Your vote and how to use it

by Gertrude Foster Brown

A man or a woman twenty-one years of age, and a citizen and resident of the State, is eligible for the office, provided he or she has a State teacher’s certificate and can pass an examination in the teaching of agriculture.

The District Superintendent has the general supervision of the schools in his district. He is responsible for the instruction given in them and the discipline that is maintained. He examines candidates for teachers’ positions, under the direction of the State Commissioner of Education.

Union Free School Districts have been permitted under State law for many years in cities and villages. Some years ago this law was extended to include rural districts, and during the past few years about 500 rural school districts have been discontinued and consolidated with adjoining districts. Many of the discontinued schools had only a handful of pupils, the buildings and equipment were primitive and inadequate, and the small amount of money available made it impossible for the school to offer any advantages. The union of school districts has given better educational facilities to the rural districts. The children have been taken to school by wagons provided for their transportation, and have had the advantages of a larger school, a higher grade of teachers, and better facilities of all kinds for modern education. The new educational law provides still greater development in this direction.

Physical Training is compulsory in all schools, public and private, for children over eight years of age for at least twenty minutes a day. The State gives financial aid in the training.

Military training is compulsory for boys between the ages of sixteen and nineteen in public and private secondary schools and colleges. The name “military” is misleading, for the law provides that the development of “correct bearing, mental and physical alertness, disciplined initiative, sense of duty, self-control, and a spirit of co-operation under leadership” is to be given special attention.

School Money: For many years it has been recognized that sufficient educational facilities could not be provided for every part of the State through local taxation.

Besides the money raised by the school districts, the State contributes large sums of money for the support of public schools. Part of this money is the income from certain educational funds belonging to the State which cannot be used for any other purpose, and part is money appropriated by the State Legislature. This money is distributed by the State Commissioner of Education according to the needs of the school districts.

City schools are subject to the same general supervision of the State Commissioner of Education, but are under the direction of local boards of education, and local superintendents of schools.

Normal Schools for training teachers are maintained by the State out of school funds, and teachers’ meetings are held in the supervisory districts to help and improve teachers.

The University of the State of New York, which is at the head of the entire educational system of the State, is not a university in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a combination of all of the colleges and secondary schools of the State. It is governed by a Board of Regents, twelve men elected by the State Legislature for twelve years each, but whose terms begin in different years, who have large powers of control over all the higher institutions in the State, universities, colleges, technical and professional schools. They have the management of the State Library and Museum. They prepare Regents’ examinations and grant Regents’ certificates, and supervise the granting of degrees.