Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-04-11

Court Is required by law TO supplement
with fund to be derived from tax
on property sufficient to carry on
schools for FIVE months.
The committee in making an esti-
mate based upon forty per cent. of
attendance of the pupils in the county,
have done manifest injustice, since
they do not know, and have no means
of determining, what the per cent of
attendance will be in this county until
the requirements of the law are fully
carried out in the county. The per
cent. of attendance given in the report
of the State Superintendent is the
average per cent. for the whole State.
Davidson county may have 60 per cent.
in attendance while Chatham county
may not have but 20 per cent. Yet
their acreage would be 40. You can
not base upon the per cent. of attend
ance until it is actually ascertained,
since some counties being more thick
ly populated than others having the
same territory, would naturally have
larger attendance. District No. 4,
being more populous in proportion to
territory than any other district lex
cept No. 12,) could readily supply in
struction to 40 per cent. of her scho-
lastic population at the rate recon-
mended by the committee, since, if you
base on the per cent. of attendance,
she could have six schools with an
average of 40 pupils in the same
amount of territory of other districts,
whose population being sparse, could
not have more than two, and locate
those two ever so judiciously, they will
not be in reach of perhaps one-fifth
of the children in the district.
The estimate, made by myselfand by
the Board of Education for the
County, is based, not on the per cent.
of attendance, for such per cent. has
never been ascertained and does not
exist, but on the number of schools in
the several districts as ascertained by
the Board of Directors for the Dis
tricts necessary to meet the education
al demands of the district. The ag-
gregate number of schools in the sew
eral districts in the county, as ascer-
tanned from the Directors-school
officers of each districts so. At an
average salary of S45 90 per month,
the amount Of fund necessary to carry
on schools for one month would be
$1,000, and for five months it would be
$4,000. Add to this 81 900 for other
expenses, and we have-deducting the
$40, $50 raised from other sources
$3.50 to be raised by the County Court
in order to discharge the duty made
obligatory upon it by law.
Non-concurring in the report of the
committee, l deemed it my duty to sub
NIT to the County Court of Montgom-
cry County minority report, in which
l prayed for the passage of a tax of
two mills on the dollar, or that this
tax be submitted to the people to vote
upon directly This prayer was not
granted by the Court. A tax of two
mills On the dollar would yield a rev.
enue of $4,000 Deducting fifteen
per cent for loss in collecting and there
remains S9,000-a fund sufficient with
but small surplus to meet the re-
quirements of the law.
This is the only manner in my opin-
ion in which this estimate can be Just
ly and fairly made, and it is matter
of but little consequence who makes
it, so it is made in accordance with the
requirements of the law. The posi-
tion assigned me by the County Court
on this committee certainly makes it
doubly my duty to lay these facts clear
ly before the public.
n. L. WHITFIELD,
Sup't. Montgomery Co.