Of the law of 1885 and of the particular reasons for some of its main provisions McCrea says:[1]
During the time the assembly was in session the school law of 1883 was subjected to a revision from which it emerged in about the shape it has ever since borne. This work was performed by those best qualified to do it well—i. e., by the outgoing [Horton] and incoming [Long] superintendents of public instruction, and the assembly showed its wisdom by framing the law much as suggested by those officers. * * * That the standard of scholarship among teachers might be raised and superior teachers induced to come to the Territory, a Territorial board of examiners was created to supervise the work of the several boards of county examiners and to issue certificates good throughout the Territory upon certain credentials and upon examination papers forwarded to them from the various counties. The credentials upon which certificates could be issued without examination were definitely fixed in the law, also the branches upon which teachers must be examined for certificates. Such things had been too largely left to the discretion of boards of examiners in the past.
This assembly made an effort to arrange a more satisfactory plan of school taxation. As three new institutions had been created which must have buildings and maintenance from Territorial taxation, it was thought best to reduce the Territorial school tax to a nominal figure. With the handsome balances with which every county had closed each of the last two school years the legislature had reason for believing that the new plan for levying the county school tax would relieve the Territory of further responsibility in supporting common schools. Then district taxes might sooner be resorted to to lengthen the term than heretofore, though no such use had been made of the tax in any county during the last two years.
Every school law since that of 1871 had contained provisions against the introduction of tracts or papers of a sectarian character into the public school, also against the teaching of any sectarian doctrine in them. For some reason this was not believed to be drastic enough, and a section was added to the law which provided for revoking teachers’ certificates for using in their schools sectarian or denominational books, for teaching in them any sectarian doctrine, or for conducting any religious exercise therein. The lawmakers evidently aimed to relegate all religious teaching to the home and the church. The prohibiting of “religious exercises” in schools has met with strong condemnation from many Protestant church members, but with the variety of religious creeds represented in the Territory it is doubtful whether a better policy could have been found.
For the first time in the Arizona school law there was a recognition of the work of the schools in training the youth for citizenship, and the provision was of such a broad and general character that the criticism on the religious prohibition loses much of its force.
II. THE ADMINISTRATION OF SUPERINTENDENT LONG, 1885–1887.
It is now possible to turn from the law itself to a consideration of its execution and the development of the schools during the period.
The third Territorial superintendent of public instruction of Arizona was Robert Lindley Long, a Pennsylvanian, who had been in Arizona since 1877. He was principal of the public schools of
- ↑ See McCrea, in Long’s Report, 1908, pp. 121–122.
