Case ID: me_35/html/0195-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Howard, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State versus Leighton.
    Tie penal provision of statute of 1850, c. 159, art. 10, § 13, for the protection of schools, is applicable to private schools regularly established and in operation for instructing in the art of writing.
    On Exceptions from Nisi Prius, Shepley, C. J., presiding.
    Complaint before a municipal court. The case came to this Court by appeal. The complaint charged that the defendant willfully disturbed a private school, kept in a district schoolhouse, by one Lambert, for instructing in the art of writing. The evidence tended to prove that such a school was kept in the school-house of the district of which the defendant was a resident, and that the defendant willfully disturbed that school, in the manner forbidden by the statute of 1850, c. 193, art. 10, $ 13.
    The jury were instructed, that the provisions of that section were applicable to a private school for instruction in writing, regularly organized and established and in actual opation, and the defendant excepted.
    
      S. Fessenden, for the defendant.
    1st. The writing school was not a school within the meaning of the statute. It was not a town or public school, set up in the regularly constituted limits of the district as established by the town.
    2d. It was not set up in behalf of the district by the school district agent, nor could such a school be so set up and supported out of the money apportioned to the district by the town.
    3d. The teacher was not subject to any examination before the superintending school committee; had no such certificate from the superintending school committee of the town, as the statute requires teachers to obtain as to capacity and morals, in order to keep such a school as this statute contemplates and protects. The school was not under their supervision or control, as is required in relation to schools established under the statute. The committee were not bound by law to visit such school, or select for it any books or make any return or report of it; the teacher was in no manner answerable to the committee, could not be dismissed by them for misconduct or incompetency, nor could any of his scholars be expelled by them; he was not subject to any of the forfeitures, mentioned in the statute. A private writing school, set up by the mere authority of the teacher himself, is not among the schools and institutions of learning enumerated, authorized or protected by this statute.
    The statute enumerates all the schools, which it was designed to protect. The phrase “ other place of instruction,” only means a building or place, other than a school-house, in which a public school may sometimes be kept.
    4th. The agent could not lawfully let or hire the schoolhouse to Lambert, in which to set up this writing school. Lambert was not rightfully or lawfully there ; he was not an inhabitant of the district, was a mere trespasser upon property which belonged to the defendant in common with the rest of the inhabitants.
    5th. If this statute protects this writing school, it must equally protect dancing schools, caucuses, puppet shows, dancing bears, or any exhibitions, however vile, which the veriest traveling imposter may set up.
    6th. There is no need of a construction, which should enfold this vagrant writing master within its embrace. It ought to be satisfactory to him that the other laws of the State give to his business all the protection, afforded to farmers, merchants and mechanics of the land in their respective departments of business.
    
      Deane, County Attorney, for the State.
   Howard, J.

— By the Act of 1850, c. 193, “to provide for the education of youth,” art. 12, § L the seventeenth chapter of the R. S. and other statutes upon the subject of education, were repealed. By that Act the general duties of towns, the formation, powers and obligations of school districts, the duties and authority of superintending school committees, and school agents, and the duties and qualifications of instructors, including those of the “presidents, professors and tutors of colleges, and of the preceptors and teachers of academies, and all other instructors of youth, whether in public or private institutions,” are prescribed and enjoined, in general, but comprehensive terms. The whole subject of education, public and private, primary and liberal, seems to have been before the Legislature, at the passage of that Act, and to have been regarded in the most particular, as well as in a more enlarged acceptation. By art. 10, § 13, of the same Act, a penalty is provided for the willful interruption or disturbance, by any person, of any teacher or pupils, in any school kept in “ any school-house or other place of instruction.'1'1 This provision appears to have been intended to secure the privileges of imparting and receiving education to all, without distinction or interruption.

A private school for instruction in writing embraces a branch of education usually taught in public schools, and recognized by law, and is clearly within the purview and protection of the statute to which reference has been made. The argument which excludes such schools from such protection, will also exclude colleges, academies, private schools of all descriptions, and institutions of instruction of every sort, with the exception of town or district schools. But the terms of the Act will embrace all schools for instruction, contributing to education in an enlarged signification, and we do not perceive any reason or authority for restricting the operation of the statute to a single class of schools. The language of the Act, the object in view, and the propriety and reason of the thing, all tend to the same conclusion.

Exceptions overruled.

Tenney, Wells and Appleton, J. J., concurred.