judge prevented him from being absent from his office for any length of time, even on school duties. The result was that much school money was dissipated or wasted because of this lack of supervision. It was declared that there was “no bar or hindrance to a vast expenditure of school money by dishonest trustees” and it was considered “of the utmost importance that every possible guard be placed around our school fund.” The law of 1883 sought to remedy this situation.
The necessity of this will be realized more clearly when it is remarked that in Pima County, for instance, the tax collected for schools “was far in excess of what was necessary.” The law required a county tax of not less than 50 cents on the hundred; the Territorial tax was 15 cents; to the county fund was to be added under the acts of 1879 and 1883 the income from fines and gambling licenses, and to the Territorial fund the income from escheated estates. The total income in Pima County in 1882–83 was $26,872, and the school term was five and one-half months. In Pima in 1883–84, $40,000 was raised by district or local taxes, and the total receipts were $85,812. The total expenditures were $62,551, and there was a surplus of more than $24,000. This was the best report from any county; in general the balances were small and not beyond the margin of safety.
Because of the difficulties of travel, no teachers’ institutes had been held during the two years, but the superintendent’s opinion was that in most of the counties institutes could be held with marked advantage. He thought that in few States or Territories were better salaries paid to teachers in rural districts than in Arizona. No printed report covering the rural districts alone is available, but salaries paid in the counties varied from $60 per month in Apache and $75 in Maricopa and Graham to $95 in Cochise and $99 in Gila. The average for 1882–83 was $80.75, and in 1883–84, $84.90.
The total income of the public schools in the Territory for 1883–84 was $205,901.28, and the expenditures were $161,861.57. In 1883 seven libraries were reported. They had 451 volumes, worth $1,079.10, and an annual expenditure of $114.21. In 1884 there were 32 libraries, with 909 volumes, worth $1,685.47, and an annual expenditure of $618.33.[1]
The textbooks adopted by the board of education on March 21, 1881, and still in use, included Appleton’s readers, geographies, and arithmetics; Webster’s speller, model copy books; Quackenbos’s language lessons, grammar, histories, philosophy, and Composition and Rhetoric; Krusi’s drawing; and Appleton’s series of Science Primers for chemistry, physics, physical geography, geology, physiology, astronomy, botany, logic, inventional geometry, piano playing, and political economy.
- ↑ Pima County reported $2,422 expended for school libraries, which is doubtless an error, for other items of furniture and apparatus are presumably included.
