The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1874-09-02

county from keeping d separate school Tor
two colored children-there being only four
in the district, and separate school hay.
ing been kept for two of these. What the
court would have done in case there were
colored children enough for an ordinary
school we are left to conjecture The
opinion was delivered by Judge Craig, in
which, after enunerating the points set up
in the bill he said
The point in the bill in this case is, that
appellants, in order to keep some four col
ored children from attending the same
school in the district that is provided for
others, erected small house on the same
lot where the other school-house stands,
and at the expense of the taxpayers. pro-
pose to employ an additional teacher to in.
struot the colored children in this small
building, separate and apart from the 9th.
er children IN the district, and these facts
This bill is filed by four taxi payers of
the district, to prevent the directors from
a transportation of the public funds in
which,in common with the public, they have
direct interest.
1T is insisted by appellants, that
the provision of the statute that declares
that the directors shall establish and keep
in operation for at least six months in each
year, and longer if practicable, a sufficient
number of schools for the accommodation
of the children in the district over the age
Of six and under the age of twenty-one,
that they may adopt all necessary rules
and regulations for the management and
government of the schools, gives them the
power and fully sustains their action in
this case. The free schools of the State
are public institutions, and in their man.
agement and control the law contemplates
that they should be SO managed that all
children within the district. between the
ages of six and twenty-one years, regardless
of race or color, shall have equal and the
same right to participate in the benefits to
be derived therefrom.
while the directors very properly have
large and discretionary powers in regard
to the management and control of schools
in order to increase their usefulness, they
have no power to make class distinctions
neither can they discriminate between
= scholars on account Of their color, race or
social position.
IF the school house was too small to ac-
|. commodate all the scholars in the district
it would have been eminently proper for
the directors to have enlarged the build
ing, but this they did not see proper to do,
and it is apparent from the record that
the erection of the small house on the lot
where the school-house stood, was not on
account of the incapacity of the school
house to accommodate all the scholars in
the district, but the sole and only object
seems to have been to exclude the colored
children in the district from participating
in the benefits the other children received
from the free schools.
Had the district contained colOred
children sufficient for one school, and white
children for another, and had che directors
in good faith provided room for each,
where the facilities for instruction were
entirely equal, that would have presented
a question not raised by this record, and
upon which we express no opinion,
But the conduct of the directors in
this case, in the attempt to keep and main
tain a school solely to instruct three or
four colored children of the district, when
they can be accommodated at the school |
house with the other scholars of the district |
can only be regarded as a fraud upon the
tax payers OF the district, any one of whom
has right to interfere to prevent the
public funds from being squandered in
such u reckless unauthorized manner.
! AS we view the case, we perceive no
error in the decree of the Circuit Court it |
will therefore be affirmed
! Decree affirmed"