The Little River news., 1916-08-02
PUBLIC EDUCATION IN ARK
 ANSAS
No. 4. 4 Better System of Ia, ation.
By Dr. J. R. Jewell, Dean of Gchaol of Education, University of Arkansas

By Dr. J. R. Jewell, Dean of Gchaol of
 Education, University of Arkansas.
 No school revenue system IS good enough for Arkansas that does not give to every child within the state at least seven months a year of ela- mentary instruction. No revenue sys- tenn from now on will be quite good enough for our splendid state unless 1t offers to every qualified boy and girl free high school education Sev- eral of our ncigh5Cring states do this and we cannot afford to have peopl< in cur border counties feel they must move across the state line to hare their children we'll educated
 Any acceptable school revenue sys- tenn must provide that this education be furnished and paid for by the local school unit. if possible without exees- sive taxation; if not, then the sta-e must stand good for what is wanting We shall never have school system i in any way worthy of our boys and girls until Arkansas adopts as her educational motto: Local geograpny must and shali have no place in the education of our children It must no longer be possible for an Arkansae. cause he lives on the wrong side of the road and so Is in poor school district with little taxable property.
 Arkansas must go back to the ad- vice of Thomas Jefferson, that great Commoner, wAo said, Our country will decay unless we have a system of , instruction which will reach every de- scription of our citizens from the richest to the poorest. This principle was my earliest public concern, and it shall be the latest in WI ich l shall permit myself to take an interest No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom an happiness. He also regarded it as an economic question, and forever set tied the equity of taxing all the wealth of the state to distribute not in any percapita way, but rather placing it in the piaces of greatest need, when he said: If children are untaught, tIclI lS uOI duCcS anu wees Nllt III the future cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by good educa~ tion"
 Speaking by and large, the average school district of this state. city or rural, is not able to raise enough money by taxation to support as good school as are common m our neigh boring states. Many Arkansas con- munities indeed probably most of them, are perfectly willing to vote a larger school tax than is now posa, ble under our present constitutio1 ! The last Sage Foundation report showed that Oklahoma spends an nually 7b cents on her public schools per every one hundred dollars of wealth, while Arkansas spends only 29 cents. The amendment now be- fore the people of our state allowing communities if they wish to tax them selves at a higher rate than is now legal must carry, else our sovereignty as a people is in danger Indeed it 1 is hard to understand why state should pace any constitutional limit
 of taxation for education upon its
 people. It is like saying by law that
 no family shall spend more than so much per week for food.
 To have good schools for our chIl- dren we shall have to allow any com munity to tax itself twice the present | irp{f thop hnvn hA st o{s step in and aid wherever the comrnun-
 ity has so little taxable property that ] it cannot even then maintain good
 school for a minimum of say seven
 months Gin many states it is put at | eight months). The state must then
 pay the difference Last year there were some 100000 children not in school at all, and some day they will all vote.
 As a matter of self-protection to a good citizenship Arkansas should pro vide a good public school education for every boy and girl.
 l The solution is a township or count i ty tax for school purposes instead of the present district tax, which will do away at one stroke with the more O. vious inequalities of taxation betwe adjoining districts, one rich beoaus3 a railroad runs through it, and the other too poor to afford a school worthy of the name And then the state must compel attendance for a minimum og seven months of every child, and pay any balance Chat is yet necessary tD , -naintain tha school