The Law of the Public School System of the United States

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ment of this plan of public education we find at the time of the Revolution, two Grammar Schools and three Writing Schools in the City of Boston;1 and thus was formed the nucleus of the public school system in the United States. In England there was no adequate provision for public elementary education until the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which made provision for such a system in England and Wales. 2. Power to Establish Public Schoo1s. The power of the several States to establish and maintain systems of common schools, to raise money for that purpose by taxation, and to govern, control, and regulate such schools when established, is a power not delegated to the Federal government, nor prohibited by its constitution to the several States, therefore such power is reserved to the States respectively or to the people.2 Consequently the public school system of a State usually originates under the constitution of that particular State.3 3. Constitutiona1 Provisions. Many of the States have provided for the maintenance of public schools, in constitutional provisions.4Some of the State constitutions declare that the people have a right to education, which it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain,1 without distinction of race, color,2 castes or sex.4 Under a State constitution requiring the common school system to be uniformly open to all, such uniformity exists when all schools of the same grade have the same system of studies and discipline, and require uniform qualifications for admission.6 1 Snow's History of Boston, 350; Amer. Jour, of Educ., 1826, 210. The earliest trace of our system of free schools is to be found on the Boston records under the date of April 13, 1635, where it is stated to have been agreed upon that our brother, Philemon Purmo...