Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/120

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114
PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION IN ARIZONA.

classes $177.42. The total property valuation of the plant was then $567,000, and it was determined to ask the next legislature for $110,000 per year.

From Flagstaff it was reported in 1905–6 that that school was still in need of an academic department, “so that such students as desire may be fitted for our Territorial university instead of having to go out of the Territory to secure the necessary instruction.” The enrollment during these years had remained low: 33 in 1899-1900; 40 in 1900–1901; 45 in 1902–3 and 1903–4; 59 in 1904–5; and 60 in 1905–6. The cost the first year (1899–1900) was $5,825.57; in 1905–6, $13,978.64. The total cost for the seven years of the school is given as $71,152.05; the number of teachers was at first 2; it rose the second year to 4, and the fifth year to 6, where it remained. There had been in all 42 graduates, or an average of 7 for the six graduating years. It was reported in 1907–8 that that year had been the “most prosperous” of its existence. Its enrollment reached 94, with 64 in the training school, which offered 7 grades of work. There were 12 graduates in 1908, and it had up to that time 49 graduates, of whom 43 had taught in the Territory. Two dormitories had been recently built at a cost of $50,000, but there was still crying need for liberal appropriations in the near future. A summer term was first offered in 1907. It has since become a permanent part of the school, having 225 pupils in 1916. The regular matriculation began to gain in 1911–12 when it passed the hundred mark and reached 137; in 1916–17 there were 334, and the faculty then numbered 21, but it was reported that the school was still cramped for room in which to work.

The general administration of these schools is under the direction of two distinct but similar boards of three members each; the superintendent of public instruction is a member of each board. The other members of the Tempe Board are two citizens selected from that section by the governor, while those controlling the Flagstaff School come in the same way from that section.

In general the effort was at first made to support the institutions by special taxes laid for their particular benefit, and there has been a tendency toward standardizing the appropriations. The Tempe School was granted in 1885 a tax of 2½ cents on the hundred; this was apparently unchanged until 1893–94, when it was given two-fifths of 1 mill on the dollar, or 4 cents on the hundred of assessed valuation apparently in place of the earlier grant. This was continued in 1895 and 1896; in 1897 and 1898 it was 3 cents; in 1899 and 1900, 1½ cents; in 1903 and 1904, 2½ cents, with a second tax of 4 cents to serve as a basis for a building fund; in 1905 and 1906 it received in all 5½ cents. In each case the auditor was instructed to anticipate the incoming revenue.