Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-03-10
TIE FALSE POSITION on TIE SCHOOL
QUESTION.

We confess surprise that journal, gen.
| orally so clear in its views, and SO liberal
in its estimate of true State policy as the
San Francisco Bulletin, should have gone
go far astray in its criticism Of the meth
DDS of distributing the school funds. 1t
discovers-whas every one knew-that
some counties contribute more TO the school
fund than they receive from it. Declaring
these TO be the thralls OF the State, it
closes a labored statistical review with
these words :" 1t would be more equitable
and economical for each county to support
its own schools" a fortnight ago the
RECORD UNION pointed out all the essen
tisl facts cited by the Bulletin, and called
attention to the errors of bill, then pend.
irg, TO change the system of distribution.
The author of the bill became convinced
of its injustice, and ceased to press it. The
school system of this State rests upon the
principle that it is maintained for all the
children Of the State. The distribution of
the school fund is made upon per capita
basis. The school age is fixed by minimum
and maximum, and an annual census taken
under restrictions that are sufficient,
and according to system well
guarded. County boundaries are recog-
nized only as matters of geograph.
ical convenience. They do not
limit in any manner the extension of the
benefits of the system to sll children. AS
there never can, in successive years, in
new country with light population, be
maintained an exact proportion of the
groups of children between given ages
because of the changes of residence,
death, the inequalities of the groups pass
ing into and out of school age, etc-it
follows that in some years counties which
drew money in excess of contribution will
in others contribute in excess of the sum
they receive. Where wealth is greatly
concentrated and taxable property largely
massed, there will be a constant excess OF
children does not have a proportionate re-
| lation to the amount of the assessment
roll. II it did, the prolific qualities and
capacities of the parents of San Francisco
and Sacramento, for instance, would be
the marvels of the world. Generally the
! production of children is in inverse ratio
to the amount of wealth in community.
| TO require each county to support its own
schools wholly would utterly destroy the
State system. 1t would punish those
people seeking to build up remote sections
and interior counties for their enterprise,
would tend to concentrate population at
centers of wealth, to the detriment of
sparsely. settled regions. and TO that extent
would defeat the aim of government to
raise up intelligent citizenship. and to
distribute the population upon all her acres.
The children in the State are the wards of
the State, in whatever county resident, and
entitled to equal advantages whether DOM
iciled in the city or in struggling rural dis
tricts. San Francisco has as deep an in
terest, in the relation she sustains to the
State, in the education of the children OF
the sections poor in worldly goods, as she
has in the intelligence of her own youth.
The concern of the State is for the chill
dren of the State, and the distribution of
the common bounty of the people per
capita is the only equitable method posi-
BILE to be employed. The contribution to
the common fund is not from counties, but
from the people, and the machinery of
| county government is only employed to
facilitate the method of contribution and
! distribution. For the Bulletin to take the
position that it does is inconsistent with
It's past course in the interests of the State
school system. To carry its argument to
logical sequence San Francisco should
bear disproportionately heavy share of
the burden of maintaining the prisons and
asylums, since she contributes the greater
share of their inmates, and counties should
be limited in scholarship privileges in the
University, since the great center of
wealth, as it contributes more to the ap-
preparations voted by the Legislature to
that institution than any other county,
should be secured in the right to absorb
proportionate share in The benefits. The
State contributions to the schools support
none they only aid the people who are
already sufficiently taxed by special school
levies. In short, the reasons to be ad.
duoed in favor of the present system of
distribution Of school money are as endless
as the position taken by the Bulletin is
absurd.