In that year, acting on the recommendation of Governor Clinton, the legislature appropriated the sum of 20,000 L. ($50,000) a year, for the succeeding five years, "for the encouragement of the common schools."

The act provided, also, for the election of two commissioners of schools, in each town, of the counties of the State, to supervise the schools of the town and to make arrangements for the proper distribution of this grant. The chaotic condition of the schools, with no system of records and accounts, and, in some instances, the local pride and resentment, occasioned by this State interference in what was considered an entirely local institution, rendered the just apportionment of this fund difficult, and, after three years it was abandoned.

In 1805 the State began the accumulation of a fund, the interest of which should be used to aid the public schools. This fund, to which additions are made from year to year, now amounts to considerably over $4,000,000, and the United States deposit fund, an overflow of the treasury of the United States, distributed to the States in 1836-7, which has been reserved for school purposes, amounts to a like sum. By the laws of 1812, the State definitely assumed control of the public schools. During the succeeding year, 1813, under the provisions of this act, the townships, in all the counties of the State, were divided into school districts and public schools were established, supported partly by State aid and the balance made up by a rate bill, an amount assessed upon the parents of the children attending, proportioned upon the number of days they were in attendance.

The districts, as formed in Orange County, in 1813, have not greatly changed since that date. The rate bill was continued as the method of school support until the passage of the Free School Act, in 1853, and, in many places it was continued until 1867 when it was finally abolished and the schools, supported entirely by public funds, became free to the children of rich and poor alike.

The supervision of the public schools by township commissioners, under the law of 1795, and abandoned in most of the towns in 1798, was restored by the law of 1812, and thereafter, until 1844, what supervision of the schools there was, in the various towns, was vested in three commissioners and three inspectors. In 1844, the supervision of the schools was vested in a town superintendent of schools and so continued until the office of school commissioner in the assembly districts, was created in 1856. Since that time, the work of inspection and supervision has been performed by these officers.

The commissioners of the two assembly districts of Orange County, since 1856, have been in the first assembly district, George K. Smith, David A. Morrison, Charles N. Gedney, Jonathan Silliman, James M. Monell, Charles Rivenburg and George W. Flood. In the second assembly district, George N. Green, Harvey H. Clark, John J. Barr, Benjamin F. Hill, John W. Slauson, Asa Morehouse, Oliver N. Goldsmith, William H. Shaw, Ira L. Case, Willard M. Clark, William P. Kaufmann.

Since the operation of the free school act began, the educational progress of the county has been continuous. The enrollment has increased with the population. The average daily attendance has increased more rapidly than the enrollment, and the efficiency of the schools, as indicated by the number of the institutions which are doing academic or high school work together with the number of pupils of high school grade, shows the most marked advancement. The number of such schools in our county has increased from half a dozen to twenty-two and the percentage of high school pupils to the enrollment has increased from less than one per cent, to about eight per cent.

To demonstrate more clearly this progress of the schools. I have prepared a table showing the population, enrollment, average attendance and high school pupils for each decade of the free schools.

1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1906
Population 63,812 80,002 88,220 97,859 103,859 108,267
Enrollment 12,750 18,210 19,615 17,955 18,302 18,193
Average attendance No data 8,300 10,262 10,963 12,868 13,617
In high schools No data 129 298 320 843 1,369
Principal. No. of H. S. Pupils.
Newburgh High School William H. Doty 412
Middletown High School James F. Tuthill 179
Port Jervis High School Charles A. Benedict 235
Walden High School A. H. Courtenay 61
Highland Falls High School S. H. McIlroy 60
Warwick Institute High School Frank M. Edson 56
Chester High School Frank J. Squires 52
Cornwall-on-the-Hudson High School E. Everitt Cortright 45
Goshen High School Montgomery C. Smith 44
S. S. Seward Institute, Florida Levi R. Tubbs 40
Cornwall High School Herman C. Woodworth 30
Montgomery High School F. W. Whitney 25
Monroe Union School Orville Eichenberg 24
Central Valley Union School T. L. McKnight 7