counties. The errors have never before been so many, or Of the capital of the Common School Fund, and the im so great. The amount unappropriated last year was only $5,727.14; and this sum was mostly in the cities of Albany, Brooklyn and Hudson. 4. The estimates for the year 1847. My predecessor, in his annual report, dated December 31, 1847, submitted the following estimate of the expenditures for the year 1847: provement and management thereof. 1. Of the capital. The superintendent is not vested with any power to advise or control the management or investment of the Common School Fund. The fund is committed to the exclusive custody of the Comptroller. A detailed statement, therefore, cannot be made by this department. On the 30th day of September, 1848, the productive ca The expenditures for the year 1847 in payment of teach-pital of the Common School Fund of the State, consisted of ers' wages, and for the increase of school district libraries, the following items and sums of money: which are not officially reported to this department until Amount of bonds for lands sold, the year 1848, may be stated as follows: Bonds for loans, Appropriation of revenue from the Common Loan of 1792,. School Fund, distributed Feb. 1, 1847, .. Amount distributed from the income of the U. S. Deposite Fund, per act chap. 8 of the Laws of 1847, for the support of common schools, Amount equal to the above, raised by the $110,000 00 Loan of 1808,.... State stock,.. Bank stock,....... 165,000 00 Comptroller's bonds,.. 275,000 00 462,840 00 $1,313,745 96 The sum expended, according to the reports, was $1,189,897.92. The Superintendent over-estimated the amount to be raised by voluntary taxes in towns, and under special laws in cities. 5. Estimates for 1848. Increase during the year ending Sept. 30 $744,854 97 236,901 74 97,363 14 198,772 03 8,200 00 280,500 96 50,000 00 451,645 49 143,236 81 $2,211,475 14 2,170,514 47 $40,960 67 About 301,759 acres of land are set apart as a portion of the Common School Fund, but are not taken into account in the above statement of the items constituting the fund. By article nine of the constitution, $25,000 are required to be annually transferred from the income of the United States Deposite Fund to the capital of the Common School Fund. A reference to a statement hereto annexed, marked B, will show that the only sum of $17,041 42 has been transferred from said income to the said capital for the year 1848. To make up the deficiency, bonds belonging to the United States Deposite Fund, have been transferred to the School Fund. The explanation of this exchange of bonds, instead of transfer of income, may, perhaps, be found in the fact that the Legislatures of 1847 and 1848, appropriated from the income of the United States Deposite Fund, for both the years 1848 and 1849, sums which, in the aggregate, exceed that income. The necessity of a constitutional provision, to secure this annual transfer, is very apparent from an examination of the appropriations from the Deposite 165,000 00 Fund for 1848 and 1849. See statement hereto annexed, marked C. The reports of trustees are required to be dated the 31st day of December in each year; therefore, the actual expenditure for 1848 will appear from their reports to be dated December 31, 1848. $110,000 00 Annual appropriation of the revenue arising from the Com- Total, 6. Estimates for 1849. Annual appropriation from the revenue of Estimated amount to be paid on rate bills, . The residue of the above increase of capital, $15,960 67, 275,000 00 is detailed in statement hereto annexed marked B. 190,000 00 10,000 00 $120,000 00 165,000 00 285,000 00 It is presumed that the Legislature will continue the annual appropriation of $165,000, from the revenue of the United States Deposite Fund, for the support of common schools, and after transferring $25,000 of that revenue yearly to the capital of the Common School Fund, care will be taken hereafter not to appropriate more than the residue. This fund is a trust, and the State is responsible for its good management, as well as its security. The capital should be kept whole. If losses occur by unsafe investments, they must be made good out of the annual income of other loans. The productive capital of the school fund, provided the Amount from the United States Deposit $2,211,475 14 2,750,000 00 416,666 67 $5,378,141 81 The annual interest on this sum at six per cent is $322,688.50. Was 2. Of the Improvement and Management of the Fund. On the 30th day of September 1817, one of the items going to make up the capital of the Common School Fund, Comptroller's Bond," $51,645.49. At the same date in 1848, this item has increased to $451,645.49. The item of State Stocks last year was $115,500,96 and this year it is $280,500.96. The direct liability of the State to third of the whole fund. If to this sura be added the money in the State Treasury, the liabiliy of the State will be $875,383 26, or very nearly two-fifths of the fund. As bonds for lands and bonds for loans are annually paid, the mo ney is received into the Treasury, and if the process of absorption goes on in future, as rapidly as it has for a few years past, the whole capital of the School Fund will pass into the Treasury, be used in payment of the debts of the general fund, and converted into State Stock and Comptroller's bonds. Thus State necessities bid fair to make the State the only debtor to the Common School Fund. the School Fund is therefore 732,146.45, or nearly one In the county of Hamilton 11,175 volumes were reported last year, and only 971 this year. Such a difference must be the result of gross negligence. The number reported this year is probably, nearly correct. The whole diminu tion in the above counties is about 25,000 volumes. Some libraries have doubtless been sold under the law directing their sale upon the formation of new districts. The formation of every new district would require the sale of at least two libraries. But this does not satisfactorily account for the loss of so many volumes. By the Ninth article of the constitution, the faith of the State is pledged to the preservation inviolate of the capital of the Common School Fund. But the spirit of this article will not be observed by merely maintaining the integrity of the The aggregate increase in the State over last year is capital. The great object of the fund may be partially lost or 27,862. The aggregate decrease in several counties is totally defeated by its improper management, or by its unpro-25,000, thus showing that 52,862 new books must have been ductive investment. It is the income which is to be dis- added to the libraries during the past year. tributed throughout the State, and the practical value of the fund depends entirely upon the amount of the income. Money paid into the Treasury on account of the fund is deposited in banks, at an interest of three and a half per cent. The State is benefitted by the money, whether receiving interest on it as a deposit, or using it for the ordi-effect, many districts exercised the privilege granted by nary purposes of the government. There is no law requiring the payment of interest on this money to the School Fund, but I understand it has been the practice of the Comptroller to credit the School Fund with the interest received by the State from the Deposit Banks. The fund is a loser by this operation. A clause in chap. 8, laws of 1817, was construed by my predecessor to authorise a district by a majority of votes at a special mteting, to apply the library money to the payment day of January 1848, when chap 480, laws of 1847, took of teacher's wages. From the date of that act up to the 5th chap. 8, and voted to expend their library money for teach- If there should be constantly in the Treasury the sum of $100,000, the income to the fund would be only $3,500 per annum, instead of $6,000 if invested in bonds and mortgages. The undersigned, therefore, respectfully recommends to the Legislature the enactment of a law direct-district library, until otherwise directed; but whenever the ing the Comptroller to credit the Common School Fund with interest at six per cent upon all money belonging to that fund, remaining in the Treasury. When bonds, loans, or stocks belonging to the school fund, and drawing an interest of five, six or seven per cent. are paid, and the money received into the Treasury, the same should be immediately reloaned on equally good securities, or the State should allow interest on the sums thus withheld from in vestment. If the Comptroller uses the money as it comes into the Treasury, seems to be only just, that his bonds should bear an interest equal to that of the fund from which the money was derived. It is quite material to the school fund whether his bonds bear an interest of five, six or seven per cent. The State should not, like a shrewd and unconscionable guardian, turn a trust estate to its own profit, by retaining uninvested in the Treasury, to be used in defraying the current expenses of the government, or to be loaned for its convenience at three and a-half per cent to banks, as the basis of discounts, the common inheritance of the 800,000 children, who are more or less dependant upon the income of that estate for their intellectual sustenance. number of volumes in the district library of any district, numbering over fifty children between the ages of five and sixteen years, shall exceed one hundred and twenty-five; or of any district numbering fifty children or less, between the said ages, shall exceed one hundred volumes, the inhabitants of the district qualified to vote therein, may, at a spe cial or annual meeting duly notified for that purpose, by a majority of votes, appropriate the whole, or any part of the library money belonging to the district for the current year, to the purchase of maps, globes, black boards, or other scientific apparatus for the use of the school. And in every district having the required number of volumes in the district library, and the maps, globes, black boards, and other of the state superintendent, may be applied to the payment apparatus aforesaid, the said moneys, with the approbation of teacher's wages. About four hundred applications have been made to the superintendent for his approbation as provided in the above section. He has withheld it in all cases, believing that every volume of a well-selected library is a perpetual teacher to all who will go to it for instruction. A great variety of excuses have been given for importunate requests. In one disBy allowing the Comptroller to exchange six and seven trict the school house has been burnt, in another a great per cent investments of the Common School Fund, for five many poor children have to be exempted; in one, the books per cent stock of the Canal debt, the School Fund is robbed are never read, except by a few, in another, the library is for the benefit of the Canal Fund. The resources of in- already inconveniently large; in one, the living teacher is tellectual improvement are diminished to add to the phy- better than a book, in another no books are needed because sical prosperity of the State. The business of men is pre-voted it, and again the trustees desire it; in all, the taxes the people do not appreciate them; in one, the district has ferred to the education of youth. The undersigned is well assured that the constitutional provision will preserve the capital inviolate but the income may be materially affected by the mode of investment. are oppressive, and the money, in each particular case, is more needed, and will be more useful, than the books. The undersigned believes that the district libraries can not be too large, and that the people are in no danger of learning too much. Selections for the district libraries, are made from the whole range of literature and science, with the exception of controversial books, political or religious; history, biography, poetry, philosophy, mental, moral and natural, fiction; indeed every department of human knowledge contributes its share to the district school library. The object of this great charity was not merely to furnish books for children, but to establish in all the school districts, a miscellaneous library suited to the tastes and characters of every age. By means of this diffusive benevolence, the light of knowledge penetrates every portion of the State, and the sons of our farmers, merchants, mechanics and laborers, have daily access to many well selected books, of which, but for this sagacious policy of our State, a majority of them would have never heard. If knowledge is power, who can calculate the energy imparted to the people of this State by the district school, and the district-library? 4. Teacher's Institutes. By chap. 361, laws of 1847, sixty dollars were appropriated out of the income of the United States Deposit Fund, to defray the expenses of holding teachers' institutes in each of the several counties in the State, which should comply with the provisions of the act. Upon receiving a petition signed by a majority of the town superintendents of any county, the clerk of said county is required to appoint three town superintendents an advisory committee, whose duty it is to give notice of a time and place where teachers and others may meet to organise an Institute. Upon the question of forming an Institute, teachers only can vote, and if they decide in the affimative the organization is completed under the advice and direction of the advisory committee. An accurate account in items of the expenses of the Institute, duly verified, must be presented to the county treasurer, who, after being satisfied that not less than fify, or in counties having a population under thirty thousand, not less than thirty, teachers, and individuals intending to become teachers of common schools, within one year, shall have been in regular attendance on the instructions and lectures of the Institute in the county, during at least ten working days, will credit and allow said account and pay over to the committee not exceeding sixty dollars in any one year, to be distributed by said committee in paying the expenses aforesaid. By section 5 of said act the said advisory committee is required to transmit to the state superintendent a catalogue of the names of all persons who shall have attended such Institute, with such other statistical information, and within such time as may be prescribed by the state superintendent. In pursuance of the last named section, the superintendent required such advisory committee to transmit to the department, on or before the 1st day of December in each year, 1st. A catalogue of the names of all the persons who shall have attended such Institute, their place of residence, and post office address. 2d. The names of the officers of the Institute and the lecturers. 3d. A statement of the subjects upon which lectures have been delivered. 4th. A statement of the classes into which the Institute was divided, the studies pursued, and the text books used. 5th. The time the Institute was organised, the length of such term held, and the time and place fixed for holding future terms. 6th. A copy of the accounts rendered to the county treasurer. 7th. A report upon the condition of the schools, and the general state of public instruction, in the county. 8th. Any other information that the committee may deem interesting or useful, or calculated to promote the cause of common school education. Reports have been received from sixteen Institutes in pursuance of such instructions, held in the counties of Cattaraugus, Chautauque, Chenango, Jefferson, Livingston, It will be seen that the expenses have, in many instances been graduated to the State appropriation. The items of the accounts rendered to the county Treasurers are mostly for wood, lights, printing, and services of lecturers and teachers. The sum appropriated by the Legislature is barely sufficient to defray the most economical expenses of holding an Institute. If a larger sum were appropriated, longer sessions could be held, able lecturers, and teachers could be employed and reasonably paid for their services. It is not proposed to make the Institute a permanent school. Not more than two sessions could be conveniently held in a year, each continued a fortnight. But if a permanent organization can be effected in every county, if the teachers, and persons intending to become teachers, the town superintendents, and other school officers, can be assembled semi-annually, to hear lectures upon educational topics, to consult with and advise each other, to porpose and discuss modes of teaching, to form acquaintance, and cultivate good feeling, and if a correspondence with this department can be kept up, the Institute may be productive of incalculable good to teachers, to pupils, and the community at large. A State Normal School has been established, especially designed for the education of the common school teacher, a wiser direction and more beneficent effect may be given to the labors of the school, if the State will grant its aid to the teachers, after they have left the Normal School, by building up Institutes in every county, wherein they may renew their acquaintance, and rehearse their normal stu dies, arrange plans and unite their efforts to promote the great cause in which they are engaged. The school money is but the stinted reward of the teacher's labors. If he is the recipient of the bounty of the State, he is also the almoner of its blessings. I would recommend a considerable increase in the ap propriation to Teachers' Institutes. Two or three counties with a population each less than thirty thousand might be permitted to form a joint institute and thus unite their means. The approriation might be paid by the Comptroller, upon the receipt of a certificate from the Superintendent of Common Schools, that the institute had been organized according to law, had held its annual session, and complied with the statute, and the regulations of this Department. If the plan of district or county superintendents, recommended in another part of this report, shall be adopted, the officers so elected might be the managers of the institutes, employing the lecturers, disbursing the money, and making the annual report. It is believed that institutes thus formed and brought into correspondence with this Department, may become its powerful auxiliaries, and greatly enhance the value and efficiency of the Common School system. 3. Of Supervision and Inspection.. By chap. 353, Laws of 1847, the office of County Supe rintendent of Common Schools was abolished. From the creation of this office much good was anticipated, and, in the opinion of the undersigned, much was realized. Various reasons were assigned for the repeal of the act. The small tax which it imposed upon the several counties was, doubtless, among the most imperative, and it cannot be denied that the selection in some counties, of incompetent and unfaithful superintendents, brought the law into disfavor. The abolition of the office of County Superintendent has increased the labor and correspondence of this Department four-fold. Formerly appeals were brought from the town to the County Superintendent, and the decisions of the latter were generally acquiesced in. Appeals are now brought to this Department from the orders of town superintendents in the formation and alteration of school districts; from the acts of Trustees, or their refusal to act; from the proceedings of district meetings; and upon every question that can arise under the school laws. All the town superintendents and the trustees of all the school districts in the State, come directly to this Department for advice and instruction. More letters have been received and answered the past year than for several years previous. The act abolishing the office of County Superintendent was, in the judgment of the undersigned, a retrogressive movement. The act, chap. 330. Laws of 1839, providing for the appointment of County Visiters, was passed with a direct purpose to examine into the condition of the schools, and to ascertain and suggest the best means of improving them. It was from an examination of their reports, and af ter mature deliberation, that the office of County Superintendent was created. in 1841, a few extracts are made, showing the opinions of From reports made to the Superintendent by Visiters men who gave voluntarily, a considerable portion of their time to a visitation of the Common Schools, with a view of ascertaining their real condition, and suggesting measures to raise them to a higher standard of excellence. In his preface to the several reports, the Superintendent says:-"With few exceptions the Visiters concur in recommending the appointment of County Superintendents, as among the most essential of the improvements suggested." Messrs. James Wadsworth, Wm. C. Dwight and George W. Patterson, Visiters of Livingston county say:-"The committee, after another year's examination of the schools, are entirely convinced of the necessity of a county inspector or superintendent." Mr. John F. Seymour, inspector of Oneida county says: "Would not a board of examiners, consisting of three, or five men, who should be in every way competent, and before whom all teachers should be examined, improve our schools, and put an end to the employment of teachers utterly incompetent, and whose only recommendation is their cheap. ness ?" Between April 17th, 1843, when County Superintendents Mr. J. L. Mayo, of Onondaga county says; «We have are authorized to decide appeals, and Nov. 13th, 1847, when the office was abolished, the number of appeals from great confidence in the labors of an agent or supervisor appointed in each county, whose whole time and talents their decisions, brought to this Department, was 192.- shall be employed in visiting schools, correcting errors in Since Nov. 13th, 1847, the number of appeals brought di- teaching, or discipline, reforming abuses where such exist, rectly to this Department has been 140. All appeals from forming town and county associations, reading reports of his the orders of Town Superintendents forming or altering dis-own observations, giving lectures, &c., and thus by keeping tricts, would be much more inteligently and satisfactorily the ball in constant motion, to awaken and keep alive an decided by an officer who could visit the locality, and judge excitement on the subject, which would not otherwise exist." of the necessity or expediency of the order appealed from by personal observation. County Clerks do not prepare the abstracts of town superintendents' reports with the same care and accuracy formerly bestowed upon them by County Superintendents. From the multiplicity and pressing demands of other duties, the work must be comitted to the hands of mere copyists, unacquainted with the school laws. Even few lawyers are familiar with the school laws and forms. County Clerks therefore, or their deputies, copy the errors of town superintendents, without knowing them to be errors, or if detected, without the means or the disposition to correct them. They cannot leave their offices to call upon the town superintendents, and will not take the trouble to write to them, exceptin obedience to the strict letter of the law. The duty was imposed upon them because it could not well be charged upon any other officer. In the aggregate the saving of expense to the State by the abolition of the office has been inconsiderable. The in creased expense to the Secretary's Office in the Department of Common Schools, cannot be less than $1,500 a year. The County Clerks will charge for making the abstracts, probably not less than $30 each, which is $1,740 for the State. The increased pay of Town Superintendents for additional services in the supervision and inspection of schools, and the examination of teachers, must be at least $20 for each, or $17,460 for the State. These three items make the sum of $20,700. The whole sum annually paid to County Superintendents was about $26,000. Nothing was gained by abolishing the office on the score of economy, if the services of those officers were of any value, because by the above showing, the money saved is only $5,300, which should be further diminished by the subtraction of $500, now annually paid to the County Superintendent of New York. The compensation of the Town Superintendents varies from $30 to $100 a year. If the avearage sum paid them is $75, then the expense for the State will be $65,475. Mr. Saxton Smith of Putnam county says:-" I am fully in the belief that our present mode of electing inspectors at our town meetings, is a bad one, and should be abolished; and that the duties thereof should wholly devolve on the Commissioners of Common Schools, or a County Superintendent appointed by the State Superintendent." Jacob Hardenburgh and Edmond Eltinge, of Ulster county say: "We concur in opinion of Visiters, in reports of last year, as to abolishing the office of Inspectors of Common Schools, and the appointment of a county inspector, whose business it shall be to inspect teachers, and have a general supervision over schools, and to deliver lectures to awaken public attention to the subject of education, with such a compensation for his services as will warrant his undivided attention thereto, being satisfied that the present gratuitous system of visitation will prove inefficient; and that the preficers is inadequate." sent system of inspecting schools and teachers by town of Messrs. William N. Clark, James C. Brown, and Francis Dwight of Ontario county say:--"The people, conscious that the prevailing defects of their schools are owing to the inefficiency and incompetency of their inspectors, look to the appointment of local superintendents, as the great measure of reform. Not, that we are so quixotic as to suppose, that this alone will prove a specific for all the disorders of the system, but we do believe it to be assential to the very commencement of general improvement." My predecessors in office, without exception, approved the appointment of County Superintendents, considered it an improvement of the Common School system, and disapproved of the abolishment of the office. In his annual report, dated Jan. 12, 1843, Col. Young, referring to the expense of the system, remarks!—" He who now occupies the station of State Superintendent, derived his first impressions of this law from such an association of ideas; and in entering upon the duties of the office felt a decided predisposition to exercise whatever in luence he might possess. to save the expense hy an aboliion of the office." He further says:-"The system of deputy superintenHents can be made to supersede official duty heretofore bady performed, and taxation heretofore imposed with little resulting utility, to an amount greatly exceeding the expense of the system." In respect to the competency of the much maligned County Superintendents to discharge their duties, the lack of which was urged as a strong reason for abolishing the office, Col. Young, whose prejudices were forced on examination to yield to his judgment, speaking of a convention of those officere, held at Utica, in May, 1842, says: "It is no unmeaning compliment to allege that for the purpose of illustrating and improving the important principles of elementary instruction, no body of men, of equal information and devotedness, has ever before assembled in this State." If those officers were not in every instance competent and faithful to their trust, the fault was in the appointing power. If a wise selection was not always made, does that furnish a sound reason for destroying the office? It may safely be said that no other office in the State would bear So severe a test. It is believed that the friends of the Common School system in the State, very generally desired the continuance of the office. It was, however, abolished, without petitions from any considerable number of citizens, and without even proposing a substitute. There is now no intermediate officer between this Department and the town officers. Such an office is needed as the medium of communication between this Department and the nine hundred town superintendents, and eleven thousand school districts. The territory is too large; its subdivisions too many; its relations too diverse; the local officers too numerous; and the interval between the Department and them too wide, to permit that actual and minute supervision which is necessary to an efficient administration of the School laws. The undersigned would, therefore, recommend to the Legislature two measures, either of which, in his opinion, will be approved by the friends of the Common School system, and will supply a want daily felt in this Department. 1st. A repeal of chap. 358, Laws of 1847, restoring to the office of County Superintendent, and making it elective by the people. 2d. The election of a Superintendent in every Assembly district, except in the city of New York, and the cities which now have, or shall hereafter have a City Superintendent, or Board of Education, to manage their school affairs. wages. At the close of his term, they give him an order A teacher having performed his contract, is yet obliged, unless the trustees advance the money, to wait thirty, or sixty days for his pay. The first thirty days' delay under the notice is no advantage to any one. The time of the trustees is spent uselessly. Nothing is gained by payment to the trustees. Is there any other instance upon the Statute book in which legislation compels a man to wait sixty days for his wages after he has completed his work? In the absence of any contract, the wages of the laborer are due and payable, when his work is done. In the case of the teacher, the payment of his wages is postponed for sixty days after his school is closed, for payment from trustees cannot be enforced, until the time fixed by law for collection has expired. A slight error in the apportionment of the rates, or in the legal forms of making it, subjects the trustees to a suit by any one of whom a few cents may have been illegally collected; and, unfortunately, there are not wanting in every town persons ready to avail themselves of such errors. The trustees can, if they choose, make out a tax for the amount of exemptions, and the collector is bound to collect it for the trifling fees, upon a five, or ten dollar tax-list. A law has been passed, authorizing courts to deny costs to a plaintiff in a suit against trustees, and also authorizing boards of supervisors to order a tax to be assessed upon a district to refund costs and expenses incurred in suits by, or against them, on account of the discharge of their official duties.—But the law allows them nothing for their responsibility and labor, either in the discharge of their duties, or in the prosecution, or defence of suits. If the latter measure should be adopted, I would recommend that the salary of such officer be fixed at not less than $200 per year, in each Assembly district, composed of towns, and that the same be a county charge; that the salary of City Superintendents be fixed by the civil authorities thereof, as shall be provided in their several charters or city laws and ordinances; and that not less than $200 of such salary be a county charge. Among the powers and duties of such District Superintendent should be the following:-To make the abstract of the reports of the Town Superintendents in his district, at the same time and in the same manner now required of the County Clerks; to recommeud persons from his district as pupils in State Normal School; to recommend each year two teachers in his district as worthy to receive a State certificate; to visit each school in his district at least twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter, to make such report of his visitation as may be required by the State Superintendent; to hear and determine all controversies arising in his district under the school laws, an appeal being allowed from his decision to this Depart-to their peculiar wants. ment. The Superintendent makes these suggestions with diffidence, and only from a sense of their necessity. Now, a free school system may be devised that shall relieve trustees from the duty of making out rate-bills, or tax-lists, in any case, and from all litigation arising therefrom, and which shall secure to the teacher his pay when his work is done. It may be made applicable only to the towns, requiring the cities, however, to make their schools free, but leaving them to adopt such an organization as shall be suited Teachers complain of the rate-bill system, not only because it improperly withholds their wages, but because the trustees find great difficulty in exercising with fidelity, and at the same time satisfactorily, the power of exemption.While the cupidity of the tax-payer is excited, the pride of men of moderate means is aroused, and their sense of inde |