the interest only was to be expended. No mortgage or other incumbrance on any part of these lands “in favor of any person or for any purpose or under any circumstance whatsoever” should ever be paid.
The constitution itself as finally drawn provided for a public-school system and recognized it as including the kindergarten, common, high, normal, and industrial schools, and a university, “which shall include an agricultural college, a school of mines, and such other technical schools as may be essential.” The permanent school fund was recognized and reaffirmed; the minimum school term was fixed at six months; and the method of selling the school land and administering the school fund was outlined. The price for irrigated land was fixed at $25 and of others at $3, and lands were to be neither sold nor leased except to “the highest and best bidder.”
A conservative estimate placed on the value of the school lands by the Arizona Journal of Education in December, 1911 (p. 122), credits the land gifts of the Federal Government to the State for educational purposes as of a then value of $20,000,000.
The new constitution provided that no sectarian instruction should ever be imparted in any school or State educational institution, and that no religious or political test of qualifications should be required as condition of admission to any public educational institution as teacher, student, or pupil. Further than this, the new constitution took the office of State superintendent out of the appointive group and made it an elective one, and since political parties were already organized in the Territory the race for the superintendency in 1911 was made by Prof. Claude D. Jones and Supt. C. O. Case. Mr. Case won and became the first superintendent of public instruction for the new State of Arizona. Mr. Case is a native of Illinois and was educated at Hillsdale College, Mich. He taught in Kansas and then went to California. He came to Arizona in 1889; settled in Phoenix and taught almost continuously for 25 years. He has been superintendent of schools in Globe, Mest, Prescott, and Jerome; he taught English in the Prescott High School; was principal of the high school at Phoenix and organized its commercial department. He is also known by his writings, for he has been a contributor of poems and stories to coast magazines. These have brought favorable criticism and have served to spread abroad the reputation of Arizona schools and teachers.[1]
Mr. Case entered upon his duties with the organization of the new State administration March 12, 1912, and upon duties in a field which was not new or unorganized, but it was the privilege of the first State superintendent to take up the subject where his predecessor
- ↑ Arizona Journal of Education, December, p. 123.
