by this act to Pima County was ordered to be paid to the Sisters of St. Joseph in Tucson.[1]
The school law of 1871 had provided that the county school tax should be “not to exceed” 50 cents on the hundred, but experience led Gov. Safford in 1873 to recommend a uniform tax rate in all the counties for school purposes. He then inaugurated also the movement looking toward compulsory attendance. The legislature of 1874, for its part, while doing some things that were of service, did others that were reactionary. With the new and excellent provisions for a Territorial school tax of 25 cents on each $100 of valuation and a uniform county school tax of the same amount,[2] was linked the repeal of all sections of the law apportioning school money according to attendance, and thus the one powerful incentive for building up attendance was removed.[3]
The county probate judges as ex officio county school superintendents were also relieved from the requirement to visit the schools, but the $100 given under the act of 1871 for expenses was retained as salary.[4] Of this phase of educational development McCrea remarks:[5]
With this amendment begins the agitation of the probate judges to secure legislation to increase their emoluments for work as school superintendents without increasing their duties to any corresponding extent. These officers were also most unwisely given the authority to select textbooks for their respective counties.[6]
Gov. Safford says that the schools flourished from 1873 to 1875 “to the entire satisfaction of all interested.” Statistics in somewhat detailed form are given by him in his reports to the Commissioner of Education, and they show for the most part a steady development and a growth that promised well for the future. It was believed that there would be revenue enough to maintain free schools in each of the districts for six months in the year, and under date of August
- ↑ The act provided that this grant was to be made in case that “Territorial warrant No. 383, drawn on the 17th day of October, 1872, for $300, in favor of the ‘Sisters of St. Joseph,’ shall be first surrendered and canceled without payment.” See acts of 1873, pp. 25, 26. An act of Feb. 18, 1871, had appropriated $300 to the Sisters of St. Joseph “who are teaching and maintaining a school for the education of young ladies, in the town of Tucson, to enable them to pay for the school books now in use in said school.” The appropriation under the act of 1871 had not been paid by the Territorial treasurer because he believed it illegal. (Jours. Legislative Assembly, 1873, p. 88.) The effort was then made by the law of 1873 to charge this gift up to the school fund of Pima County, but it again failed, for the act of 1875 (Sess. Laws, 1875, p. 91) ordered that it be paid out of the general fund.
- ↑ Sess. Laws, 1873, pp. 64–66, secs. 1 and 2.
- ↑ Sess. Laws, 1873, pars. 6 and 16, pp. 65, 66. See also McCrea in Superintendent’s Report, 1908, p. 87. Girls seem to have been admitted to the Tucson schools now for the first time. See McCrea, op. cit., p. 89.
- ↑ Sess. Laws, 1873, par. 15, p. 66.
- ↑ Arizona Report for 1908, p. 88.
- ↑ Sess. Laws, 1873, par. 31, p. 66.
