School trustees or boards of education.-Each township shall be one school district but each city, borough, and incorporated town containing 400 or more children 5 to 18 years of age shall be a school district, separate and distinct from the township school district. The boards of education of any two adjoining school districts may accommodate the boundary to the best interests of the schools. The portion of any school district annexed for all school purposes and the property included shall become a part of the taxing district to which it is annexed for school purposes only. The school trustees shall be a corporate body designated as the board of education of the township, city, borough, etc., as the case may be. Each board of trustees shall annually elect one of their number district clerk, who shall record the acts of the board, keep the school building in repair and supplied with fuel and blackboard crayons. The board's duties are to employ and dismiss teachers, janitors, mechanics, and laborers, and to fix, alter, allow, and pay their salaries and compensation; make rules and regulations for the government of teachers and pupils; to erect, repair or improve, rent, furnish, and insure school buildings, and purchase, lease, mortgage, or sell school lots, or schoolhouses; to borrow money, with or without mortgage, and to raise money by taxation for the forementioned purpose, provided authorized by the district by vote; in connection with the county superintendent to prescribe the course of study and a uniform series of text-books; to suspend or expel pupils; to provide text-books and other necessary school supplies; to require every teacher to keep a register; to call special meeting of voters; to permit schoolhouse to be used for other than school purposes; to make annual report to county superintendent, and to take school census. In every township, city, town, borough, or other municipality, not divided into wards, there shall be a school board consisting of nine (or five or three) trustees, three to retire each year. In townships, cities, towns, boroughs, or other municipalities divided into wards the school board shall consist of two trustees from each ward, one to retire biennially. In every city governed by special laws there may be a city board of examiners, appointed by the board of education. In every city of 50,000 or more a board of education shall be composed of and controlled by eight commissioners, known as the commissioners of public instruction, appointed for two years by the mayor, and not more than one-half to be of the same political party. They have the powers granted boards of education, school trustees, etc.

City superintendent. --Any board of education of the cities of a population of 50,000 or more may appoint a city superintendent of schools, define his duties, and fix his term of office, not to exceed three years, and his compensation, which shall not be changed during his term of office.

Truant officers. In cities having a duly organized police force it shall be the duty of the police authority to detail one or more members of said force to assist in the enforcement of compulsory attendance, and in districts having no regular police force subject to this act it shall be the duty of the board of education, or the school district officers to designate one or more constables of said city, township, or village, whose duty it shall be to assist in the enforcement of this act. Persons charged with the above-specified duty shall be called truant officers, and their compensation shall be fixed by the board of education.

2. TEACHERS.

Appointment and qualifications. Duties. Preliminary training. -Meetings.

Appointment and qualifications. -No teacher shall be entitled to pay unless the holder of a legal certificate.

The qualifications of teachers are ascertained by the State board of examiners, county boards of examiners, city boards of examiners, and county superintendents. Teachers are employed by boards of trustees.

The State board of examiners may indorse the diploma of a normal school or training college or the permanent certificate issued by a State superintendent or board of examiners of another State. State examinations shall be for certificates of three grades. Candidates for the third grade county certificate are not to be less than 18 years old. No experience in teaching will be required; they will be examined in orthography, reading, read penmanship, geography, ari arithmetic, English grammar, and the theory and practice of teaching; the certificate will remain in force for one year from date and entitles to teach in an ungraded school or in a primary school or department in the county. This certificate shall not be issued more than twice to the same person. Candidates for the second grade certificate are not to be less than 19 years old, with an experience in teaching of not less than one year; the subjects are the same as for the third grade certificates, with the addition of English composition, physiology, the history of the United States, and bookkeeping, and continues in force for three years and entitles to teach in any grade of a grammar school in the county. Candidates for a first grade certificate are not to be less than 20 years old, with an experience in teaching of not less than two years. The examination is upon the same subjects as the second grade, with the addition of algebra, physics, history of education, the Constitution of the United States, and the school law of New Jersey; it continues in force five years and is valid for any school or department in the county and may be renewable. Candidates for the third grade State certificate must be 20 years of age, no experience in teaching is required, and must pass in the subjects required in the examination for third grade county certificate, with physiology, plane and solid geometry, chemistry, geology, botany, and free-hand drawing: the certificate remains in force seven years from date and licenses to teach in any school of the State, and is renewable without reexamination; the second grade certificate, issued for ten years, requires in addition the philosophy of education and the principles of manual training and physical culture, 22 years passed and two years of teaching, and the first grade 25 years passed and five years of teaching. Graduates of the State normal school who have completed two years' course shall be entitled to a third grade State certificate and those completing the three years' course to a second grade. [Rules and regulations of the State board.]

Every teacher shall keep a school register and may not receive pay until it has been exhibited to proper officer; shall have power to hold every pupil accountable in school for disorderly conduct, on the way to or from school or on the play grounds, and to suspend pupil for good cause, but no teacher shall inflict or cause to be inflicted any corporal punishment upon any pupil.

Preliminary training. There shall be a normal school for the training and education of teachers in the art of instructing and governing the common schools of this State, under the entire management and control of the State board of education. Each county shall be entitled to six times as many pupils in the school as it has representatives in the legislature. Applicants for admission must sign a written declaration that in seeking admission to the school their object is to qualify themselves for teaching the public schools in the State during at least two years or otherwise to pay the cost of tuition. A model school may be maintained in which the modes of instruction and discipline inculcated in the normal school are exemplified, and in which pupils may be prepared for the normal school.

Meetings. For the purpose of defraying the expenses of teachers' institutes there may be paid annually to the State superintendent out of the income of the school fund $100 to each teachers' institute in any county or to a joint county institute.

The county and city superintendents shall form the "State Association of School Superintendents," which shall meet annually. The board of district trustees shall in each township form an association, which shall convene on call of county superintendent to hear suggestions and communications regarding the management of the public school.

3. SCHOOLS.

Attendance.—Character of instruction.—Text-books.—Buildings.

Attendance.-No child between the ages of 5 and 18 years shall be excluded from any public school on account of religion, nationality, or color. Schools shall be kept nine months.

All parents and those who have the care of children shall instruct them or cause them to be instructed in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic; and every parent, guardian, or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of 7 and 12 years shall be required to send it to public day school for a period of at least twenty weeks in each year. Eight weeks of such attendance at least shall be consecutive, unless such child is excused from attendance by the board of the school district in which the parent or guardian resides upon its being shown to the board's satisfaction that the bodily or mental condition of the child has been such as to prevent its attendance at school, or that the child is taught in a private school or at home by some qualified person in such branches as are usually taught in elementary schools. No child under the age of 15 years shall be employed by any company or corporation to labor in any business, unless such child shall have attended within twelve months immediately preceding such employment some public day or night school or some well-recognized private school, such attendance to be for five days or evenings every week during a period of at least twelve consecutive weeks as far as the arrangement of the school terms will admit. Any child between the ages of 12 and 16 years must, when temporarily discharged by his employer for the purpose, attend school for the period for which temporarily discharged, unless excused by the inspectors of factories and workshops for legalized reasons. Failure to comply with the foregoing provisions shall be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $10 to $25 or imprisonment for not less than one month nor more than three.

All children who are habitual truants, or are as scholars incorrigible, or are vagabonds, shall be deemed juvenile disorderly persons and are subject to the provisions of the compulsory attendance act, and it is the duty of the truant officers to examine into all such cases when requested to do so by the school board or factory and workshop inspectory and warn the delinquent parent or guardian of the consequence. If the parent or guardian be recalcitrant, the truant officer shall complain of him to any court of competent jurisdiction in the school district, where he may be fined or compelled to give bond for the performance of his duty. The foregoing provisions are not to operate in those school districts of the State where accommodations are insufficient.

The trustees of a school district may pay 50 cents to have a child vaccinated, the indigent parents consenting.

No boy under the age of 12 nor girl under 14 shall be employed in any factory, workshop, mine, or establishment where the manufacture of any goods whatever is carried on. Nor shall any child between 12 and 15 years of age be so employed unless it has attended some public day or night school within twelve months immediately preceding, or some well-recognized private school, such attendance to be for five days or evenings every week during a period of twelve consecutive weeks, which may be divided into two terms of six consecutive weeks each so far as the arrangement of school terms will permit. Every employer guilty of violating the foregoing provision shall be liable to a penalty of $50 for each offense. The governor shall appoint, with the advice and consent of the senate, some suitable person, who shall be a resident and citizen of the State, as inspector, at a salary of $1,200 a year, for a term of three years, whose duty it shall be to visit the factories, workshops, mines, and other establishments in the State and note violations of the foregoing provisions in regard to the employment of children.

Character of instruction. All persons are required to instruct or to have instructed their children or wards in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic. The subjects subje upon which teachers are examined (see also Organization, School trustees) may be regarded as indicating the permitted studies of the public schools.) Evening schools are established, and any board of school trustees or board of education which notifies the State superintendent that not fewer than $500 have been raised by special district tax for the establishment of a school or schools for manual training or for the purpose of adding manual training to the course of instruction now pursued in the school or schools of such district shall be entitled to an equal sum from the State, and so on for each year the instruction in manual training is maintained, provided the State board approves the character of instruction or the sum appropriated from the State school fund does not exceed $5,000. Whenever the local school authority certifies that $3,000 have been raised by subscription for the purpose of introducing industrial education, it shall be the duty of the governor to appropriate an equal sum, provided such appropriation shall not exceed $5,000 in any one year, and any city, town, or township is authorized to tax itself for the support of such instruction. There shall be a board of trustees for each of such schools, of which the governor is ex officio president. No religious service or form of any kind, except reading the Bible and repeating the Lord's Prayer, shall be permitted in any public school.

Text-books. The trustees of all public schools are authorized to provide such text-books and other school supplies as shall, pursuant to existing law, be approved by the county superintendent and such boards of trustees, and supply the same free to the use of the pupils in said schools, provided that when any pupil shall lose, deface, or destroy any book supplied to such pupil under the provisions of this act the parents or guardians of such pupil shall replace such book so lost, defaced, or destroyed, or shall be liable to damages. The payment of such textbook and supplies shall be provided by special district tax.

Buildings.-Before any district may receive money from the State it must have provided a suitable school building and outhouses, the doors of the building proper to open outward if more than one story high. Land for schoolhouse sites may be condemned. The State superintendent shall furnish a work containing plans and specifications for the erection of school buildings to be furnished to local school officers. Anyone defacing or injuring a school building or any of its appurtenances shall be considered a disorderly person and may be arrested. The national flag shall be displayed upon or near all schoolhouses during the session of the school.

4. FINANCES.

Funds (permanent and special).—Taxation.

Funds. The governor, the president of the senate, the speaker of the house, attorney-general, secretary of state, and comptroller are trustees of the fund for the support of public schools.

All moneys paid into the State treasury after 1890 as the proceeds of sales. grants, or leases made of lands under water belonging to the State shall be deemed a part of the current revenue of the State;1 provided that nothing in this provision shall be construed as transferring from the State school fund any right, title, interest in any securities or property now a part of the assets of that fund or as any way impairing the right of the school fund to the proceeds or income derived from any security or property now belonging to said school fund. [By an act of 1872 all leases made after the 6th of April, 1871, of lands "now or formerly" lying under water shall be transferred to the trustees of the school fund and become a portion of the State school fund, and the annual income arising from such leases shall be distributed by the trustees for the support of public schools in the same manner as other moneys are now distributed.] The fund thus arising from riparian rights, together with all the moneys which shall be received by the treasurer in payment of the principal or interest of the bank or turnpike stock belonging to the fund, all the taxes which may hereafter (1886) be received into the treasury from any of the banking and insurance companies in the State, liable to taxation now or hereafter, all appropriations made to the fund, and all gifts from persons shall be invested by the treasurer of this State under the direction of said trustees, or a majority of them, in the bonds of the United States, or of the State, or any county, city, town, or township, in cases where the total indebtedness of the bonding community does not exceed 15 per cent of the total assessable valuation of taxable property within itself, the interest to be applied to the public schools. The trustees shall report annually to the legislature and receive no compensation. From this fund there shall be annually appropriated as much as will meet the followingnamed charges:

Twenty-eight thousand dollars for the support of the State normal school and necessary repairs, furniture, and keeping the grounds in order.

The salary and the necessary incidental expenses of the State superintendent and his assistants and the expenses of the board of education.

The cost of teachers' institutes.

The cost of free public libraries.

The cost of Farnum Preparatory School at Beverly.

The State's proportion of the cost of technical education (see Schools, character of instruction).

The taxed costs of foreclosure proceedings instituted by trustees and other expenses at law.

Taxation. For the purpose of maintaining free public schools there shall be assessed, levied, and collected annually upon the real and personal property a State school tax equal to $5 for each child in this State between the ages of 5 and 18 years. It is the duty of the comptroller to apportion the tax among the several counties. Ten per cent of the full amount of money annually raised by State tax shall be known as a reserve fund, and shall be apportioned among the several counties of the State by the State board of education equitably and justly according to their own discretion, and the State superintendent shall draw orders on the comptroller in favor of the county collectors for the payment of 90 per cent of the amount of school tax paid by their counties, respectively, no portion of the money to be used for sectarian schools. In addition to the moneys apportioned to it by the county superintendent each school district may raise by tax such other sums of money as it may need for school purposes as determined by the voters at the time of electing trustees.

1 The 1895 edition of the school law gives the law of 1871 as in force and recites that "all moneys hereafter received from the sales and rentals of land under water belonging to the State shall be paid over to the trustees of the school fund and appropriated for the support of public schools the same to consti

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tute a part of the permanent school fund of the State."

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PENNSYLVANIA.

1. ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM. State superintendent and deputy. County superintendent. Directors and controllers. Local superintendents.

State superintendent. - A superintendent of public instruction shall be appointed by the governor every fourth year, by and with the advice and consent of twothirds of all the senate, and shall be removed by the governor for misbehavior. He shall decide without appeal or costs all controversies or disputes that may arise or exist among the directors or controllers of any district or between collectors or treasurers; give advice, explanations, construction, or information to the district officers and citizens relative to the common-school law, the duties of common-school officers, the rights and duties of parents, guardians, and pupils, and the management of the schools, and all other questions calculated to promote the cause of education; sign orders on the State treasurer for payment of State money to the school districts, prepare blank forms for the annual district reports with suitable instructions and forward them, prepare an annual report containing a full account of the condition of the public schools, the expenditure for them, estimates for the year ensuing, the number of pupils, the cost of teaching each, the number of districts, plans for the improvement of the system, and all such matters relating to the concerns of common schools and to the duties of his office as he may deem expedient to communicate, provide a seal for the authentification of official documents, appoint one of his clerks ge

general deputy, who may perform all his duties in his absence, and remove any county superintendent for neglect of duty. County superintendents. The school directors [of the several districts] in each county shall meet in convention at the county seat of justice every three years and select viva voce by a majority of the whole number present one person of literary and scientific attainments (college diploma, State or local certificate), and of three years' experience in the art of teaching and good moral character, as county superintendent for three succeeding school years. His salary shall be $4.50 for each school in his jurisdiction at the time of his election, to be paid out of the general fund appropriated for common schools, but in no case to be less than $1,000 nor more than $2,000. School directors may increase the county superintendent's salary from the school fund of the county, and in counties having over 290 schools or 1,200 square miles of territory or a school term exceeding seven and one-half months the salary paid shall not be less than $1,500. The county superintendent may not teach in the public schools unless he do so without compensation. He shall take oath to perform his duties to the best of his ability; visit as often as practicable the several schools of his county, noting the character of instruction and the methods, and giving directions upon these subjects in order to bring the teaching up to the grade intended and the grades into ordination and the schools into uniformity; see that the branches required by law are taught by legally competent teachers, examine all candidates for teaching, grant certificates to qualified persons and revoke the same for cause; annually report to the State superintendent in extenso upon the educational condition of their counties and forward the reports of the several school districts thereof, and hold teachers' institutes annually.

Directors and controllers.—Every township, borough, and city of this Commonwealth, or which shall hereafter be erected, shall be a school district. School districts which are composed of cities and boroughs divided into wards for school purposes shall be constituted as follows: Each ward shall retain its school property and elect a separate board of directors, who shall have the erection and repair of schoolhouses, the purchase of sites, and the levying, assessing, collecting, and disbursing of all taxes laid for the above purposes, but other powers and duties which are exercised by district school directors shall be in the hands of a board of controllers, composed of the directors of the several wards, provided that whenever the ward boards of directors shall voluntarily grant the property of their wards to the board of controllers the city or borough shall constitute a single school district, but the number of directors shall thereafter be three for each ward.

School directors shall be elected annually in other districts as follows: At the same time and place that elections are held for supervisors in wards, cities, or boroughs two qualified citizens shall be elected school directors in each district, whose term of office shall be three years, vacancies to be filled by the board. No school director may be also a constable, pathmaster, commissioner of roads, or auditor. Failure to attend two consecutive meetings on the part of a member,