at least six months each year, one or more free schools in each of the counties. This will undoubtedly, to a small extent, increase taxation; but I hardly believe there is a property owner who would not prefer to pay an increased tax than see the rising generation grow up in ignorance; and the small extra tax that is required to maintain free schools will very soon be doubly repaid in the saving of expenses in criminal prosecutions.[1]
The school bill was introduced by the Hon. Estevan Ochoa, probably the most prominent Mexican of that day in Arizona. He was generally respected and had great personal influence, and the spectacle of a citizen of that race presenting an educational measure in an American assembly ought to have spurred his neighbors to action; but somehow it did not, and the bill received but a half-hearted support.[2]
Gov. Safford himself tells how his message and bill were received by the legislature:[3]
Scarcely a member looked upon it with favor. They argued that the Apaches were overrunning the country; that through murder and robbery the people were in poverty and distress; that repeated attempts had been made to organize schools and that failure had always ensued. To these objections I replied that the American people could and ultimately would subdue the Apaches; that unless we educated the rising generation we should raise up a population no more capable of self-government than the Apaches themselves; and that the failure to establish schools had been the result of imperfect statutes during the entire session.
Finally, on the last day of the session, they passed the bill, after striking out nearly all the revenue which had been provided. The measure was the best that could be secured and had to be accepted as it was.
I. THE BASIC ACT OF 1871.
But even then the act of February 18, 1871, was a long step on the road leading to complete school organization. It was the first law that provided for a general or Territorial tax for the support of schools, and it has served as the basic law for subsequent educational enactments.[4] To begin with, it levied a general Territorial tax of 10 cents on the $100 of property and directed that this be collected and paid into the Territorial treasury “as a special fund for school purposes.” It was provided also that it be levied and
- ↑ See Jours. Legislative Assembly, 1871, pp. 43–45.
- ↑ The Historical Sketch of the Arizona Public Schools, printed in the Report of Tucson Public Schools for 1893–94, p. 25 et seq., says that this bill was introduced by Hon. H. S. Stevens, of Pima County. The apparent contradiction can probably be explained by referring one introduction to one house and one to the other. See McCrea, loc. cit., p. 84.
- ↑ See Rept. U. S. Commis. of Educ., 1876, p. 432. The bill was passed Feb. 18, 1871.
- ↑ McCrea points out that the Arizona school law of 1871 “was evidently taken from the Revised School Laws of California (1866), as the general plan for the proposed system was the same as that of California, while many of the provisions were couched in the same language.” The sketch in the Tucson school report for 1893–94 makes the same statement.
