Section 12 forbids county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporations from becoming indebted more than 5 per cent on the value of taxable property therein, and further provides as follows:

Any county, city, school-district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall, before or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on such debt, as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same.

This section shall not be construed to prevent any county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation from issuing their bonds in compliance with any vote of the people which may have been had prior to the adoption of this constitution in pursuance of any law providing therefor.

CONSTITUTION OF WEST VIRGINIA, AUGUST 22, 1872.
ARTICLE VII.-Executive department.

SEC. 1. The executive department shall consist of a ent of free schools,

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State-superintend

. Their terms of office, respectively, shall be four years, and shall commence on the fourth day of March next after their election. They shall reside at the seat of government during their terms of office, and keep there the public records, books, and papers pertaining to their respective offices, and shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by law.

SEC. 2. An election for

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*, State-superintendent of free schools,

shall be held at such times and places as may be prescribed in this constitution or by general law.

SEC. 17. If the office of State-superintendent of free schools, shall become vacant by death, resignation, or otherwise, it shall be the duty of the governor to fill the same by appointment, and the appointee shall hold his office until his successor shall be elected and qualified in such manner as may be provided by law. The subordinate officers of the executive department, and the officers of all public institutions of the State, shall keep an account of all moneys received or disbursed by them, respectively, from all sources, and for every service performed, and make a semi-annual report thereof to the governor, under oath or affirmation; and any officer who shall willfully make a false report shall be deemed guilty of perjury.

SEC. 18. The subordinate officers of the executive department, and the officers of all the public institutions of the State, shall, at least ten days preceding each regular session of the legislature, severally report to the governor, who shall transmit such report to the legislature; and the governor may at any time require information in writing, under oath, from the officers of his department, and all officers and managers of State-institutions, upon any subject relating to the condition, management, and expenses of their respective offices.

SEC. 19.

hundred [dollars;]

The State-superintendent of free schools [shall receive] fifteen and no additional emolument or allowance, except as herein otherwise provided, shall be paid or made out of the treasury of the State to any of the foregoing executive officers on any account.

SEC. 1.

ARTICLE X.-Taxation and finance.

Property used for educational, literary, scientific, religious, or charitable purposes, may, by law, be exempted from taxation. SEC. 2. The legislature shall levy an annual capitation tax of one dollar upon each male inhabitant of the State, who has attained the age of twenty-one years, which shall be annually appropriated to the support of free schools. Persons afflicted with bodily infirmity may be exempted from this tax.

SEC. 7. County-authorities shall never assess taxes in any one year the aggregate of which shall exceed 95 cents per one hundred dollars valuation, except for the support of free schools.

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ARTICLE XII.-Education.

SEC. 1. The legislature shall provide by general law for a thorough and efficient system of free schools.

SEC. 2. The State-superintendent of free schools shall have a general supervision of free schools, and perform such other duties in relation thereto as may be prescribed by law. If in the performance of any such duty imposed upon him by the legislature he shall incur any expenses, he shall be re-imbursed therefor: Provided, The amount does not exceed five hundred dollars in any one year.

SEC. 3. The legislature may provide for county-superintendents and such other officers as may be necessary to carry out the objects of this article, and define their duties, powers, and compensation.

SEC. 4. The existing permanent and invested school-fund, and all money accruing to this State from forfeited, delinquent, waste, and unappropriated lands, and from lands heretofore sold for taxes, and purchased by the State of Virginia, if hereafter redcemed, or sold to others than this State; all grants, devises, or bequests that may be made to this State for the purposes of education, or where the purposes of such grants, devises, or bequests are not specified; this State's just share of the literary fund of Virginia, whether paid over or otherwise liquidated; and any sums of money, stocks, or property which this State shall have the right to claim from the State of Virginia for educational purposes; the proceeds of the estates of persons who may die without leaving a will or heir, and of all escheated lands; the proceeds of any taxes that may be levied on the revenues of any corporation; all moneys that may be paid as an equivalent for exemption from military duty; and such sums as may from time to time, be appropriated by the legislature for the purpose, shall be set apart as a separate fund, to be called the "school-fund," and invested, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, in the interest-bearing securities of the United States or of this State; or if such interest-bearing securities cannot be obtained, then said "school-fund" shall be invested in such other solvent interestbearing securities as shall be approved by the governor, superintendent of free schools, auditor, and treasurer, who are hereby constituted the "board of the schoolfund," to manage the same, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; and the interest thereof shall be annually applied to the support of free schools throughout the State, and to no other purpose whatever. But any portion of said interest remaining unexpended at the close of a fiscal year shall be added to and remain a part of the capital of the "school-fund:" Provided, That all taxes which shall be received by the State upon delinquent lands, except the taxes due to the State thereon, shall be refunded to the county or district by or for which the same were levied.

SEC. 5. The legislature shall provide for the support of free schools by appropriating thereto the interest of the invested "school-fund," the net proceeds of all forfeitures and fines accruing to this State under the laws thereof; the State-capitationtax; and by general taxation on persons and property, or otherwise. It shall also provide for raising in each county or district, by the authority of the people thereof,

such a proportion of the amount required for the support of free schools therein as shall be prescribed by general laws.

SEC. 6. The school-districts into which any county is now divided shall continue until changed in pursuance of law.

SEC. 7. All levies that may be laid by any county or district for the purpose of free schools shall be reported to the clerk of the county-court, and shall, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, be collected by the sheriff, or other collector, who shall make annual settlement with the county-court, which settlements shall be made a matter of record by the clerk thereof, in a book to be kept for that purpose. SEC. 8. White and colored persons shall not be taught in the same school.

SEC. 9. No person connected with the free-school-system of the State, or with any educational institution of any name or grade under State-control, shall be interested in the sale, proceeds, or profits of any book or other thing used or to be used therein, under such penalties as may be prescribed by law: Provided, That nothing herein shall be construed to apply to any work written or thing invented by such person. SEC. 10. No independent free-school-district or organization shall hereafter be created, except with the consent of the school-district or districts out of which the same is to be created, expressed by a majority of the voters voting on the question. SEC. 11. No appropriation shall hereafter be made to any State normal school, or branch thereof, except to those already established and in operation or now chartered. SEC. 12. The legislature shall foster and encourage moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; it shall, whenever it may be practicable, make suitable provision for the blind, mute, and insane, and for the organization of such institutions of learning as the best interests of the general education in the State may demand.

CONSTITUTION OF PENNSYLVANIA, DECEMBER 16, 1873.

ARTICLE III.-Legislation.

SEC. 7. The general assembly shall not pass any local or special law regulating the affairs of,

or school-districts,

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changing townshiplines, borough-limits, or school-districts; creating offices, or prescribing the powers and duties of officers or school-districts; regulating the management of public schools, the building or repairing of school-houses, and the raising of money for such purposes.

ARTICLE IV.-The executive.

SEC. 1. The executive department of this Commonwealth shall consist of a and a superintendent of public instruction.'

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SEC. 20. The superintendent of public instruction shall exercise all the powers and perform all the duties of the superintendent of common schools, subject to such changes as shall be made by law.

ARTICLE X.-Education.

SEC. 1. The general assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public schools, wherein all the children of this Commonwealth above the age of six years may be educated, and shall appropriate at least one million dollars each year for that purpose.

SEC. 2. No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school. SEC. 3. Women twenty-one years of age and upwards shall be eligible to any office of control or management under the school-laws of this State.

By section 8 of this article the office of superintendent of public instruction is required to be filled, for terms of four years, upon nomination of the governor and with the advice and consent of two-thirds of all the members of the senate. Vacancies in this office are to be filled by the gov ernor during the recess of the senate, but during their next session he must nominate a candidate for their confirmation or rejection. Executive sessions are held with open doors.-H.

CONSTITUTION OF ARKANSAS, 1874.

ART. V, SEC. 31. No State tax shall be allowed, or appropriation of money made, except to raise means for the payment of the just debts of the State, for defraying the necessary expenses of government, to sustain common schools, to repel invasion and suppress insurrection, except by a majority of two-thirds of both houses of the General Assembly.

ART. VI, SEC. 21. The Secretary of State shall keep a full and accurate record of all the official acts and proceedings of the Governor; and, when required, lay the same with all papers, minutes and vouchers relating thereto, before either branch of the General Assembly. He shall also discharge the duties of Superintendent of Public Instruction, until otherwise provided by law.

ART. XIV, SEC. 1. Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty, and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free schools, whereby all persons in the State, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, may receive gratuitous instruction.

SEC. 2. No money or property belonging to the public school fund, or to this State, for the benefit of schools or universities, shall ever be used for any other than for the respective purposes to which it belongs.

SEC. 3. The General Assembly shall provide, by general laws, for the support of Common Schools by taxes, which shall never exceed in any one year two mills on the dollar on the taxable property of the State; and by an annual per capita tax of one dollar, to be assessed on every male inhabitant of this State over the age of twentyone years: Provided, The General Assembly may, by general law, authorize school districts to levy, by a vote of the qualified electors of such district, a tax not to exceed five mills on the dollar in any one year for school purposes: Provided further, That no such tax shall be appropriated to any other purpose, nor to any other district than that for which it was levied.

SEC. 4. The supervision of public schools, and the execution of the laws regulating the same, shall be vested in and confided to such officers as may be provided by the General Assembly.

ART. XVI, SEC. 5. All property subject to taxation shall be taxed according to its value, that value to be ascertained in such manner as the General Assembly shall direct, making the same equal and uniform throughout the State : Pro

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vided further, That the following property shall be exempt from taxation: Public property used exclusively for public purposes; churches, used as such; cemeteries, used exclusively as such; school buildings and apparatus; libraries and grounds used exclusively for school purposes; and buildings and grounds and materials used exclusively for public charity.

CONSTITUTION OF ALABAMA, 1875.

ART. V. (Executive Department.) 1. The Executive Department shall consist of a Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Auditor, Attorney-General, and Superintendent of Education, and a Sheriff for each county.

ART. XI. (Taxation.) 8. At the first session of the General Assembly after the ratification of this Constitution, the salaries of the following officers shall be reduced at least twenty-five percentum, viz: Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer, Attorney-General, Superintendent of Education, Judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts, and Chancellors; and after said reduction the General Assembly shall not have the power to increase the same except by a vote of a majority of all the members elected to each House, taken by yeas and nays, and entered on the journals; Provided, this section shall not apply to any of said officers now in office.

ART. XIII. (Education.) 1. The General Assembly shall establish, organize and maintain a system of public schools throughout the State for the equal benefit of

the children thereof, between the ages of seven and twenty-one years; but separate schools shall be provided for the children of citizens of African descent.

2. The principal of all funds arising from the sale or other disposition of lands or other property, which has been or may hereafter be granted or entrusted to this State, or given by the United States for educational purposes, shall be preserved inviolate and undiminished; and the income arising therefrom shall be faithfully applied to the specific objects of the original grants or appropriations.

3. All lands or other property given by individuals, or appropriated by the State for educational purposes, and all estates of deceased persons, who die without leaving a will or heir, shall be faithfully applied to the maintenance of the public schools.

4. The General Assembly shall also provide for the levying and collection of an annual poll tax, not to exceed one dollar and fifty cents on each poll, which shall be applied to the support of the public schools in the counties in which it is levied and collected.

5. The income arising from the sixteenth section trust fund, the surplus revenue fund, until it is called for by the United States government, and the funds enumerated in sections three and four of this article, with such other moneys, to be not less than one hundred thousand dollars per annum, as the General Assembly shall provide by taxation or otherwise, shall be applied to the support and maintenance of the public schools, and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to increase, from time to time, the public school fund, as the condition of the Treasury and the resources of the State will admit.

6. Not more than four per cent. of all moneys raised, or which may hereafter be appropriated for the support of public schools, shall be used or expended otherwise than for the payment of teachers, employed in such schools; Provided, that the General Assembly may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, suspend the operation of this section.

7. The supervision of the public schools shall be vested in a Superintendent of Education, whose powers, duties, term of office and compensation shall be fixed by law. The Superintendent of Education shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State in such manner and at such time as shall be provided by law.

8. No money raised for the support of the public schools of the State, shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian or denominational school. 9. The State University and the Agricultural and Mechanical College shall each be under the management and control of a Board of Trustees. The Board of the University shall consist of two members from the congressional district in which the University is located, and one from each of the other congressional districts in the State. The Board for the Agricultural and Mechanical College shall consist of two members from the congressional district in which the College is located, and one from each of the other congressional districts in the State. Said Trustees shall be appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall hold office for a term of six years, and until their successors shall be appointed and qualified. After the first appointment each Board shall be divided into three classes, as nearly equal as may be. The seats of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of two years, and those of the second class in four years, and those of the third class at the end of six years from the date of appointment, so that one-third may be chosen biennially. No Trustee shall receive any pay or emolument other than his actual expenses incurred in the discharge of his duties as such.

The Governor shall be ex-officio President and the Superintendent of Education ex-officio a member of each of said Boards of Trustees.

10. The General Assembly shall have no power to change the location of the State University or the Agricultural and Mechanical College as now established by law, except upon a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly, taken by yeas and nays and entered upon the journals.