A householder with a family may, by recording the proper declaration in a registry of deeds, hold exempt from attachment, levy on execution, and sale for the payment of debts thereafter contracted an estate of homestead, not exceeding $800 in value, in a farm or lot with buildings thereon which he lawfully possesses by lease or otherwise and occupies as his residence. The exemption does not extend, however, to the prohibition of sale for taxes, and in case the householder’s buildings are on land which he has leased those buildings are not exempt from sale or levy for the ground rent. If the householder has a wife he can mortgage or convey his estate of homestead only with her consent, and if he dies leaving a widow or minor children the homestead exemption survives until the youngest child is twenty-one years of age, or until the death or marriage of the widow, provided the widow or a child continues to occupy it.
The scope of state activity has become somewhat remarkable. In addition to the usual state boards of education (1837), agriculture (1852), railroad commissioners (1869), health (1869), statistics of labour, fisheries and game, charity (1879), the dairy bureau (1891), of insanity (1898), prison, highways, insurance and banking commissions, there are also commissions on ballot-law, voting machines, civil service (1884), uniformity of legislation, gas and electric lighting corporations, conciliation and arbitration in labour disputes (1886), &c. There are efficient state boards of registration in pharmacy, dentistry and medicine. Foods and drugs have been inspected since 1882. In general it may be said that the excellence of administrative results is noteworthy. The work of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, of the Bureau of Health, of the Board of Railroad Commissioners, and of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration, and the progress of civil service, have been remarkable for value and efficiency. Almost all state employees are under civil service rules; the same is true of the city of Boston; and of the clerical, stenographic, prison, police, civil engineering, fire, labour-foreman, inspection and bridge tender services of all cities; and under a law (1894) by which cities and towns may on petition enlarge the application of their civil service rules. Various other public services, including even common labourers of the larger towns, are rapidly passing under civil service regulation. Veterans of the Civil War have privileges in the administration of the state service. In the settlement of labour disputes conciliatory methods were successful in the formative period, when the parties to disputes adopted customary attitudes of hostility and fought to the end unless they were reconciled by the Board to a final agreement or to an agreement to arbitrate.[13] In this earlier period (before 1900), thanks to the efforts of the board there was an increase in the frequency of appeal to arbitration, and settlements by compromise were often made. Afterwards the number of arbitrations by the board increased in number: from 1900 to 1908 (inclusive), of 568 controversies submitted to the board, 525 were settled by an award and 43 by an induced agreement. In the same period the mediation of the Board settled disputes affecting 5560 establishments; and in the latter half of this period labour disputes involving hostilities and of the magnitude contemplated by the statute governing the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration had almost disappeared. The laws relating to labour are full, but, as compared with those of other states, present few features calling for comment.[14] In 1899 eight hours were made to constitute a day’s work for all labourers employed by or for any city or town adopting the act at an annual election. Acts have been passed extending the common-law liability of employers, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of sweat-shop clothing, and authorizing cities and towns to provide free lectures and to maintain public baths, gymnasia and playgrounds. Boston has been a leader in the establishment of municipal baths. The state controls and largely maintains two beaches magnificently equipped near the city. The Massachusetts railroad commission, though preceded in point of time by that of New Hampshire of 1844, was the real beginning of modern state commissions. Its powers do not extend to direct and mandatory regulation, being supervisory and advisory only, but it can make recommendations at its discretion, appealing if necessary to the General Court; and it has had great influence and excellent results. The Torrens system of land registration was adopted in 1898, and a court created for its administration. In the case of all quasi-public corporations rigid laws exist prohibiting the issue of stock or bonds unless the par value is first paid in; prohibiting the declaration of any stock or scrip dividend, and requiring that new stock shall be offered to stockholders at not less than its market value, to be determined by the proper state officials, any shares not so subscribed for to be sold by public auction. These laws are to prevent fictitious capitalization and “stock-watering.” In the twenty years preceding 1880 60% of all sentences for crime were found traceable to liquor. In 1881 a local option law was passed, by which the granting of licences for the sale of liquor was confined to cities and towns voting at the annual election to authorize their issue. In 1888 the number of licences to be granted in municipalities voting in favour of their issue was limited to one for each 1000 inhabitants, except in Boston, where one licence may be issued for every 500 inhabitants. The vote varies from year to year, and it is not unusual for a certain number of municipalities to change from “licence” to “no licence,” and vice versa. The general result has been that centres of population, especially where the foreign element is large, usually vote for licence, while those in which native population predominates, as well as the smaller towns, usually vote for prohibition. Through a growing acquiescence in the operation of the local option law, the relative importance of the vote of the Prohibition Party has diminished. Since 1895 indeterminate sentences have been imposed on all convicts sentenced to the state prison otherwise than for life or as habitual criminals; i.e. maximum and minimum terms are established by law and on the expiration of the latter a revocable permit of liberty may be issued. Execution by electricity has been the death penalty since 1898. Stringent legislation controls prison labour.
The extension of state activity presents some surprising features in view of the strength of local self-sufficiency nurtured by the old system of township government. But this form of pure democracy was in various cases long since inevitably abandoned: by Boston reluctantly in 1822, and subsequently by many other townships or cities, as growing population made action in town meeting unbearably cumbersome. In modern times state activity has encroached on the cities. Especially has the commonwealth undertaken certain noteworthy enterprises as the agent of the several municipalities in the immediate vicinity of Boston, constituting what is known as the Metropolitan District; as, for example, in bringing water thither from the Nashua River at Clinton, 40 m. from Boston, and in the development of a magnificent park system of woods, fells, river-banks and seashore, unrivalled elsewhere in the country. The commonwealth joined the city of Boston in the construction of a subway beneath the most congested portion of the city for the passage of electric cars. For the better accommodation of the increasing commerce of the port of Boston, the commonwealth bought a considerable frontage upon the harbour lines and constructed a dock capable of receiving the largest vessels, and has supplemented the work of the United States government in deepening the approaches to the wharves. It has secured as public reservations the summit and sides of Greylock (3535 ft.) in the north-west corner of the state, and of Wachusett (2108 ft.) near the centre. Since 1885 a large expenditure has been incurred in the abolition of grade crossings of railways and highways,[15] and in 1894 the commonwealth began the construction and maintenance of state highways.[16]
Since 1885, in Boston, and since 1894, in Fall River, the administration of the city police departments, including the granting of liquor licences, has been in the hands of state commissioners (one commissioner in Boston, a board in Fall River) appointed by the governor. But though in each case the result has been an improved administration, it has been generally conceded that only most exceptional circumstances can justify such interference with local self-government, and later attempts to extend the practice have failed. The referendum has been sparingly used in matters of local concern. Beginning in 1892 various townships and cities, numbering 18 in 1903, adopted municipal ownership and operation of lighting works. The gasworks have been notably more successful than the electric plants.
In Massachusetts, as in New England generally, the word “town” is used, officially and colloquially, to designate a township, and during the colonial era the New England town-meeting was a notable school for education in self-government. The members of the first group of settlers in these colonies were mostly small farmers, belonged to the same church, and dwelt in a village for protection from the Indians. They adapted to these conditions some of the methods for managing local affairs with which they had been familiar in England, and called the resultant institution a town. The territorial extent of each town was determined by its grant or grants from the general court, which the towns served as agents in the management of land. A settlement or “plantation” was sometimes incorporated first as a “district” and later as a town, the difference being that the latter had the right of corporate representation in the general court, while the former had no such right. The towns elected (until 1856) the deputies to the general court, and were the administrative units for the assessment and collection of taxes, maintaining churches and schools, organizing and training the militia, preserving the peace, caring for the poor, building and repairing roads and bridges, and recording deeds, births, deaths and marriages; and to discuss questions relating to these matters as well as other matters of peculiarly local concern, to determine the amount of taxes for town purposes, and to elect officers. All the citizens were expected to attend the annual town-meeting, and such male inhabitants as were not citizens were privileged to attend and to propose and discuss measures, although they had no right to vote. Generally several villages have grown up in the same “town,” and some of the more populous “towns,” usually those in which manufacturing has become more important than farming, have been incorporated as “cities”; thus either a town or a city may now include a farming country and various small villages. Although the tendency in Massachusetts is towards chartering as cities “towns” which have a population of 12,000 or more, the democratic institution of the town-meeting persists in many large municipalities which are still technically towns.[17] Most “towns” hold their annual meeting in March, but some hold them in February and others in April. In the larger “towns” the officers elected at this meeting may consist of five, seven or nine selectmen, a clerk, a treasurer, three or more assessors, three or more overseers of the poor, one or more collectors of taxes, one or more auditors, one or more surveyors of highways, a road commissioner, a sewer commissioner, a board of health, one or more constables, two or more field drivers, two or more fence viewers, and a tree warden; but in the smaller “towns” the number of selectmen may be limited to three, the selectmen may assess the taxes, be overseers of the poor, and act as a board of health, and the treasurer or constable may collect the taxes. The term of all these officers may be limited to one year, or the selectmen, clerk, assessors and overseers of the poor may be elected for a term of three years, in which case a part only of the selectmen, assessors and overseers of the poor are elected each year. The selectmen have the general management of a “town’s” affairs during the interval between town-meetings. They may call special town-meetings; they appoint election officers and may appoint additional constables or public officers, and such minor officials as inspectors of milk, inspectors of buildings, gauger of measures, cullers of staves and hoops, fish warden and forester. A school committee consisting of any number of members divisible by three is chosen, one-third each year, at the annual town-meeting or at a special meeting which is held in the same month. Any “town” having a village or district within its limits that contains 1000 inhabitants or more may authorize that village or district to establish a separate organization for lighting its streets, building and maintaining sidewalks, and employing a watchman or policeman, the officers of such organization to include at least a prudential committee and a clerk. All laws relative to “towns” are applied to “cities” in so far as they are not inconsistent with general or special laws relative to the latter, and the powers of the selectmen are vested in the mayor and aldermen.
Education.—For cities of above 8000 inhabitants (for which alone comparative statistics are annually available), in 1902-1903 the ratio of average attendance to school enrolment, the average number of days’ attendance of each pupil enrolled, and the value of school property per capita of pupils in average attendance were higher than in any other state; the average length of the school term was slightly exceeded in eight states; and the total cost of the schools per capita of pupils in average attendance ($39.05) was exceeded in six other states. In 1905-1906 the percentage of average attendance in the public schools to the number of children (between 5 and 15 years) in the state was 80; in Barnstable county it was 95, and in Plymouth 92; and the lowest rate of any county was 68, that of Bristol. In the same year the amount of the various school taxes and other contributions was $30.53 for each child in the average membership of the public schools, and the highest amount for each child in any county was $35.77 in Suffolk county, and in any township or city $68.01—in Lincoln. The school system is not one of marked state centralization—as contrasted, e.g. with New York. A state board of education has general control, its secretary acting as superintendent of the state system in conjunction with local superintendents and committees. Women are eligible for these positions, and among the teachers in the schools they are greatly in excess over men (more than 10 to 1), especially in lower grades. No recognition exists in the schools of race, colour or religion. The proportion of the child population that attends schools is equalled in but two or three states east of the Mississippi river. The services of Horace Mann (q.v.) as secretary of the state board (1837-1848) were productive of almost revolutionary benefits not only to Massachusetts but to the entire country. His reforms, which reached every part of the school system, were fortunately introduced just at the beginning of railway and city growth. Since 1850 truant and compulsory attendance laws (the first compulsory education law was passed in 1642) have been enforced in conjunction with laws against child labour. In 1900 the average period of schooling per inhabitant for the United States was 4.3 years, for Massachusetts 7 years. (The same year the ratio of wealth productivity was as 66 to 37.) Massachusetts stands “foremost in the Union in the universality of its provision for secondary education.”[18] The laws practically offer such education free to every child of the commonwealth. Illiterate persons not less than ten years of age constituted in 1900 5.9% of the population; and 0.8, 14.6, 10.7% respectively of native whites, foreign-born whites and negroes. More patents are issued, relatively, to citizens of Massachusetts than to those of any other state except Connecticut. Post office statistics indicate a similarly high average of intelligence.
The public school system includes common, high and normal schools, and various evening, industrial and truant schools. Many townships and cities maintain free evening schools. In 1894 manual training was made a part of the curriculum in all municipalities having 20,000 inhabitants. There are also many private business colleges, academic schools and college-preparatory schools. The high schools enjoy an exceptional reputation. An unusual proportion of teachers in the public schools are graduates of the state normal schools, of which the first were founded in 1839 at Lexington and Barre, the former being the first normal school of the United States.[19] These two schools were removed subsequently to Framingham (1853) and Westfield (1844), where they are still active; while others flourish at Bridgewater (1840), Salem (1854), Worcester (1874), Fitchburg (1895), North Adams (1897), Hyannis (1897) and Lowell (1897), that at Framingham being open to women only. There is also a state normal art school at Boston (1873) for both sexes.
The commonwealth contributes to the support of textile schools in cities in which 450,000 spindles are in operation. Such schools exist (1909) in Lowell, Fall River and New Bedford. The commonwealth also maintains aboard a national ship a nautical training school (1891) for instruction in the science and practice of navigation. During the Spanish-American War of 1898 more than half of the graduates and cadets of the school enlisted in the United States service.
There are several hundred private schools, whose pupils constituted in 1905-1906 15.7% of the total school-enrolment of the state. Of higher academies and college-preparatory schools there are scores. Among those for boys Phillips Academy, at Andover, the Groton school, and the Mount Hermon school are well-known examples. For girls the largest school is the Northfield Seminary at East Northfield. In Boston and in the towns in its environs are various famous schools, among them the boys’ classical school in Boston, founded in 1635, one of the oldest secondary schools in the country. The leading educational institution of the state, as it is the oldest and most famous of the country, is Harvard University (founded 1636) at Cambridge. In the extreme north-west of the state, at Williamstown, is Williams College (1793), and in the Connecticut Valley is Amherst College (1821), both of these unsectarian. Boston University (Methodist Episcopal, 1867); Tufts College (1852), a few miles from Boston in Medford, originally a Universalist school; Clark University (1889, devoted wholly to graduate instruction until 1902, when Clark College was added), at Worcester, are important institutions. Two Roman Catholic schools are maintained—Boston College (1863) and the College of the Holy Cross (1843), at Worcester. Of various institutions for the education of women, Mount Holyoke (1837) at South Hadley, Smith College (1875) at Northampton, Wellesley College (1875) at Wellesley near Boston, Radcliffe College (1879) in connexion with Harvard at Cambridge and Simmons College (1899) at Boston, are of national repute. The last emphasizes scientific instruction in domestic economy.
For agricultural students the state supports a school at Amherst (1867), and Harvard University the Bussey Institution. In technological science special instruction is given—in addition to the scientific departments of the schools already mentioned—in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1865), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (opened in 1865). There are schools of theology at Cambridge (Protestant Episcopal), Newton (Baptist) and Waltham (New Church), as well as in connexion with Boston University (Methodist), Tufts College (Universalist) and Harvard (non-sectarian, and the affiliated Congregational Andover Theological Seminary at Cambridge). Law and medical schools are maintained in Boston and Harvard universities.