In each school district there was a local board of three trustees who provided for, controlled, and directed the school. Each set of officers made a report to the next higher. The funds came from Territorial and county sources.[1] When these were insufficient to provide a school for three months, the local district was required to make up the deficit as well as provide the schoolhouse and furniture. In such cases anything more than the three months’ term depended on the will of the local district, which had to be expressed by a two-thirds vote. This was a weak point in the system and struck the scattered country districts most heavily. The school term in the towns soon ran up in length, but those of the country schools were low, often perilously close to the three months’ limit, or even below it.
There was as yet no general law under which towns or school districts might issue bonds for use in building schoolhouses. The first of such issues seems to have been that of Prescott, in 1877, for $7,200, made under a special act.[2] In 1879 similar special acts were passed in favor of Phoenix for $15,000,[3] and Tucson for $20,000,[4] and in 1883 Tombstone secured an issue for $15,000.[5]
The only other enactment of the session of 1879 bearing on education was one chartering the Arizona Development Co., which, under color of aiding “in the construction of capitol buildings and for the support of the public schools of the Territory,” provided for the running of a lottery in the Territory, the governor being made commissioner to superintend the drawings, while 10 per cent of the prizes distributed were to be reserved for the use of the Territory. It was perfectly evident, however, that the real purpose of this act was not to build the capitol nor to advance the schools but to permit the existence of a lottery.[6]
It is now desirable to follow so far as possible the fortunes of the schools under the act of 1879. It may be noticed at once that the school system so patiently and laboriously built up by Gov. Safford did not command the respect of Gov. Frémont sufficiently to give it a place in his message to the assembly, either in 1879 or 1881. McCrea remarks that although Gov. Frémont was a man of liberal education “he exhibited but little interest in the question of schools in Arizona.” McCrea found but one reference by Frémont to the school
- ↑ Ch. 45, 1879, provided that one-half the money collected on licenses for gambling, other than village licenses, should go to the county school fund. The school act of 1883 gave all “fines, forfeitures, and gambling licenses” to the county school fund, except such as were collected in incorporated towns and villages. Escheats under this act went to the Territorial school fund.
- ↑ Session Laws, 1877, ch. 37.
- ↑ Session Laws, 1879, ch. 17.
- ↑ Ibid., ch. 25.
- ↑ Session Laws, 1883, ch. 13.
- ↑ Session Laws, 1879, ch. 16. It was repealed by Session Laws, 1881, ch. 20. A vigorous effort was made in 1887 to reenact a similar law, but it was defeated by the veto of Gov. Zulick. See Council Jour., 1887, pp. 199–203.
