requisitions upon him. Elected for three years, with a salary of $1,500, he is required to execute a bond in the sum of $10,000, and take an oath of office; to spend annually, at least ten days in each of the nine judicial districts of the State, superintending and encouraging Teachers' Institutes, conferring with township Boards of Education, or other school officers, counseling teachers, visiting schools, and delivering lectures on topics calculated to subserve the interests of popular education; to purchase and distribute school district libraries; to exercise such supervision over the educational funds. of the State as may be necessary to secure their safety and right application and distribution according to law; and, to that end, to require reports from all county municipal or school officers in the State; to prepare and circulate suitable forms and regulations for making all reports and conducting all necessary proceedings under the school act; to distribute copies of laws relating to schools and Teachers' Institutes, from time to time, with suitable forms and instructions; and to make an annual report, embracing full statistics of the public schools and school funds. He is also required to keep an office at the seat of Government, and attend the same, when not absent on public business.

Thus has been enumerated the distinctive features of the school legislation of 1853. For the rest of its provisions, they constitute a digest of pre-existing acts, modified slightly so as to conform to the new order of things.

Local Directors were a familiar organization. Their number was unaltered, but only one is elected annually, serving three years. This gives greater permanence to the body. It is devolved upon them to take the annual enumeration of youth in October; to manage and control the local interests and affairs of the sub-district; to employ teachers, certify the amount due them for services, and dismiss them on sufficient grounds; to visit the schools at least twice during each term, by one or more of their number; to negotiate and make, under such rules and regulations as the township Board may prescribe, all necessary contracts in relation to providing fuel for

schools, repairing, building, or furnishing school-houses, purchasing or leasing school-house sites, renting school-rooms, and making all other provisions necessary for the convenience and prosperity of schools within their sub-district, provided such contracts do not exceed the sub-district share of school funds applicable to the above purposes, unless the Board of Education first approve of the same; and whatever contracts are made by the Directors are to be promptly reported to the township Board. In case of vacancy occurring, otherwise than by a failure to elect at a regular April meeting, the township Clerk appoints for the residue of the unexpired term; but in the exceptional case, the former incumbent continues in office, unless the electors summon a special meeting, as provided in section 4, and choose a successor.

The act also contains a system of special school districts, similar to the provisions of the Akron and similar enactments, the advantages of which are only available to cities and incorporated villages having a population of three hundred, when a majority of the electors have decided to assume the form of organization thus provided, in preference to the general system of the act. See sections 32 to 36.

The office of district Treasurer is abolished, and all the duties of that officer, as detailed in prior acts, are devolved upon the township Treasurer.

The township Clerk is, ex officio, Clerk of the Board of Education; he draws orders in favor of teachers upon the township Treasurer on the certificate of local Directors, or the order of the Board of Education. In case of neglect by the local Directors, he must take the October enumeration of youth, and return an abstract of the same to the county Auditor; he is Clerk of all meetings relating to high schools; and in case of forfeiture of the township Treasurer's bond, it is his duty to prosecute and collect the same for the use of the schools in the township.

The county Auditor is still, ex officio, county Superintendent of Common Schools; and is required to report the statistics. returned to him, by Boards of Education, annually to the

State School Commissioner. The apportionment of school funds by the Auditor of State, to the different counties, and by the Auditors of counties to the school corporations, is thus regulated by the act:

"SEC. 37. The Auditor of State shall, annually, apportion the common school funds among the different counties, upon the enumeration and returns made to him by the State Commissioner of Common Schools, and certify the amount so apportioned to the county Auditor of each county, stating from what sources the same is derived, which said sum the several county Treasurers shall retain in their respective treasuries from the State funds; and the county Auditors shall, annually, and immediately after their annual settlement with the county Treasurer, apportion the school funds for their respective counties, according to the enumeration and returns in their respective offices; and no township or other district, city or village, which shall have failed to make and return such enumeration, shall be entitled to receive any portion of the common school funds. And in making such distribution, each county Auditor shall apportion all moneys collected on the tax duplicate of any township, for the use of schools, to such township; all moneys received from the State treasury, on account of interest on the money accruing from the sale of section sixteen, or other lands in lieu thereof, to the civil townships and parts of civil townships in the original surveyed township, or fractional township, to which such land belongs; all moneys received by the county Treasurer on account of the Virginia military school fund, United States Military District, and Connecticut Western Reserve, according to laws regulating the same; and all other moneys for the use of schools in the county, and not otherwise appropriated by law, to the proper township; and he shall, immediately after making said apportionment, enter the same into a book to be kept for that purpose, and shall furnish the township Treasurers and township Clerks, Treasurers, and Recorders of incorporated cities or villages, as the case may be, each with a copy of said appointment, and give an order on the county Treasurer to each township Treasurer, or to such Treasurer as may be entitled to receive the same, for the amount of money belonging to his respective township, city, or village, and take a receipt from such Treasurer for the amount thus received; and the said county Auditor shall collect, or cause to be collected, the fines and all other moneys for school purposes, in his county, and pay the same over to

the county Treasurer; and he shall inspect all accounts of interest for section sixteen, or other school lands, whether the interest is paid by the State or by the debtors, and take all the proper measures to secure to each township its full amount of school funds.

"SEC. 38. When any original surveyed township in which section sixteen has been sold, shall lie in two or more counties, the Auditors of the respective counties shall certify to the Auditor of the county in which that portion of said township lies, containing said section sixteen, the enumeration of the scholars in that part of said township embraced within their respective counties; and the Auditor of said county in which said section sixteen is situate, shall apportion the fund derived from said section sixteen to the different portions of said township, according to said enumeration, and shall certify to the Auditors of the other counties the amount belonging to the parts of said township situate in their respective counties, and draw an order in favor of the Treasurers of the other counties on the Treasurer of his own county for the amount going to each; and the Auditors of the respective counties shall apportion the same, in their respective counties, to such portions or parts thereof as may be entitled thereto.

"SEC. 39. The interest on the purchase of any such section sixteen belonging to any such original surveyed township, so as aforesaid, lying in two or more counties, shall be paid over on the order of the Auditor of that county in which such section sixteen is embraced, to the Treasurer of the same county, to be apportioned as is pointed out in the preceding section."

The act is not unlike former legislation in the organization of a Board of School Examiners. They are appointed by the Probate Judge three in number, for the term of two years; and the indispensable branches for a candidate's certificate are, "Orthography, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, and English Grammar." The compensation for Examiners is one dollar and fifty cents for every day necessarily engaged in official service, to be paid from the county treasury.

Among the miscellaneous provisions, school-houses with. an inclosure not exceeding four acres, are exempted from sale on execution. Prior debts of school districts must be provided for by township Boards. The process against a township

Board is by summons, executed by leaving a copy thereof with the Clerk or Secretary of such Board, or other school officer, at least ten days before the return thereof; and it is the duty of the Prosecuting Attorney to attend to all suits for or against a Board. Provision is made for the adoption of the organization of the school act, by any municipality organized under a special law. The Akron law of February 8, 1847, and the acts amendatory thereto, the "act for the better regulation of schools in cities, towns, etc.," passed, February 21, 1849, and the acts amendatory thereto, besides other acts creating special school districts, were continued in force, except that the rules established for the compilation of statistics, and the apportionment of school funds, are in all cases to govern. Boards of Education may hold any grant or devise, gift, etc., for the use of public schools; and until the first officers elected under the law are qualified, all former school officers are recognized, and their acts made effective. The repealing clause, which was voluminous, protected all obligations, liabilities, and rights acquired under the acts repealed.

At the session of 1852, a law providing for the sale of section sixteen, was passed, (see Appendix, "School Laws in Force," chapter XVII,) and in 1853, an act regulating the schools of Cincinnati, (see Appendix, "School Laws in Force," chapter xxi.)

CHAPTER XVII.

RECENT EVENTS OF EDUCATIONAL INTEREST.

So far in advance of the expectations of the most sanguine advocates of the constitutional article upon education, was the legislative response of 1853 to the injunction in favor of