tion of $2,000,000 to $2,500,000 receive $75. The rest of the income is distributed to towns in all of these four classes, in the proportion that their school tax forms of their whole tax. Certain conditions must be fulfilled, however; towns must comply, to the satisfaction of the State Board of Education, with all the school laws; and if having five hundred families, must maintain adequately equipped four-year high schools for thirtysix weeks, exclusive of vacations."

4. Aid to superintendency unions. To each superintendency union-lack of space forbids a careful description of this interesting and suggestive system-Massachusetts pays annually the sum of $1,250, of which $750 goes toward the superintendent's salary and $500 toward the teachers' salaries in the towns forming the union.

The effect of the law of 1902, providing for state reimbursement of tuition and for state aid to certain approved high schools, has been to bring a free high school education within the reach of every boy and girl in Massachusetts. Of course, the cost of transportation, tho many towns provide free conveyance of pupils, or of board away from home, is too great for some families that might otherwise send their children to high school. Altho other causes have certainly been operating, the law has no doubt increased high school attendance. In the majority of cases the efficiency of high schools has greatly increased under the law of 1902 and the stimulating influence of the superintendents. Because a large direct subsidy is paid and tuition payments are reimbursed, the state educational authorities have checked the tendency to increase the number at the expense of the quality of high schools, by setting high standards of efficiency. Tuition rates were generally not unduly increased as a result of the law; for the average cost per pupil was $54.16 for 1906-1907, while the average tuition rate was only $42.07.*

Altho the law has on the whole been very beneficial, it

Note the conflict in the law requiring towns of five hundred families to keep a high school for forty weeks; in smaller towns it must keep for forty weeks to receive the $500. Cf. I above.

Massachusetts Report, 1906-7, xciii.

nevertheless has certain defects. Dr. Snyder questions the wisdom of compelling a high school to give a four-year course in order to receive help from the state; most high schools of the country have past thru the one, two, and three-year stages of development. New York aids academic departments that have a course of one year or more. Mr. Macdonald, the Massachusetts state agent in charge of secondary schools, has shown that the state assists small towns that do not maintain high schools far more than those that do.

Probably it is desirable to encourage more strongly the formation of high schools in small towns. If the local school can be made reasonably efficient, a strong argument for its maintenance is found in the fact that only about three-fifths as many students will go to an outside school as would attend local one; there seem to be several good reasons why this is true in Massachusetts. Altho the strong outside secondary school can give better instruction than a small local institution, towns that have an option about maintaining a high school prefer to do so, except where the expense per pupil would be unreasonably great, or where a neighboring high school is easily accessible. The central educational authorities seem to make fairly good provision for preventing an inferior high school from receiving state aid. If, then, on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, it is granted that Massachusetts should still further encourage small towns to establish high schools, it might be well to increase the present grant of $500; for it is clear that in the average town of less than five hundred families it costs more to maintain a high school than to send secondary pupils elsewhere. Doubtless it is impossible fully to equalize the burdens of secondary education; but perhaps this ideal could be approached more nearly by making allowance, in granting state aid, for the size of permanent school funds as well as for the valuation of towns.

New York has several permanent funds, the income from which is made part of the general state appropriation for the support of schools. This money is distributed only to schools taking the state academic examinations; but these are mandatory only in the last two years of the course. Dr. Draper

has classified state aid to secondary education under four heads:

1. The quota of $100 to each non-sectarian school-the smallest item of state aid.

2. The state payment of tuition-second in amount.

3. The payment for library books, etc.-third in size.

4. The payment on the basis of attendance of academic students the largest item.

1. Each city, union district, and non-sectarian academy that maintains an academic department according to the laws, ordinances, and regulations of the Regents receives $100 for each academic department.

2. The free tuition law is the most effective agency for improving the small high schools, which receive the bulk of that apportionment. The state pays the tuition of non-resident students from a district without a four-year curriculum, provided that these pupils have completed the course maintained by the district in which they live. Village high schools receiving such students must make no charge for tuition, other than the $20 paid by the state. On the other hand, city high schools may make their usual tuition charge; the difference between this and the $20 paid by the state is defrayed by the districts in which students reside. There are four grades of academic departments in New York: the junior, middle, senior, and high school grades, having one, two, three, and four years respectively. Each school may, however, give instruction one year beyond its grade, but the state does not pay the tuition of non-resident students who are beyond the grade of the school. Until very recently schools below the high school and senior grades were not permitted to receive state tuition pupils; this limitation led many junior and middle schools to extend their curriculum and equipment so as to meet the requirements of the two highest grades. The demand for a change in the provision finally became so strong that it was acceded to; and now academic departments of all grades may admit nonresidents at state expense. Under the law the Commissioner lays down the conditions under which public secondary schools may receive these students; but "no school is compelled to

admit students under the provisions of this act" or is under any obligation to furnish free textbooks for them. He has accordingly prescribed that the school must be a union school, housed in a suitable building with laboratory facilities for individual instruction; it must maintain a standard of discipline and instruction satisfactory to the State Education Department; and it must include in its curriculum certain subjects prescribed for schools of various grades. The prerequisites that state tuition students must have, including the credentials that may be presented by them for entrance to an academic department, are oulined in detail. In these ways the tuition law gives the state a powerful influence over secondary education.

3. Besides granting $100 annually to each non-sectarian secondary school and paying for the tuition of non-resident students, the state appropriates each year a sum for approved library books, etc. Each non-sectarian private academy receives an amount equal to that raised locally for books, pictures, and apparatus, but not over $250. City high schools are provided for in a similar way. A union free school district that has an academic department is given not over $268, and $2 additional for each teacher in the district.

6

4. The fourth form of state aid is employed in the distribution of the balance of the state appropriation, which is apportioned on the basis of aggregate days' attendance of academic students. This amounts to over $3 per pupil.

About thirty small high schools are aided indirectly in another way. The state pays $800 toward the salary of a superintendent in a union free school district that has a population of at least 5,000.

It has been shown that state aid results in a powerful control over local high schools by the State Education Department, and more particularly by the Commissioner of Education. For small high schools as compared with large ones the $100 quota and the library grant are the most helpful, while the tuition law is the most important state agency for

New York State Education Department Circular, June 12, 1908. Chapter 683, Session Laws of 1906, as cited in Snyder, 74.

their improvement. It gives instruction to unusually able and industrious students; it stimulates many small schools to improve their buildings and their laboratory facilities, to extend their curriculum, and to employ more teachers. Thus they give better educational advantages not only to non-residents, but to residents as well."

The tuition law is of especial benefit to rural young people; for more than 10 per cent. of all the public secondary students in New York have their tuition paid and are therefore living in rural districts that do not maintain an academic department of four years. In 1906-1997, 77 per cent. of the money paid by the state for free tuition was to high schools in villages of less than 5,000. It might therefore seem that small towns maintaining academic departments are most benefited by this law. Such, however, is not the case; for tuition payments are anything but a financial benefit to most towns receiving them. The average annual cost of high school instruction in the State of New York was $80.87 in 1907. The actual per capita cost of high school instruction in the State of New York is, moreover, $3-$5 greater in villages than in cities, which may charge the difference between their usual tuition fee and the $20 paid by the state. Dr. Goodwin has pointed out that village schools with small classes are nevertheless anxious to meet the conditions prescribed for receiving non-resident students; for the accession of pupils enlarges and improves the schools without increasing the cost of instruction. Doubtless the last statement is not intended to be sweeping; for if a high school had reached the maximum enrollment that could be handled by the present teaching force, the addition of even a few pupils would necessitate the employment of an additional teacher. Certainly the admission of any considerable number of nonresident students would add materially to the running expenses. In most cases the higher requirements that would have to be met would increase the operating cost.

Altho the free tuition law has on the whole benefited secondary education thruout New York, it might be amended so that the burden of educational support would fall less heavily

7

1 E. J. Goodwin, EDUCATIONAL Review, XXXV, 497.