The Development of Free Schools in the United States as Illustrated by Connecticut and Michigan Volume 91 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ... one, ought not to be the last to abandon this cumbrous and anti-republican practice, but should with commendable promptness hasten to blot from its statutes this most incongruous and inharmonious machinery. It has been made to appear to your Committee that many districts in the State have already 'wiped out' the rate-bill mode of meeting deficiencies for school purposes; and recognizing the truth of the maxim that 'the property of the State ought to educate the children of the State; at least in the elementary branches peculiar to our primary system, ' your Committee desire to take immediate hold of that principle, and make it effective in its application to the schools of Michigan;..." "Your Committee are advised that whenever the rate-bill is not in use, and the schools are free, the attendance is larger and more regular, the schoolrooms are better filled, and the schools are in a more prosperous condition; that when the same bill is resorted to, in order to meet deficiencies, the practice obtains to send to school only so long as the public money pays the expense, and when such funds are exhausted, the scholars are rapidly withdrawn for fear of the specific tax, the collector, and the execution in case of poverty; and no wonder the schools under such a rigime languish and die outright. The action involved in the rate-bill is one we believe to be wrong in principle and, as a matter of course, extremely injurious in practice; and it is more clearly a part of economy, to say nothing of justice, that the State shall furnish equal primary school advantages to the children of all classes, as regards wealth or station...." "Your Committee find the bill under consideration proposes to provide for five months free school, in such districts as may have...