Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/97

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THE FIRST STATE ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOLS.
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$18,401.18 for vocational work done. Since that date the payments have steadily increased; in 1912–13 there was paid to 16 high schools (including the two normal schools at Tempe and Flagstaff) $27,495.55; in 1913–14 it was $36,423.11 to 21 schools; and in 1914–15 $44,823.89 was paid for the work done in 21 schools. The largest sum was $2,500, paid to each of 15 institutions; the smallest was $248.72, paid to the Safford schools.

The provisions under which high schools are paid for work done in agriculture, mining, manual training, domestic science, and other vocational pursuits are based on chapter 80, second special session, laws of 1913, and finally by section 2797 of the school code of 1913 it was provided that normal schools when they had satisfactory rooms and equipment for giving “elementary training in agriculture, mining, manual training, domestic science, or other vocational pursuits” should participate on the same terms as the high schools in the public funds devoted to that purpose.

Another phase of the industrial education of the State is included under the work of the Territorial Industrial School. First provided for in 1893 under the title of “reform school,” it led an uncertain existence until 1903, when its name was changed from reform to industrial[1] and its location fixed at Benson. It was then given 1 cent on the hundred for maintenance and 4 cents for improvements. It was reported as in satisfactory condition in 1909 and received that year $22,000, and the same for 1910, to be raised by what levy might be necessary and expended under direction of the board of control.[2] Then came an agitation to change the school location; a very unfavorable report was made on its work and surroundings in 1912[3] and the agitation culminated in 1913 in an act[4] for its removal to the abandoned Fort Grant military reservation as soon as water rights could be secured. The State had secured from Congress in 1912 a grant of 2,000 acres of the old military reservation, together with all the improvements.[5] It was estimated that these improvements, which had originally cost $500,000, were still worth $225,000, and while the site was at a distance from the main lines of travel, the altitude, which is about 4,500 feet, the fertility of the soil, and its adaptability to dairying, stock raising, horticulture, and agriculture more tha nequaled its disadvantages, and it was thought that the institution should soon become self-sustaining.

But the course of development of this school has not run as smoothly as it was hoped. There has been a rapid change of superintendents, one having proved recreant to his trust, and his successor, while of


  1. Session of 1903, ch. 72.
  2. Session of 1909, ch. 106.
  3. See H. J., 1912, special session, pp. 142–149.
  4. Laws of 1913, second special session, ch. 23.
  5. Act of Aug. 13, 1912.