to colonial times; in others it was added as the cost for education increased, and it was seen that the income from permanent funds and authorized taxation was not sufficient to maintain the school the necessary length of time. The deficiency in revenue was charged against the parents sending children to school, pro rata, and collected as ordinary tax-bills (R. 321). The charge was small, but it was sufficient to keep many poor children away from the schools.
The rising cities, with their new social problems, could not and would not tolerate the rate-bill system, and one by one they secured special laws from legislatures which enabled them to organize a city school system, separate from city-council control, and under a local "board of education." One of the provisions of these special laws nearly always was the right to levy a city tax for schools sufficient to provide free education for the children of the city.
[Illustration: FIG. 202. THE NEW YORK REFERENDUM OF 1850 Total vote: For free schools, 17 counties and 209,346 voters; against free schools, 42 counties and 184,308 voters.]
THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RATE-BILL IN NEW YORK. The attempt to abolish the rate-bill and make the schools wholly free was most vigorously contested in New York State, and the contest there is most easily described. From 1828 to 1868, this tax on the parents produced an average annual sum of $410,685.66, or about one half of the sum paid all the teachers of the State for salary. While the wealthy districts were securing special legislation and taxing themselves to provide free schools for their children, the poorer and less populous districts were left to struggle to maintain their schools the four months each year necessary to secure state aid. Finally, after much agitation, and a number of appeals to the legislature to assume the rate-bill charges in the form of general state taxation, and thus make the schools entirely free, the legislature, in 1849, referred the matter back to the people to be voted on at the elections that autumn. The legislature was to be thus advised by the people as to what action it should take. The result was a state-wide campaign for free, public, tax-supported schools, as against partially free, rate-bill schools.
The result of the 1849 election was a vote of 249,872 in favor of making "the property of the State educate the children of the State," and 91,952 against it. This only seemed to stir the opponents of free schools to renewed action, and they induced the next legislature to resubmit the question for another vote, in the autumn of 1850.
The result of the referendum of 1850 is shown on the map on page 685. The opponents of tax-supported schools now mustered their full strength, doubling their vote in 1849, while the majority for free schools was materially cut down. The interesting thing shown on this map was the clear and unmistakable voice of the cities. They would not tolerate the rate- bill, and, despite their larger property interests, they favored tax- supported free schools. The rural districts, on the other hand, opposed the idea.
THE RATE-BILL IN OTHER STATES. These two referenda virtually settled the question in New York, though for a time a compromise was adopted. The state appropriation for schools was very materially increased, the rate- bill was retained, and the organization of "union districts" to provide free schools by local taxation where people desired them was authorized. Many of these "union free districts" now arose in the more progressive communities of the State, and finally, in 1867, after rural and other forms of opposition had largely subsided, and after almost all the older States had abandoned the plan, the New York legislature finally abolished the rate-bill and made the schools of New York entirely free.
The dates for the abolition of the rate-bill in the other older Northern
States were:
1834. Pennsylvania. 1867. New York. 1852. Indiana. 1868. Connecticut. 1853. Ohio. 1868. Rhode Island. 1855. Illinois. 1869. Michigan. 1864. Vermont. 1871. New Jersey.
The New York fight of 1849 and 1850 was the pivotal fight; in the other
States it was abandoned by legislative act, and without a serious contest.
In the Southern States free education came with the educational
reorganizations following the close of the Civil War.