Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-09-28
MR. BARTLETTs RECORD as AN 0P-
P0NENT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

HR. BARTLETT'S RECORD AS AN 0P-
P0NENT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Readers of the REcoRD-UNIoN have
been familiarized with the debate concern
ing the State tax for maintenance Of the
common schools. Certain journals of San
Francisco have for years opposed, and still
lose no opportunity to assail the system
chat treats all the schools of the State as
of a common system and entitled to equal
support proportional to the number of
census children in the several districts.
The REcoRD-UNIoN has uniformly re-
piled to such journals, and stood for the
law.
Under this wise system there is insured
20 every child in the State at least six
months " schooling" in each year. Under
this progressive system a few thickly set
tied communities pay to the State school
fund more school money than is appor-
toned to them from the fund, while thinly
settled and remote districts receive more
from the fund, as they should, than they
pay in. And this is a right system. 1t
proceeds upon the fact that our county and
district divisions are for convenience in
operating State machinery only; hat the
interest of the State is in the education of
al the children of the State. But the OPP
ponents contend that a school district
should draw no more from the State than
it pays in, that is, every school district
should paddle its own canoe" Obvi-
ously this would deprive the children of
many districts of all common school privi-
leges, for the outlying districts are too
thinly peopled and too little developed to
support local schools by local tax, and
even many others more favored could not
maintain schools longer than from two to
four months in the year. i.
Mr.. Washington Bartlett, the nominee
of the Democracy for Governor is one of
the opponents we refer to. In his trench
ant address Saturday night, in this city,
Colonel Raymond referred to this fact,
and declared that Mr.. Bartlett, when in
the Legislature, had resisted and voted
against the bill establishing the present
SYSTEM. 1t was a point well made. Let
Us go a little further and see what are the
exact facts.
In 1878 Mr.. Tuttle of Sonoma, in the
State Senate, introduced a bill to amend
the school law. 1t provided for an ad
valorem State tax sufficient to raise seven
dollars per capita for all the school census
children in the State, and in addition an
nd valorem tax in each of the counties of
SO per capita for the education of all the
children in the State between the ages of
; and II years. In addition to this State
allowance there was added the poll tax
and the interest on bonds held in trust by
the State for the benefit of the school
funds, and the interest due for school lands
Sold by the State. Thus in 1884 the State
a-pportionuent per census child was So so,
while in 1888 it was IS "a and in 1882
s. 70. The county apportionment in 1882
was So %; in 1883, So 81, and in 1884
SO 25. So that between $11 and $12 are
assured each year for the common school
education of the children of the State
wherever there is a school district con-
tanning ten census children, and these ten,
though in the attitudes of Modoc, or the
remote hills of Inyo, have like privileges,
90 far as the State is concerned, with-the
children in San Francisco or Sacramento.
And who viii at this day, except Mr..
Bartlett and a few of the San Francisco
press, venture to say they should not?
This system is one of the strong reasons
advanced to induce immigration to the
new sections and the Development and
populating of the immense area of the
State. That it is wise, right and ought to
be maintained is unquestioned throughout
all the interior, and by all practical edu-
Gators. Bat Mr.. Washington Bartlett is of
San Francisco, where the ~niggardly senti-
ment largely prevails that the school fund
system ought to he abandoned, and that
San Francisco and Sacramento and Ala
media and Los Angeles and other well-to-
do counties, should not contribute more
to the school fund than they draw back,
though not ore of the opponents of the
system has eyer objected to receiving
their full measure OF the school funds flow
ing from sale of lands of the interior by
the State for school purposes.
1t was perhaps to have been expected,
that Nh. Bartlett, moving in the
San Francisco groove, would oppose the
school system as he did, for he is a man of
circumstance not of self-efort; since his
vote against the schools he has never an
nonnced a change of heart, and we must
assume is still opposed to the method. He
has annually witnessed the assault of San
Francisco upon the system, and the charge
Of ONE OF its leading journals e~ndeavoring
70 break it down, without a word of pro-
test, and viii, if elected Governor, be the
first Chief Magistrate opposed to the com
mon schools.
Mr.. Tuttle's bill, the record shows, was