than 5000 inhabitants may be incorporated as a town, with its
government vested in a mayor and council. Any township or
part thereof with less than 4 sq. m. of territory, and less than
5000 inhabitants, may be incorporated as a borough, with its
government vested in a mayor and council.
In 1903 a law (revised in 1908) was passed providing for the conduct at public cost of primary elections for the nomination of nearly all elective officers, and for the nomination of delegates to party nominating conventions; nominations for primary elections are made by petitions signed by at least ten voters (except in very small election districts) who make affidavit as to their party affiliations; the nominee thus indorsed must file a letter of acceptance. Under this act a “political party” is one which polled at least one-twentieth of the total number of votes cast in the next preceding election in the area for which the nomination is made; and in party conventions there must be one delegate from each election district, and one delegate for each 200 votes cast by the party in the next preceding gubernatorial election.
An act approved on the 10th of April 1908 authorized a Civil Service Commission of four members appointed by the governor, who choose a chief examiner and a secretary of the commission. Civil service rules adopted by this commission went into effect in the same year for certain state employes. In 1910 that part of the law permitting municipalities to adopt these rules through their governing bodies was declared unconstitutional; but municipalities may adopt them by popular vote.
A state Board of Railroad Commissioners (three appointed by the governor), created in 1907, became in 1910 a Board of Public Utility Commissioners with jurisdiction over all public utilities (including telephones and telegraphs); its approval is necessary for the issue of stock or bonds, but it has no power to fix rates.
The state acts concurrently with New York in preserving the natural beauties of the Palisades of the Hudson river; and in 1909 the Palisades Interstate Park, with a front of 13 m. on the Hudson, from Fort Lee to Piermont, was dedicated.
The homestead exempt from sale under seizure is limited to the house and lot, not exceeding $1000 in value, of a debtor having a family. To entitle the property to exemption, it must be registered as a homestead in the office of the county clerk, and it may be sold, then, only with the consent of the husband and wife, and the proceeds of the sale, to the amount of $1000, must be applied to the purchase of another homestead. The exemption does not extend to a sale for unpaid taxes, for labour done on the homestead, materials furnished to it, or for a debt contracted in the purchase thereof, or prior to the recording of the notice. The exemption inures to the benefit of the widow and family of the householder until the youngest child becomes twenty-one years of age.
Capital punishment is by electrocution. A law of 1902 provides the death penalty for any murderous assault on the president of the United States, the chief executive of any state, or the heir to any foreign throne.
The grounds for an absolute divorce are only two: adultery and “wilful, continued and obstinate” desertion for two years; but a decree of limited or permanent separation may be obtained in case of extreme cruelty. Unless the cause of action is adultery or at least one of the parties was a resident of the state at the time the cause of action arose and has continued to reside there, no suit for a divorce can be begun until one of the parties shall have resided in the state for the two years next preceding. Furthermore, the cause of action must have been recognized in the jurisdiction in which the petitioner resided at the time it arose.
No child less than fourteen years old is permitted to work in any factory, workshop or mill; and the penalty for each offence is $50. The employment of children under sixteen years of age in any mercantile establishment for more than 10 hours a day, or 55 hours a week, or between 6 o’clock in the evening and 6 o’clock in the morning is prohibited, except one evening each week when they may be permitted to work until 9 o’clock, and except in the evenings from the 15th to the 25th of December when they may be permitted to work until 10 o’clock. There are strict provisions for the protection and for the sanitary housing of factory employees, and prohibiting sweat-shops. A state law (1899) requires the payment of wages in lawful money at least every two weeks to its employees on the part of every firm, association or partnership doing business in the state.
Education.—During the colonial period there were schools maintained by churches, a few town schools of the New England type, and, in the latter part of the era, a number of private schools. But the schools of colonial New Jersey, especially the private schools, were usually taught by incompetent masters, and many children were permitted to grow up without any schooling whatever. Public interest in education, however, began to awaken soon after the close of the War of Independence. Under the encouragement of an act of the legislature passed in 1794 several academies were established. A public school fund was established in 1817. Three years later townships were authorized to levy taxes for maintaining schools for poor children. The division of townships into school districts and the election of three trustees were provided for in 1829. In 1846 each township was required to raise as much money for school purposes as the state contributed. In 1855 a normal school for training teachers was established at Trenton. And in 1867 a school law was passed which established the main features of the present school system, although it was four years later before a state school tax was imposed and schools were made free to all children in the state. The public school system is administered under the direction of a superintendent of public instruction and a state board of education. The former decides all controversies arising under the school law, and exercises a general supervision over the public schools; the latter has the control of a number of special state educational institutions, appoints the county superintendents and supervises the execution of the school laws of the state. In general each city, town and township in the state constitutes a separate school district, although two or more of these may unite to form a single district. Each district is required to furnish free textbooks. All children between the ages of 7 and 15 are required to attend school for the full school year, and those who at 15 years of age have not completed the grammar school course must continue to attend until they either complete it or arrive at the age of 17. Furthermore, children past 15 years of age who have completed the grammar school course but are not regularly and lawfully employed at some useful occupation must attend a high school or a manual training school until 17 years of age.
Funds for the support of the public schools are derived from various sources: (1) the interest on the “surplus revenue” ($760,670), deposited with New Jersey by the Federal government in 1836; (2) the income from the state school fund, consisting largely of receipts from the sale and rental of riparian lands[1]; (3) a state school tax; (4) a direct appropriation by the legislature to supplement the school tax, so that the two combined will form a sum equal to a tax of two and three-fourths mills on each dollar of taxable property; and (5) local taxes. At the close of the fiscal year 1908 the school fund of the state was $4,850,602·41; the income for the year was $224,233·56 and the disbursements were $373,095·76. The income from the state school fund is divided among the counties on the basis of the total number of days of attendance of the public school pupils; the legislative appropriation, however, is apportioned among the counties according to their assessed property values. Each county also received 90% of the state school tax it has paid, the remainder forming a reserve fund to be distributed among the counties at the discretion of the state board. The state will duplicate any yearly sum between $250 and $5000 which a school district may raise to maintain a school or courses of manual training. In like manner, any school that raises $20 for a library will receive the same amount from the state, which will also contribute $10 each year thereafter for maintenance, if the school raises a similar sum. The total number of teachers in the public schools in 1908 was 10,279; the total school enrollment was 402,866, with an average daily attendance of 289,167; and the average length of the school term was nine months and two days. For the benefit of veteran and invalid public school teachers there is a “retirement fund,” which owes its origin to voluntary contributions by teachers in active service. The state has taken official recognition of this fund and administers it on behalf of the contributors through a board of trustees appointed by the governor.
In addition to the regular public schools, the state maintains a normal and a model school at Trenton, a normal school at Montclair (opened 1908), the Farnum Preparatory School at Beverly, a Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown, and an agricultural college and experiment station, maintained in connexion with Rutgers College, at New Brunswick. There are industrial schools in Newark, Hoboken and Trenton, for which the state made an appropriation of $20,000 in 1908. Among the prominent institutions not receiving state aid are Princeton University, at Princeton; Rutgers College (excluding its agricultural school), at New Brunswick; and the Stevens Institute of Technology, at Hoboken. Among the denominational institutions are the Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) at Princeton; the Drew Theological Seminary (Methodist Episcopal) at Madison; Seton Hall College (Roman Catholic), at South Orange; St Peter’s College (Roman Catholic) at Jersey City; St Benedict’s College (Roman
Catholic) at Newark; the German Theological School of Newark- ↑ The state’s title to its riparian lands was established, after a long controversy, in 1870 in the case of Stevens v. the Paterson & Newark R.R. Co. (5 Vroom’s Reports 532). Since that date, with the exception of the period of Governor Abbett’s second administration (1890–1893), the proceeds from the sale and rental of these lands have been regularly applied to the school fund.
