Opinion ID: 2078305
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Free School Movement

Text: A significant force instigating the establishment and improvement of common schools was the free school movement. The name of the movement derives from the fact that the many common schools at the time were not entirely free because of the existence of the rate bill. Although poor families were exempted, the rate bill often had the effect of keeping thousands of children away from the common schools. Many parents were unwilling to be publicly adjudged indigent or too willing to overlook their children's truancy (Finegan, at 543). Those who supported the establishment and support of free public schools were often referred to as the friends of education. Students in New York City were not subject to the rate bill even after 1842 when the Legislature established public schools in the City under the general supervision of a board of education, in response to objections from Catholics to the Protestant leanings of the existing public schools (L 1842, ch 150). Free public schools were eventually established in the other large cities of the state, leaving the rate bill intact in other parts of the state. At the Constitutional Convention of 1846, the following provision was initially adopted by a close vote: The legislature shall provide for the free education and instruction of every child of the state in the common schools now established, or which shall hereafter be established. (3 Lincoln, at 528.) [5] It was intended that the provision would also be submitted to the people for their approval. The next day, however, the provision was defeated for reasons that are not known ( id. at 528). The friends of education pressed on, sending petitions to the Legislature. In his 1847 annual report, Superintendent Nathaniel Benton noted: The extension of free schools in the state is progressing moderately; and laws are passed nearly every session of the Legislature, providing for their establishment in populous and wealthy villages [including New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, and the Village of Poughkeepsie]; while the poorer and less populous districts, in the same towns, are left to struggle on, from year to year, in the best way they cansustaining a school perhaps only four months in the year, to secure the next apportionment of the public moneys. Is this policy just?is it right to discriminate in this manner, between the school children of the state? Why should ample provision be made for the children residing in particular localities, and others turned over to the naked bounties of the state; which, although munificent in the aggregate, are only sufficient to pay a few weeks tuition for each child? (Randall, at 67.) Two years later, in 1849, after receiving numerous petitions, the Legislature enacted an Act Establishing free schools throughout the state, providing that [c]ommon schools in the several school districts in this state shall be free to all persons residing in the district, over five, and under twenty-one years of age (L 1849, ch 140, § 1). The act applied to all of the public schools, including New York City. Boards of supervisors were required to tax each county and town the same amount of money each was entitled to receive from the State, which was based on population. School districts were given the authority to present the voters an estimate of certain expenses, and if approved by the voters, levy the approved amount by a property tax (Randall, at 74). The law was made contingent on approval by the voters, and later it was approved by a vote of 249,872 to 91,951. Despite its high margin of approval, the law did not prove popular. According to the 1851 report of Superintendent Christopher Morgan, the boards of supervisors failed to make the necessary appropriations, leaving the school districts to raise the necessary funds. Moreover, [i]nequalities in the valuations of taxable property contributed, in many localities, greatly to aggravate this burden, and a spirit of opposition to the new law, inflamed by its determined opponents, manifested itself at the primary district meetings, and too often resulted in the entire rejection of the estimates prepared by the trustees    Appeals were assiduously made to the cupidity of the heavy tax-payerstheir interests sought to be arrayed against that of their less favored brethren, and against the interests of their children    (Randall, at 80). In arguing for a more practical law rather than the elimination of the free school system, the Superintendent addressed the primary argument against free schools: why should certain taxpayers contribute to the education of other people's children. Echoing the arguments of Horace Mann and other friends of education, Superintendent Morgan argued in his 1851 annual report to the Legislature: Educate every child, `to the top of his faculties,' and you not only secure the community against the depredations of the ignorant and the criminal, but you bestow upon it, instead, productive artisans, good citizens, upright jurors and magistrates, enlightened statesmen, scientific discoverers and inventors, and the dispensers of a pervading influence in favor of honesty, virtue and true goodness. Educate every child physically, morally and intellectually, from the age of four to twenty-one, and many of your prisons, penitentiaries and alms-houses will be converted into schools of industry and temples of science, and the immense amount now contributed for their maintenance and support will be diverted into far more profitable channels    If facts are required to illustrate the connection between ignorance and crime, let the official return of convictions in the several courts of the State for the last ten years be examined, and their instructive lessons be heeded. Out of nearly 28,000 persons convicted of crime, but 128 had enjoyed the benefits of a good common school education; 414 only had what the returning officers characterize as a `tolerable' share of learning; and the residue, about one-half only could either read or write. ( Id. at 83.) The same year, the Legislature repealed the law, re-enacting the provision quoted. [6] The new act provided for an annual tax of $800,000, one third of which and all other funds would be distributed equally among the districts, and the rest distributed according to the number of children between the ages of 5 and 21. In addition, any other expenses would be provided by a rate bill exempting indigent persons (Randall, at 85). In 1853, the Legislature enacted the Union Free School Act (L 1853, ch 433) which allowed the inclusion of secondary education within common schools, heretofore limited to primary education. Two or more school districts could merge and create an academy, then the term for high school, under the immediate supervision of a board of education. The Superintendent retained general supervision over the common schools, while the Regents were in charge of supervising and regulating admissions requirements of the high schools. In his 1855 message, Governor Myron Clark, noting that [a]mong the subjects which will require your attention there is none of more importance than the system of public education of the State, urged the Legislature to improve the system by eliminating the rate bill, and creating more high schools. (Finegan, at 528.) In regards to the latter, he noted that in New York City, [a] free academy has been added to the system, in which a large and competent corps of professors and tutors has been provided, a plan of study extending over five years and embracing all the branches of study pursued in the best colleges of the country has been adopted, scientific apparatus, libraries, and all the aids requisite for study have been furnished, and the general discipline and course of instruction have been made in all respects of the highest and most efficient character.    While I am aware that large cities afford facilities for such a system, which cannot be fully enjoyed in the rural districts, I think that something may be done throughout the State in this direction. A voluntary beginning, indeed, has already been made in some sections, by the establishment of union schools; and their success shows that the system is not wholly impracticable ( id. at 530). In 1867, after years of arduous and vigorous lobbying from the friends of education, the Legislature eliminated the rate bill by chapter 406 of the Laws of 1867, thus allowing all students in the state to attend school for free without any out-of-pocket contributions (3 Lincoln, at 530). A year later, Governor Reuben Eaton Fenton noted that the elimination of the rate bill was producing a very large increase in the aggregate number of pupils at the schools, and greater regularity in their attendance. ( Id. at 531.) The Constitutional Convention that took place in 1867 adopted the following provision: The legislature shall provide for the free instruction in the common schools of this state, of all persons between seven and twenty years of age. The spokesman for the education committee stated as follows: [I]f there is any thing that should be constitutionalized because of its great importance, it is the all-important, overriding interest of education. Sir, I regard it as being paramount to every other interest in this State. I regard this article as being more important to the people of the State, to every man, woman and child in the State than any other article that has been under consideration in this Convention (4 Proceedings and Debates of 1867-1868 NY Constitutional Convention, at 2856). Because of an unrelated political controversy, the Convention disbanded without any amendment to the Constitution. At the next Constitutional Convention in 1894, the committee on education drafted the clause that became section 1 of the Education Article: The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated. (2 Documents of 1894 NY Constitutional Convention No. 62, at 1.) As to the reason for constitutionalizing the duty of the State to establish and maintain a system of free common schools, the committee on education stated as follows: It may be urged that no imagination can picture this State refusing to provide education for its children, and for this reason the declaration which your committee have reported in section one might, no doubt, be omitted without endangering the stability of our present system of education. But the same reasoning would apply to many other matters though fundamental    ( id. at 3). In a comment that, in part, explains the brevity of the section, the committee stated, No desire to confine the new Constitution to the narrowest possible limits of space should prevent the adoption of an enactment declaring in the strongest possible terms the interest of the State in its common schools. ( Id. at 4.) In regards to the purpose of ensuring that the children of the state have the opportunity to obtain a free education in the state's common schools, the committee stated: Whatever may have been their value heretofore, and language has been strained to the utmost in applying to them terms of praise, their importance for the future cannot be overestimated. The public problems confronting the rising generation will demand accurate knowledge and the highest development of reasoning power more than ever before, and in view of the State's policy as to higher education, to which reference will presently be made, too much attention cannot be called to the fact that the highest leadership is impossible without intelligent following, and that the foundation of our educational system must be permanent, broad and firm, if the superstructure is to be of real value ( id. ). The words of the committee echo the words of those who supported free public education, beginning with Governor George Clinton.