Title. Con 266 CHAPTER XXIX MASSACHUSETTS MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FUND Massachusetts School Fund is the official title of the permanent common school fund of Massachusetts.267 In 1905 the principal of the fund amounted to $4,880,110.66 and its dition, 1905 annual income $219,881.54, approximately, one and two-tenths per cent (.0121)* of $18,131,529.01, the total common school revenue from all sources for that year. The principal is kept as a distinct and separate fund, invested in negotiable securities, chiefly city and town bonds and notes and $275,000 of railroad bonds.266 Features of Peculiar interest is attached to the history of this fund for several reasons. In the first place, in many states, a state permanent school fund has preceded and has been the chief lever for securing local taxation. In Massachusetts local taxation, previously permissive, was made compulsory in 1827, seven years before the establishment of the school fund.268 Second, the establishment of the Massachusetts School Fund was the recognition on the part of a state which had succeeded Explanation of abbreviations used in foot-notes in Chapter XXIX: Rept. Annual Report of the Board of Education (Bd. Ed.) of Mass. = Sec. Rept. Report of the Secretary in Annual Report of the Board of Education of Mass. In the earlier reports, the reports of the Sec. and the Bd. are paged separately, though bound in one volume. 29th Rept., p. 2, or 29th Rept., 1864-65, p. 2= Bd. Ed. 29th Rept. for the year 1864-65, p. 2. * Computed. 266 Statements received Sept. 5, 1906, from Geo. H. Martin, Sec. Mass. State Board of Education, and from the Mass. State Treasurer. 267 Mass. Revised Laws, Chap. 41, Sec. 1. 268 Laws, 1827, Chap. 143, Sec. 4. in securing free schools, that without a state permanent school fund no effective school system was possible. Third, scarcely any other fund shows so rapid an evolution and such ready adaptiveness to changing conditions, from whatever point it may be viewed. These last two statements are supported by many facts among which might be noted here, the increase of the limit of the principal, originally fixed at one million and increased until it is now five million dollars. Fourth, it was never the aim of those endeavoring to establish or increase the fund to secure a fund of such proportions that its revenue would relieve the local community of the larger part of the burden of supporting their schools. This is shown both by the limit placed upon the principal of the fund and by the provision of the law of 1834 which forbade any town to receive from the income of the Massachusetts School Fund an amount greater than that which it raised by local taxation. Four means of support of public schools were employed in Massachusetts prior to 1834, the year of the establishment of the Public School to School Fund School Fund, as follows: (1) gifts; (2) tuition; (3) local or town funds, including rents of school lands; (4) local taxation. It is sufficient here to note that these forms of school support had all existed from colonial days, and that they were all local, as opposed to state, in origin.* It has been asserted some times that the schools of Massachusetts were universal and free from 1647, but there was no prevailing or uniform system of supporting schools prior to 1827. Local taxation, prior to 1827 was permissive only, and before this time each town or district was left to work out its own salvation according to its own peculiar will and plan. The year 1827 marks for Massachusetts what the year 1867 marks for New York and 1868 for Connecticut, the legal abolishment of support of schools by tuition (rate bills). In that year the towns were authorized and empowered, as before, but for the first time directed to raise by town tax the money necessary for the support and maintenance of such schools as the law required.268 * For a discussion of early sources of school support consult Part I, Chapter II. of Fund All provisions (up to 1895) relative to this fund have been statutory rather than constitutional. In January, 1828, "the Committee on Education, of the House of Representatives, Steps Leading to Establishment in a report made by the Hon. W. B. Calhoun declared 'that means should be devised for the establishment of a fund having in view not the support but the encouragement of the common schools and the instruction of school teachers.'" 269 In February, 1828, the same committee specifically states that a fund sufficient to support common schools and normal schools would injure the school system and decrease the public interest in it and cites Connecticut as an example of this, but that a fund sufficient to give the towns about one-third the amount they themselves raised would be an incentive to interest and effort. A bill for the establishment of the Massachusetts Literary Fund accompanied this report. This bill dealt, among other things. with the proportionate amount of the income of the fund to be distributed to the several towns. This bill failed to become a law. In January, 1833, Mr. Marsh of Dalton, introduced an order into the House of Representatives. The House appointed a committee "to consider the expediency of investing a portion of the proceeds of the sales of the lands of this Commonwealth, in a permanent fund, the interest of which should be annually applied, as the legislature should from time to time direct, for the encouragement of common schools."" 269 This order was adopted and was the "incipient measure that led to the establishment of the Massachusetts School Fund." 269 January 23, 1833, Mr. Marsh submitted the report of the committee. The committee had expected that "all moneys then in the treasury derived from the proceeds of the sales of public lands and the entire proceeds of all subsequent sales" were to be devoted to this fund.26 They expected that the fund would amount to $1,634,418.32 and its annual income to $98,065.09, or about seventy cents to each child, five to fifteen years, in the state. This estimate was made as follows: 269 209 G. S. Boutwell, "Mass. School Fund, Its Origin and History," in Board of Education of Mass. Report, 1859, pp. 38-47. Avails of 3,500,000 acres of land at 40c. an acre, $ 234,418.32 1,400,000.00 $1,634,418.32 After the above bill had been read twice, Mr. Marsh made a motion which was carried that the bill be referred to the next legislature. "In 1834 the bill from the files of the last general court, to establish the Massachusetts School Fund . . . was referred to a Committee on Education. The chairman of the committee, Hon. A. D. Foster of Worcester, made a report in February and submitted a bill which was the basis of the law" by which the Massachusetts School Fund was finally established.269 Massachusetts On March 31, 1834, was passed the law which established the fund and which reads: "Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in the General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of January next (1835) all monies in the treasury derived from the sale of lands in the State of Maine and from the claim of the State on the government of the United States for military services, and not otherwise appropriated, together with fifty per centum of all monies thereafter to be received from the sale of lands in Maine, shall be appropriated to constitute a permanent fund for the aid and encouragement of common schools; provided, that said fund shall never exceed one million of dollars. "Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That the investment of the monies hereby appropriated shall be made by the treasurer and receiver general with the approval of the governor and council first obtained. "Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That the income only of said fund shall be appropriated to the aid and encouragement of common schools, and that a first and equal distribution thereof shall be made to the City of Boston and the several towns and districts in the Commonwealth, in such manner as the legislature shall hereafter appoint; provided, that there shall never be paid to any city, town or district a greater sum than is raised therein respectively for the support of common schools." Approved by the Governor, March 31, 1834.270 The original sources of the principal of the Massachusetts 270 Mass. Laws, 1834, Chap. CLXIX. f Original School Fund are thus seen to be all moneys in the state treasury January 1, 1835, derived from (1) claims on the national government for military services; (2) proceeds of the sales of state lands in Maine. The origin of these Maine lands may be stated briefly: Chapter 287, Acts of Massachusetts 1820, provided that Maine, then a district of Massachusetts, be erected and organized into a separate state. The joint title of Massachusetts and Maine covered about 6,000,000 acres of land, lying in Maine. By the terms of the original Act of Separation one-half of this land went to Massachusetts.270 4 As stated above, it had been expected that the proceeds of the sales of Massachusetts' Maine lands would amount to $1,400,000. Growth of the Fund First Source of Increase. Maine Lands, 1834-1853 At the close of the first year after its establishment, 1835, the principal of the fund derived from the sale of Maine lands, was $514,906, a little more than half the amount permitted by law. The fund's revenue for 1835 was $16,331.270a In 1850, fifteen years later, the School Fund amounted to $958,921,2706 almost the limit fixed by the act of 1834. Its revenue for 1850 was about $45,000.2706 In 1851 "in contemplation of a large sale of lands" the limit of the principal of the fund was changed from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000.270 The Maine lands were exhausted at the close of 1853, at which time the principal of the School Fund amounted to $1,244,284.2706 Limit of Fund $1,500,000, 1851 R. R. Shares. In 1854 provision was made for the increase of the fund by the transfer of "such a number of the shares held by the commonwealth in the Western Railroad Corporation as will, at the rate of one hundred dollars a share increase the principal of the said Fund to the amount of one million five hundred thousand dollars." 270 c The Second Source of 270A Mass. Laws, 1819, Chap. 161, Sec. 1. 270a Sec. Report, 1845, p. 22; Report, 1851, pp. 12-14. 2706 Thirty-ninth Report, 1874-75, PP. 7, 137; for full account see also Sec. 20, Report, 1857, p. 70. 270c Laws of 1854, Chap. 300; Fifty-fifth Report, 1890–91, p. 189. |