The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-06-30
SCHOOL LAW.

Compilations of sstatute laws and digests
of the decisions of courts may be, not only
valuable to the legal profession, but also
interesting and instructive to the general
reader. Such publication is ''the CON-
piled school laws of Vermont" of which
we have heretofore briefly spoken, pre-
pared by Gilbert A. Davis, Esq, of Read
ing, and published by the direction of the
general assembly. For book of SO gen.
eral interest and of so much Importance,
provisions should have been made for q
wide distribution. Instead of being con-
fined, as it is by the act authorizing the COM
pilation, in its distribution to one copy for
each town clerks office, and to cacl, school
district and superintendent of schools, it
should have been placed within the reach
of all. This might have been secured at @
small additional expense to the state. or
without expense to the state, by affording
it to all who so desired at the actual cos,
vAprnse Deing incurred in furnishing the
state with its quota of copies. AS it is.
Rutland is entitled to only some thirty
copies and other towns in proportion,
while the balance of the edition goes into
the state library "for distribution under
the direction of the state librarian"
The compiler has done his work well,
and it may not be amiss to call attention to
some of the decisions of our supreme court
relative to the laws governing schools and
we do this because it is subject with
which every one ought to be familiar, but
with which, unfortunately, they are not.
Our references shall be brief and IL NAV
prove that some of our readers will find in
them correction of some of their misap-
prehensions in reference to other matters
village meetings for instance. First as to
the meeting. No written request is neces-
sary to authorize the calling of special
meetings, the statute merely making it com
pulsory on a clerk to call special meeting
when requested in writing to do SO by a
proper number of legal voters, but even if
1t was necessary, such written request
would be presumed to have been made and
the meeting would be legal with or without
it. The warning must specify the hour of
meeting, otherwise it and all proceedings
under it are illegal-and the same is true
OF an adjourned meeting when the hour is
not specified and the notice must be given
neither more or less than the number of
days required by the statute, and must also
specify the business to be transacted, and
no business except that so specified can
legally be done.
This brings lis to point upon which
there ID greater misrepresentation, per-
haps, than upon any other, namely, the
familiar clause "To do any other bust
mess proper to be DONE" This is general
ly considered catch-al and cure-all for
all defects and omissions, and to authorize
the transaction of all business of every
Kind and nature, yet the court has repeat-
eddy declared that under 1t the district can
not vote to sell school house, to appoint
an agent with authority to sell, or to vote |
a tax, but that, in every instance, the |
warrant must specify the business TO be |
"done." The imperative necessity for this |
is illustrated In the case of Allen the CITY |
of Burlington-45 Vt. 2O3-where the
warning contained an article as follows
. To vote upon the question of raising
% money by tax or otherwise for
:" school purposes for the ensuing year.
Under it, the city voted that the wants of
he city required The erection of a high
school building and, for that purpose,
voted tax of twenty cents on the dollar,
but the supreme court decided that this
particular business was not specified in the
warrant and that "the vote assessing such
tax was illegal and void"
Upon this general question of taxation
and the tax payers are more interested in
his than in other matters-the law is yerv
stringent. A vote of district is absolute.
y necessary to make tax legal. and
although the statute requires the district TO !
'aise the teachers wages on the grand list
he prudential committee cannot assesa q
AK therefor without an express vote of The
district to that effect. And under a ,vor,
ng to see If the district would vote 10 ann
'ort school and to see how to sunnor,
aid school," where it was voted "to ans \