Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions

by George S. Boutwell

"Therefore, to preserve the purity, extend the usefulness, and perpetuate the benefits of intelligence, we recommend that a fund be constituted, and the distribution of the income so ordered as to open a direct and more certain intercourse with the schools; believing that by this measure their wants would be better understood and supplied, the advantages of education more highly appreciated and improved, and the blessings of wisdom, virtue, and knowledge, carried home to the fireside of every family, to the bosom of every child." The bill reported by this committee was read twice, and then, upon Mr. Marsh's motion, referred to the next Legislature.

In 1834, the bill from the files of the last General Court to establish the Massachusetts School Fund, and so much of the petition of the inhabitants of Seekonk as related to the same subject, were referred to the Committee on Education.

In the month of February, Hon. A. D. Foster, of Worcester, chairman of the committee, made a report, and submitted a bill which was the basis of the law of March 31, 1834. The committee were sensible of the importance of establishing a fund for the encouragement of the common schools. These institutions were languishing for support, and in a great degree destitute of the public sympathy. There were no means of communication between the government and the schools, and in some sections towns and districts had set themselves resolutely against all interference by the state. In 1832, an effort was made to ascertain the amount raised for the support of schools. Returns were received from only ninety-nine towns, showing an annual average expenditure of one dollar and ninety-eight cents for each pupil.

The interest in this subject does not seem to have been confined to the Legislature, nor even to have originated there. The report of the committee contains an extract from a communication made by Rev. William C. Woodbridge, then editor of the American Annals of Education and Instruction. His views were adopted by the committee, and they corresponded with those which have been already quoted. The dangers of a large fund were presented, and the example of Connecticut, and some states of the West, where school funds had diminished rather than increased the public interest in education, was tendered as a warning against a too liberal appropriation of public money. On the other hand, Mr. Woodbridge claimed that the establishment of a fund which should encourage efforts rather than supply all wants, and, without sustaining the schools, give aid to the people in proportion to their own contributions, was a measure indispensable to the cause of education. He also referred to the experience of New Jersey, which had made a general appropriation to be paid to those towns that should contribute for the support of their own schools; but, such was the public indifference, that after many years the money was still in the treasury. Hence it was inferred that all these measures were ineffectual, and that mere taxation was, upon the whole, to be preferred to any imperfect system. But the example of New York was approved, where the distribution of a small sum, equal to about twenty cents for each pupil, had increased the public interest, and wrought what then seemed to be an effectual and permanent revolution in educational affairs. These facts and reasonings, say the committee, seem to be important and sound, and to result in this,—that no provision ought to be made which shall diminish the present amount of money raised by taxes for the schools, or the interest felt by the people in their prosperity; that a fund may be so used as satisfactorily to increase both—and that further information in regard to our schools is requisite to determine the best mode of doing this. These opinions are supported generally by the judgment of the present generation. Yet it is to be remarked, by way of partial dissent, that the public apathy in Connecticut and the states of the West was not in a great degree the effect of the funds, but was rather a coëxisting, independent fact. It ought not, therefore, to have been expected that the mere offer of money for educational purposes, while the people had no just idea of the importance of education or of the means by which it could be acquired, would lead them even to accept the proffered boon; and it certainly, in their judgment, furnished no reason for self-taxation. It is, however, no doubt true that the power of local taxation for the support of schools is in its exercise a means of provoking interest in education; and it is reasonable to assume that a public system of instruction will never be vigorous and efficient at all times and under all circumstances where the right of local taxation does not exist or is not exercised. When the entire expenditure is derived from the income of public funds, or obtained by a universal tax, and the proceeds distributed among the towns, parishes, or districts, there will often be general conditions of public sentiment unfavorable, if not hostile, to schools; and, there will always be found in any state, however small, local indifference and lethargy which render all gifts, donations, and distributions, comparatively valueless. The subject of self-taxation annually is important in connection with a system of free education. It is the experience of the states of this country that the people themselves are more generous in the use of this power than are their representatives; and it is also true that when the power has been exercised by the people, there is usually more interest awakened in regard to modes of expenditure, and more zeal manifested in securing adequate returns. The private conversations and public debates often arouse an interest which would never have been manifested had the means of education been furnished by a fund, or been distributed as the proceeds of a general tax assessed by the government of the state.

I have no doubt that much of our success is due to the fact that in all the towns the question of taxation is annually submitted to the people. It is quite certain that the sum of our municipal appropriations never could have been increased from $387,124.17, in 1837, to $1,341,252.03, in 1858, without the influence of the statistical tables that are appended to the Annual Reports of the Board of Education; and it is also true that the materials for these tables could not have been secured without the agency of the school fund. Our experience as a state confirms the wisdom of the reports of 1833 and 1834; and I unreservedly concur in the opinion that a fund ought not to be sufficient for the support of schools, but that such a fund is needed to give encouragement to the towns, to stimulate the people to make adequate local appropriations, to secure accurate and complete returns from the committees, and finally to provide means for training teachers, and for defraying the necessary expenses of the educational department. The law of 1834, establishing the school fund, was reënacted in the Revised Statutes (chap. 11, sects. 13 and 14). The Revised Statutes (chap. 23, sects. 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, and 67) also required that returns should be made, each year, from all the towns of the commonwealth, of the condition of the schools in various important particulars. The income of the fund was to be apportioned among the towns that had raised, the preceding year, the sum of one dollar by taxation for each pupil, and had complied with the laws in other respects; and it was to be distributed according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. These provisions have since been frequently and variously modified; but at all times the state has imposed similar conditions upon the towns. By the statute of 1839, chapter 56, the income of the school fund was to be apportioned among those towns that had raised by taxation for the support of schools the sum of one dollar and twenty-five cents for each person between the ages of four and sixteen years; and, by the law of 1849, chapter 117, the income was to be apportioned among those towns which had raised by taxation the sum of one dollar and fifty cents for the education of each person between the ages of five and fifteen years. This provision is now in force. By an act of the Legislature, passed April 15th, 1846, it was provided that all sums of money which should thereafter be drawn from the treasury, for educational purposes, should be considered as a charge upon the moiety of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands set apart for the purpose of constituting a school fund. This provision continued in force until the reörganization of the fund, in 1854. By the law of that year (chap. 300), it was provided that one half of the annual income of the fund should be apportioned and distributed among the towns according to the then existing provisions of law, and that the educational expenses before referred to should be chargeable to and paid from the other half of the income of said fund. These provisions are now in force.

The limitation of the act of 1834, establishing the fund, and of the Revised Statutes, was removed by the law of 1851, chapter 112, and the amount of the fund was then fixed at one million and five hundred thousand dollars. By the act of 1854 the principal was limited to two millions of dollars. The Constitutional Convention of 1853 had, with great unanimity, declared it to be the duty of the Legislature to provide for the increase of the school fund to the sum of two millions of dollars; and, though the proposed constitution was rejected by the people, the provision concerning the fund was generally, if not universally, acceptable. Under these circumstances, the legislature of 1854 may be said to have acted in conformity to the known opinion and purpose of the state.

On the 1st of June, 1858, the principal of the fund was $1,522,898.41, including the sum of $1,843.68, added during the year preceding that date. In this statement no notice is taken of the rights of the school fund in the Western Railroad Loan Sinking Fund.

It may be observed that the committee of 1833 contemplated the establishment of a fund, with a capital of $1,634,418.32, and yet, after twenty-five years, the Massachusetts School Fund amounts to only $1,522,898.41. Its present means of increase are limited to the excess of one-half of the annual income over the current educational expenses. The increase for the year 1856-7 was $4,142.90; and for the year 1857-8, $1,843.68. With this resource only, and at this rate of increase, about one hundred and sixty years will be required for the augmentation of the capital to the maximum contemplated by existing laws. But the educational wants of the state are such that even this scanty supply must soon cease. It is then due to the magnitude of the proposition for the considerable and speedy increase of the school fund, that its necessity, if possible, or its utility, at least, should be satisfactorily demonstrated; and it is for this purpose that I have already presented a brief sketch of its history in connection with the legislation of the commonwealth, and that I now proceed to set forth its relations to the practical work of public instruction.

When the fund was instituted, public sentiment in regard to education was lethargic, if not retrograding. The mere fact of the action of the Legislature lent new importance to the cause of learning, inspired its advocates with additional zeal, gave efficiency to previous and subsequent legislation, and, as though there had been a new creation, evoked order out of chaos.

Previous to 1834 there was no trustworthy information concerning the schools of the state. The law of 1826, chapter 143, section 8, required each town to make a report to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, of the amount of money paid, the number of schools, the aggregate number of months that the schools of each city and town were kept, the number of male and female teachers, the whole number of pupils, the number of private schools and academies and the number of pupils therein, the amount of compensation paid to the instructors of private schools and academies, and the number of persons between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one years who were unable to read and write. The Legislature did not provide a penalty for neglect of this provision, nor does there seem to have been any just method of compelling obedience. The Secretary of the Commonwealth sent out blank forms of returns, and replies were received from two hundred and fourteen towns, while eighty-eight were entirely silent.