39 
 
 STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 2^- ^^0^3 
 
 REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate 
 the Affairs of the City of New York 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION 
 
 February 15, 1922 
 
 ALBANY 
 
 J. B. LYON COMPANY. PRINTERS 
 
 1922 
 
j LIBFIARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 I APR 31922 
 
^ CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 REPORT 5 
 
 APPENDIX 17 
 
 Education under the Greater New York Charter 17 
 
 Education under Chapter 786, Laws of 1917 as amended 22 
 
 Inadequate School Accommodations 31 
 
 Fire Hazards in the Schools 39 
 
 Failure to Repair Fire Damage to Board of Education Building 43 
 
 Incomplete By-Laws and Delayed Minutes 45 
 
 Conflict between Board and Superintendent 47 
 
 Conflict between Board and Municipal Authorities 50 
 
 Administration of Public School System 58 
 
 Limitation of Powers of Board of Education 58 
 
 Increase in the Powers of School Superintendents 58 
 
 Perpetuation of Board of Superintendents 58 
 
 Perpetuation of Bureau of Compulsory Education 59 
 
 Controversy over State School Moneys 60 
 
 Increase inJlMandatory Appropriation to 4.9 mills 61 
 
 Historical Development of Article IX, Section 1 of State Constitution 68 
 
 Dutch Colonial Period 70 
 
 English Colonial Period 70 
 
 Education under the First Constitution 71 
 
 Education under the Second Constitution 74 
 
 Education under the Third Constitution 75 
 
 Summary 77 
 
 Evolution of Public Education in the Present City of New York 79 
 
 The Former City of New York 79 
 
 Brooklyn 88 
 
 Queens and Richmond 91 
 
REPORT 
 
 February 15, 1922. 
 To the Legislature: 
 
 ■ The administration of the public schools of the City is and 
 for years has been weak and inefficient, and does not measure up 
 to the reasonable requirements of the school children of the City, 
 or the expectations and desires of the people of the City, or of 
 the State which is charged with ultimate responsibility for main- 
 taining efficient and adequate common schools in every part of 
 the State. 
 
 The deficiencies ;ire apparent. 
 
 A. INADEQUATE SCHOOL ACCOMMODATIONS. 
 
 In December, 1917, the month before the present Board of 
 Education took office, there were 746,11-1 children registered 
 in the day elementary schools, of whom 34,153 were on part time 
 and 76,214 on the so-called duplicate form of organization. In 
 the last month for which figures are now available there were 
 817,210 children on register in the day elementary schools, of 
 whom 81,242 were on part time and 194,234 on double session. 
 
 In the day high schools there were 58,063 registered in Decem- 
 ber, 1917. none of whom were on double session and only 1,796 
 were on part time. In October, 1921, the register had increased 
 to 82,265 and there were 1,516 children on double session and 
 33.892 on part time. 
 
 These figure-; shf>w insufficient school accommodations to care 
 for the gTowth of school population. 
 
 The cap;icity of new elementary school buildings and additions 
 opened during the past four years is as follows : 
 
 Year 
 1918 
 
 
 Xo. of New Buildings 
 or Additions Opened 
 
 2 
 
 No 
 
 . of Sittings 
 Therein 
 
 1,294 
 
 1919 
 
 1920 
 
 1921 to Dec. 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 None 
 
 16* 
 
 1,380 
 
 None 
 
 19.203 
 
 Total . 
 
 22 
 
 
 21,877 
 
 
 
 
 
 Of the 10 ojiened in 1921. all hut two were opened after Septemher 1st. 
 
During the preceding four years, 44 new elementary buildings 
 or additions were opened, with 52,847 sittings, a better, but still 
 inadequate showing. 
 
 This unfortunate condition is only partly due to lack of appro- 
 priations. Exasperating delays and a shifting policy are equally 
 responsible. The total corporate stock authorizations from Janu- 
 ary 1, 1910, to June 30, 1921, for school buildings amounted to 
 $08,744,732.11, while the expenditures during the same period 
 amounted to only $46,092,839.88. Fifteen million of this 
 authorization was made in 1921, but the ten million authoriza- 
 tion of earlier years was revoked on December 30, 1918, without 
 the expenditure of any part of it in the meantime, and 
 was subsequently appropriated for the same purposes for which 
 it was originally designed. This resulted in holding up the build- 
 ing program at the time of its greatest need. A detailed state- 
 ment of the authorizations and cash expenditure from 1910 to 
 1921 will be found on page 38 of the appendix. 
 
 It will be noted that the expenditures of the three and a half 
 years, 1918 to July, 1921, were but $15,224,331.97, which, in 
 view of the depreciated value of the dollar, represents not more 
 than $8,000,000 in building value on the basis of 1910 to 1917, 
 or about one-half of the previous four-year totals. 
 
 The average annual authorization for the eleven and a half 
 years covered in the annexed table was $5,977,802.79 and the 
 average annual expenditure $4,008,073.03. 
 
 The inadequacy of school buildings has inevitably resulted in 
 
 (1) Inadequate instruciion, keeping scholars on part tinfrie. 
 
 {2) Overcrowding of the school buildings ivifh resulting dan- 
 ger to snnitntion and health. 
 
 B. FIRE HAZARDS. 
 
 In August, 1921, there were 7,353 violations of fire prevention 
 rules recorded against 496 of the City's 695 school build- 
 ings. The estimated cost of removing these violations is about 
 $4,500,000. Some of the violations are serious, as, for example, 
 stairways that are not enclosed with fire and smoke-proof parti- 
 
tions and not provided with self-closing doors ; interior fire alarm 
 systems that do not work; wooden and not self-closing fireproof 
 doors along the line of exit stairways; no hand fire extinguishers; 
 and storage of dangerously inflammable materials in non-fireproof 
 rooms or compartments. The Superintendent of School Build- 
 ings wrote the Board of Education, March 23, 1921, as follows: 
 
 " This with the continued growth of the schools and con- 
 sequent overcrowding and congestion causes me great uneasi- 
 ness and distress of mind. If the fire prevention work was 
 and is required for schools under normal conditions, how 
 MUK'li more im])ortant must it be when a building contains 
 quite one-half or more in excess of the normal . . . why 
 paint and renovate the interior of a building when there are 
 essential items of fire }>revention work to be performed which 
 would actually operate to safegitard life and lessen fire 
 risk r' ' 
 
 The total authorizations and expenditures for fire prevention 
 work since September 16, 1904, is as follows: 
 
 Date of Amount of 
 
 Authorization Authorization Expenditures Balance 
 
 Sept. 16, 1904 .$300, 000 00 $300, 000 00 
 
 .")aO, 000 00 550, 000 00 
 
 April 3,1908 1.000,000 00 1.000,000 00 
 
 June 3,1910 450,000 00 450,000 00 
 
 July 17, 1911 450, 000 00 447, 666 59 .$2, 333 41 
 
 Nov. 19, 1915 250, 000 00 2.50, 000 00 
 
 July 7. 1916 250, 000 00 250, 000 00 
 
 April 20, 1917 250, 000 00 240, 660 85 9, 339 15 
 
 April 22,1921 250,000 00 250,000 00 
 
 C. XEGLIGEXT ADMIISTISTRATION. 
 
 Other deficiencies of administration appear from the failure 
 to repair the education building, and the condition of by-laws and 
 minutes of the Board of Education. In February, 1918, the 
 seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the Hall of the Board of Edu- 
 cation, at 500 Park Avenue, housing the executive oflices of the 
 Board, were burned out. Bids for the rebuilding of these floors 
 were not opened until December 7, 1921, nearly four years after 
 the fire. During this interval the work of the Board has been 
 seriously interfered with befeause of compulsory vacancy of the 
 three top floors of its building. The Bureau of School Buildings 
 had to be moved to inadequate quarters in the Municipal Build- 
 ing, several miles away from the other offices of the Board, The 
 
8 
 
 delay in agreeing on new plans, in securing an appropriation and 
 in letting the contract is open to serious criticism. ISTo business 
 corporation would tolerate such methods. See testimony of 
 President of Board of Education, vol. 3, p. 1321. 
 
 The law of 1917 so changed the organization of the school sys- 
 tem that a complete revision of the by-laws was necessary in order 
 to make them conform with the new statute. This revision has 
 not been made. A few sections were revised but the bulk of the 
 by-laws was still in the form of a large octavo volume published 
 in 1914 with hundreds of amendment slips pasted in, many of 
 which antedate the law of 1917. 
 
 The minutes of Board meetings are records of great im- 
 portance to teachers, board members, board officers and city 
 authorities, as they have the force of law within the scope of the 
 powers delegated to the Board of Education by the Legislature. 
 The last volume of minutes to be furnished with a printed index 
 is that for 1915. The minutes of board meetings are not or- 
 dinarily available until two months after the meeting. 
 
 Such conditions could not exist with a capable Board. They 
 have failed not only in matters wholly in their control, l)nt they 
 show no capacity to secure effective administration through the 
 co-operation of other governmental agencies on which they de- 
 pend, or to secure the enactment of better laws by inspiring public 
 confidence and arousing public opinion. They have shown little 
 or no capacity for Icadershij) for many years in the discharge of 
 the important trust confided to them. 
 
 Ujisound L erjisla Hon. 
 
 Responsibility for such eoiiditions may not be easily a])]X)r- 
 tioned. It doubtless rests primarily on the system of making 
 purely political appointments to the Board of Education. Such 
 appointments are made witliout any check of non-partisan ap- 
 proval or confirmation. Each incoming mayor seeks, and usually 
 gains, a large degree of political control over the Board of Educa- 
 tion. The members of the present Board were all appointed by 
 the present Mayor under the amendment of 1917. Such political 
 appointments are in strict accord with the ancient plan of dele- 
 gating educational functions to localities, but the State has 
 largely outgrown and changed the system by increasing State 
 power over local administration, while furnishing State aid to 
 meet new requirements imposed by law. The old system is not 
 
adapted in principle to a municipality like N^ew York, State 
 jurisdiction over schools is exercised by the Universitv of the 
 State, which is non-partisan in its organization and sy)iriT. Some 
 plan should be devised for the creation of an equally non-partisan 
 and representative body in the City. 
 
 Apart from this basic fault, it is desirable to review some 
 specific faults of organization, which should be removed to give 
 assurance that a competent board could successfully discharge 
 its duty. 
 
 1. COMPLICATED AND ANTIQUATED PROVISIONS 
 OF LAW PEQUIPJNG THE CO-OPERATION OF MANY 
 OTHER. BRANCHES OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT IN 
 BUILDING OPERATIONS WITH RESULTING DELAYS, 
 OFTEN AMOUNTING TO A VETO OF A BUILDING 
 PROJECT. 
 
 The first and most important of these objectionable provisions 
 is the provision of law making the Board of Education dependent 
 upon the action of the Board of Estimate and the Sinking Fund 
 Commission for appropriations and acquisitions of sites for 
 school houses. There is a general concurrence in the necessity of 
 making the Board of Education independent in this respect. It 
 may therefore be assumed that there is but one opinion upon the 
 subject, and that the necessity is great. The Committee inquired 
 with particularity as to the steps required to be taken to build a 
 school house, and found that there were at least twenty-seven, 
 eacli one involving considerable delay and the whole practice 
 likely to discourage those who were engaged in the undertaking. 
 Most of them are unnecessary for the protection of the City's 
 interest, and hinder the prompt building of school houses. An 
 exhibit showing these steps in detail will be found on page 3(5 
 of the appendix. 
 
 In two instances it was found that twenty years or more had 
 elapsed from the time the recommendation for a new building 
 was made by a local school board and the time when the building 
 was opened for use. P. S. No. 5-L Brooklyn, for example, was 
 recommended by the school board of Brooklyn in 1001 ; the con- 
 tract date for its completion is »Se])tember, 1922. 
 
 Examination of the record of some twenty schools on the cur- 
 rent building program shows that plans and specifications wore 
 before the Board of Estimate in one instance for 35fi davs, au- 
 
10 
 
 other for 211 days, and in ciglit caso-; for more tluiu 50 davs. 
 This did not take into acconnt the time between the retnrn by 
 the Board of Estimate and a rcsninnission by the Board of Va\u- 
 eation. In one case the same matter was fonr times before the 
 Board of Estimate. In fonr other eases tlu^ same nuitter was 
 before the Board of Estinmte three times. 
 
 2. STATrTORV POWKKS BIJOPKRLV BELOXGIXG 
 TO THE BOAIU) OF EDICATIOX NOW VESTED EN- 
 BODIES OR OFFICIALS XO^nXALLY SEBORDIXATE 
 TO THE BOARD BUT IX FACT SUPERIOR IX RESPECT 
 OF SUCH POWERS. 
 
 The snperinten(h'nt of sejiools, the Board of Superintendents. 
 and the Bureau of Compulsory Edncation, all have a tixed tenure 
 of office, and although chosen by the Board, ])ossess important 
 powers of administration which are exercised independently of 
 and often in opposition to the desires of the Board itself. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enumerate these important powers which 
 are readily referred to in the statute, and have been frequently 
 the cause of conflict between the boards and officials named ami 
 the Board of Edncation. Many of these powers are anu)n<>' the 
 most important exercised in the administration of tl.'e schools. 
 
 3. EREQUEXT CHAXGES AXD COXELICT OF LAWS 
 GOVERXIXG THE ADMIXISTRATIOX OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 The Board of Education originally consisted of nineleon mem- 
 bers. It was changed in 1901 to forty-six members, and in l')17 
 to seven members. The charter was radically revised in 181)7 
 and in 1901, and its ])rovisions extensively moditied by amend- 
 ments to the State Education Law in 1917, each change involving 
 important changes in the ]dan of administration of the schools 
 and their relation to other city agencies and the State. A com- 
 parative statement of the principal changes effected by the statute 
 of 1917 in the law of 1901 will be found on page 22 of the 
 appendix. 
 
 Under the act of 1917 conflicts have arisen by reason of the 
 uncertainty of the law between the Board of Education and the 
 Commissioner of Education at Albany, between the Board of 
 Education and the munici])al authorities relative to their res])ect- 
 ive powers, and between the Board of Edncation and the snporin- 
 
11 
 
 teudeiit of schools, if not between the Board of Education and 
 the Board of Superintendents and associate superintendents. 
 
 There has been a faihire to concentrate in clear and unmis- 
 takable language the full responsibility for the administration of 
 the public school system on the Board of Education, the municipal 
 authorities, or the State. Groping for a remedy they have found 
 none because tbe fundamental error of appointing a politir-al 
 Board of Education has remained. 
 
 Finances. 
 
 Fortunately the financial statement for education in the City 
 is not complicated. The expenditures since 1910 have been as 
 follows : 
 
 Tear Expenditures. 
 
 1910 $28,456,945 08 
 
 1911 28,958,179 29 
 
 1912 33,791,974 40 
 
 1913 35,481,641 12 
 
 1914 38,185,495 90 
 
 1915 39,797,960 64 
 
 1916 39,708,764 22 
 
 1917 41,101,074 41 
 
 1918 43,884,893 59 
 
 1919 45,490.121 68 
 
 1920 66,194,668 04 
 
 1921 (first 6 nios.) 44,828,326 69 
 
 1922 (budget) *88,798,546 81 
 
 * Tiichuling $18,097,534..-,! from the State. 
 
 The normal increase for the years 1920, 1921 and 1922 has 
 been augmented by the Lockwood-Donohue act in the sum of 
 $30,000,000. This has been devoted to the pay of teachers. The 
 annual normal increase may be roughly taken as $2,000,000. 
 
 The apportionment of State moneys to the City since 1914 has 
 been as follows : 
 
J 2 
 
 Amount Apportioned 
 )'(■■! r to the City 
 
 191-! $1,923,025 00 
 
 19i:> 2,115,679 73. 
 
 191fi 2,220,730 03 ' 
 
 1917 2,114.887 16 
 
 1918 2,321,191 13 
 
 1919 2,700, n57 19 
 
 1920 5,025.570 17 
 
 1921 16,938,023 85 
 
 1922 *18,097.534 51 
 
 * K -lima ted. 
 
 The increase of apportionment for 1922 over 1919, the period 
 during which the mandatory increase due to legislation has oc- 
 curred, has been about $15,000,000, or one-half of the amount of 
 the increased charge due to these laws. 
 
 The City complains of the increase effected by law. As educa- 
 tion is a State function, although commonly delegated to munici- 
 palities, it would appear that when the State interferes to increase 
 the cost of ediication in so considerable an amount, it should pro- 
 vide ways and means for defraying such additional expenses with- 
 out embarrassment to the municipalities. The State's taxing- 
 power is unlimited, and it is a matter of comparative indifference 
 to any part of the State whether the funds for education are 
 raised by State or local tax. 
 
 The constitution limits the debt incurring power of cities to ten 
 per cent of the assessed value of real estate, and the taxing power 
 to two per cent of the assessed value of real and personal property. 
 The^o limitations which are proper and useful, were enacted with 
 reference to the normal expense for education. Such increase in 
 cost is the result of a change of policy in the entire State as to the 
 standard of teadiing, which it is expected will be much improved 
 by making the teachers' profession more attractive. It is true that 
 this augmented cost was favored by substantially all the members 
 of the legislature from the City, and the present administration of 
 the City claims to have favored it ; but it was done by State author- 
 ity, and the Committee finds no evidence tending to show that the 
 additional expense would in fact have been incurred in the absence 
 of legislative enactment. It doubtless seems strange to one un- 
 familiar with the real financial situation of the City and such an 
 
13 
 
 increased charge should be a source of eniharrassmeut. The City 
 has a debt incurring capacity of more than a l>illion dollars, a 
 taxing cai>acity of more than two hundred million dollars, niul an 
 unencumbered income of more than sixty millions. But by reason 
 of the course of past and present administrations, the City has been 
 for some years past near its debt limit, if it has not exceeded it, 
 and grave question exists as to its having exceeded its tax limit in 
 the last two annual assessments. 
 
 In preparing the budget for 1921, the City under claim of neces- 
 sity, omitted $27,000,000 from the school appropriation, and met 
 it afterwards by special revenue bonds, and other devices, throwing 
 most of the charge over on to the year 1922. The Comptroller ad- 
 vised striking ten million dollars from the 1922 budget for educa- 
 tion on the ground that otherwise the tax imposed would exceed 
 the constitutional limit. It is unadvisable at present to increase 
 charges upon the City and it would seem to be desirable for the 
 State to establish a plan of appropriations increasing annually 
 until it is sufficient to meet the additional charge for education it 
 has created since 1920. 
 
 While this report is confined to matters relating to the City of 
 oSTew York, there is a like situation in other parts of the State, and 
 the problem of providing for the cost of education under these 
 laws will require solution in other important muncipalities. It is 
 therefore a State as well as a City issue. 
 
 The legislature has from time to time fixed a mandators- tax for 
 school purposes in the City. It fixed the tax at four mills in 1898, 
 three mills in 1903, and 4.9 mills in 1917. These charges were 
 made in the exercise of State authority to insure the maintenance 
 of schools, but they may be regarded as representing a minimum 
 below which the cost of education may not be reduced rather than 
 as an attempt^ to increase the expenditure. For the most part the 
 City has made considerable and in many instances large approjjria- 
 tions for schools in excess of the mandatory tax. 
 
 XoN-PoT-ITTCAT, BoARO OF EdUCATIOX. 
 
 The problem of securing a Board of Education for the City 
 which shall stand for education free from iwlitical considerations, 
 is the fundamental one. As the University of the State is the 
 State-wide instniment of control in education the meml>ei-s of 
 the University of the State resident in the City, now four in 
 number, can with the Mayor who should be chairman of the 
 
14 
 
 Commission, be drafted into service as a Commission to appoint 
 members of the City Board of Education. This will give local 
 recognition by requiring all members of the Commission to reside 
 in the city. By taking over as members of the Commission resi- 
 dents of the city who are members of the Board of Regents it 
 will insure the performance of the State's obligation and duty 
 in education, now greatly increased by the added burden of cost 
 which the State assumes. But more important than all else, it 
 will take politics out of schools. 
 
 Recommendations 
 
 1. The Conmiittee recommends that the Board of Education of 
 the City of New York consist of members appointed by the Com- 
 mission as provided in this report. 
 
 2. That the Board of Education be granted complete inde- 
 pendence from all municipal control in the acquisition of real 
 property for school purposes, by purchase, condemnation, lease 
 or otherwise, within the limit of the funds available therefor. 
 
 3. That the Board of Education be granted complete inde- 
 pendence from all municipal control in the construction, alteration 
 and repair of school buildings, provided that its superintendent of 
 school buildings, before starting work, certify in writing that the 
 plans and specifications comply with the building and electrical 
 codes and the laws of the State; and provided further that 
 occupancy shall not be permitted until the superintendent of 
 school buildings shall have certified that the building as com- 
 pleted complies with the building and electrical codes and the 
 laws of the State, but without disturbing the City's jurisdiction 
 as to fire prevention. 
 
 -i. That the Board of Education be granted complete inde- 
 pendence from all municipal control in the administration and 
 expenditure of all school moneys, subject only to audit by the 
 Comptroller of the City for the purpose of preventing fraud or 
 error. 
 
 5. That the City be required to appropriate in its annual 
 budget amount which together with the school moneys which are 
 apportioned to the City by the State, wall equal the budget appro- 
 priation for schools in the City for the year 1922 ($88,798,- 
 546.81) plus an annual increase of two million dollars as repre- 
 senting the normal increase of cost ; that the present authorization 
 
15 
 
 for Iniilding school houses be not revoked and that at least 
 $0,000,000 be authorized annually for this purpose. 
 
 (). That the State provide for a gi'aduated increased appro- 
 priation for schools until the amount apportioned for the City 
 of Xew York shall be increased fifteen million dollars over the 
 amount apportioned in 1922. 
 
 7. That sections of the greater New York Charter inconsistent 
 with the provisions of the education law be repealed. 
 
 ^Vnd the Committee further recommends that as soon as the 
 Board of Education is reconstituted under the foregoing recom- 
 mendations that the powers of the Board be increased as follows: 
 
 8. That the Board of Education be constituted the fiscal and 
 policy determining head of the school system with power to dele- 
 gate authority to the Superintendent of Schools, as it may deem 
 wise. 
 
 9. That the Board of Education be granted power to establish, 
 abolish or consolidate such boards, bureaus and divisions as it 
 may deem necessary excepting only the Board of Examiners. 
 
 10. That the Superintendent of Schools and all other officers 
 and employees derive their j)Ower and authority from the by-laws 
 of the Board of Education, subject only to the provisions of the 
 Education Law. 
 
 liespectf ul ly submitted, 
 
 Schuyler M. Meyek, Cluiirman. 
 Theodore Douglas Robinson. 
 Frederick W. Kavanaugh. 
 Maxwell S. Harris. 
 Simon L. Adler. 
 Sol Ullman. 
 John R. Yale. 
 Walter W. Westall. 
 Elon R. Brown, Counsel. 
 
 I subscribe to the Committee's recommendations except that I 
 do not believe that the power of appointment of meml^ers of the 
 Board of Education should be exercised by officials elected or 
 appointed outside of the City of New York. Irrespective of 
 their residence, the Regents are elected by the Legislature. I 
 favor confirmation of appointments 'by the Mayor to the Board 
 of Edu<*ation by either the Board of Aldermen or by the Board 
 of Finance suggested in the Committees first report. 
 
 Theodore Stitt. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Education under the Greater ^BXi Iork Charter. 
 
 The union into one municipality under tiie corporate name of 
 the City of l^ew York of "' the various communities lying in and 
 about New York harbor, including- the City and County of New 
 York, the City of Brooklyn and the County of Kings, the County 
 of Richmond and part of the County of Queens," effected by 
 Chapter 378 of the Laws of 1897, brought together into one 
 fabric the various different threads of educational policy which 
 had been spun by the separate statutory provisions enacted by 
 the State Legislature for the benefit of the several communities. 
 
 These had been and were of the most diverse character, and 
 the recognition in the new charter of many of these local peculiari- 
 ties, in response doubtless to strong local pressure to perpetuate 
 a time-honored custom or to assure a continuance in ofiice to some 
 local officer, made the educational sections of the new instrument 
 complex and not simple affairs. 
 
 At the time of consolidation, for example, the old City of New 
 York had a Board of Education of 21 members appointed by the 
 Mayor. The City of Brooklyn had a Board of Education of 45 
 members appointed by the Mayor. In what became the Boroughs 
 of Queens and Richmond, there were many indej>endent school 
 organizations based on town or school district lines. 
 
 The new charter sought to recogTiize local sentiment. It con- 
 tinued the Board of Education of the former City of New York 
 as the School Board for the Boroughs of Manhattan and The 
 Bronx. It continued the Board of Education of the fonner City 
 of Brooklyn as the School Board for the Borough of Brooklyn, 
 and it substituted in each of the new Boroughs of Queens and 
 Richmond, a Borough School Board of 9 members for the various 
 pre-existing local school organizations. This arrangement gave 
 each borough a School Board with very considerable powers over 
 the schools of the borough. In addition, provision was made for 
 a Board of Education of 19 members, consisting of the 4 Chair- 
 men of the 4 Borough School Boards, 10 delegates elected from 
 
18 
 
 its membership by the School Board of Manhattan and The 
 Bronx, and 5 delegates chosen similarly by the School Board of 
 Brooklyn. This Board of Education was constituted a separate 
 corporation and was made the head of the Department of Educa- 
 tion, set up as one of the administrative departments of the City. 
 
 The new Board did not enjoy the same degree of independence 
 as its predecessors. .On the administrative side, many powers 
 previously possessed by the Boards of Education were given to 
 the Borough School Boards. On the financial side, there had 
 been a gradual growing away from the original idea, whereby 
 local school authorities were independent of municipal author- 
 ities. The Act of 1851, for example, had given the Board of 
 Education corporate powers and had invested it with full control 
 of the common schools with power to take and hold property, 
 secure proper accountability in the expenditure of school moneys 
 and administer the funds derived from the city and State. No 
 municipal control was incidental thereto, for the supervisors of 
 the city and county were required to raise, for educational pur- 
 poses, certain sums easily ascertainable under the law, and " such 
 additional sum or sums as the Board of Education * * * 
 shall have reported to be necessary." This gave the Board of 
 Education a position of peculiar independence in relation to the 
 fiscal authorities of the City of JN^ew York, but during the next 
 46 years, this independence was steadily and increasingly 
 impaired. 
 
 The Board of Education of 1898 had very little financial 
 power. It was made the head of a department of the city gov- 
 ernment, and by section 1059, the City was given the power to 
 determine the amount of money to be allowed from the tax levy 
 for the support of the schools. About the only financial functions 
 remaining to the Board were the allotment of funds to the 
 boroughs on the basis of school population and the number of 
 teachers employed, and the control of the special school fund. 
 
 The educational chapter of the charter of 189 Y represents an 
 attempt, similar to attempts made before and since, to reconcile 
 two hopelessly conflicting theories. The schools cannot be both 
 independent and subject to municipal control, and yet the Legis- 
 lature has repeatedly enacted laws by which it has endeavored to 
 make this paradox work. The school authorities have fought to 
 preseiwe every right they ever enjoyed and the city authorities 
 have sought, with equal vigor, to supervise and control the expendi- 
 
19 
 
 ture of city funds appropriated by them for school purposes. A 
 clear, consistent and uncompromising enactment by the Legisla- 
 ture, settling the many points of controversy, would go far to 
 improve school conditions in New York City. 
 
 The charter of 1897 was soon ladically revised. Its successor 
 was Chapter 466 of the Laws of 1901, and the educational chap- 
 ter of that instrument was until 1917 the basis for the administra- 
 tion of the City's public schools. 
 
 The Department of Education was continued as one of the 
 administrative departments of the City, and the Board of Edu- 
 cation was placed at its head. The former Borough School Boards 
 were abolished and the size of the Board of Education increased, 
 to provide for borough representation. The new Board consisted ' 
 of 46 members, appointed by the Mayor for five year terms, as 
 follows : 
 
 22 residents of Manhattan. 
 
 4 residents of The Bronx. 
 14 residents of Brookljii. 
 
 4 residents of Queens. 
 
 2 residents of Richmond. 
 
 The Board was given corporate privileges. Among other sig- 
 nificant provisions of the new law were the following: 
 
 The Board of Education was to succeed to all the powers 
 of the former Board of Education and Borough School 
 Boards. 
 
 The Board of Education was to administer all moneys 
 available for educational purposes. 
 
 The Board of Education had the power to lease property 
 and make contracts. 
 
 The Board of Education had the power to appoint certain 
 officers and clerks and to fix their salaries, and to appoint 
 and fix the salaries above certain minimums of members of 
 the teaching and supervising force. 
 
 There was to be a Board of Superintendents, consisting 
 of the City Superintendent and 8 Associate Superintendents, 
 the latter to consist of the 4 Borough Superintendents and of 
 4 persons selected from the Associate Bcrough Superintend- 
 ents, each to hold office until the expiration of the term for 
 which he had origin ally boon appointed. 
 
20 
 
 There were to be 26 District Superintendents, including 
 all the Associate Borough Superintendents not appointed to 
 the Board of Superintendents. 
 
 There were to be 46 local school boards, each consisting 
 of a member of the Board of Education assigned by the 
 President of the Board, the District Superintendent of the 
 district and 5 persons appointed by the Borough President. 
 
 There was to be a Board of Examiners, to examine 
 candidates for teachers' licenses. 
 
 The City was required to supply the Board of Education 
 with funds for school purposes annually, amounting to not 
 less than 4 mills on the dollar of assessed valuation. 
 
 The Department of Finance was given authority to audit 
 the Board's accounts. 
 
 The provisions of this law respecting the organization of the 
 school system remained substantially the same during the entire 
 life of the educational section of the charter, but the powers of 
 the Board of Education were increasingly impaired. Special sal- 
 aiy laws were passed by the Legislature, which in effect deprived 
 the Board of practically all control over teachers' salaries. By 
 Chapter 43 of the Laws of 1903, the amount which the City 
 must annually make available for school purposes was reduced 
 from 4 mills to 3 mills contemporaneously with an increase in the 
 assessed valuation of such magnitude that the yield of the 3-mill 
 tax was greater than the yield of the 4-mill tax. Both amounts 
 were, however, inadequate, so that the Board of Estimate and 
 Apportionment substantially controlled the Board of Education's 
 finances by conditioning additional appropriations upon the obser- 
 vance of the Board of Estimate's rules and regulations regarding 
 the segregation of appropriations and accounting control. The 
 tendency grew to regard the Department of Education as a regu- 
 lar department of the city government and the Legislature made 
 little, if any, effort to realize in its contemporary legislation the 
 ideal of educational independence which had been characteristic 
 of earlier school legislation (notably Chapter 386 of the Laws of 
 1851), and such measure of independence as was contemplated in 
 the charter of 1901 was, as indicated above, greatly reduced by 
 subsequent legislation or by acquiescence. 
 
 By 1917, the Department of Education was functioning very 
 much as a regular city department. The 3-mill allowance was so 
 
21 
 
 inadequate that the Board of Education would have been help- 
 less had the City not granted additional funds to run the schools. 
 The budget for 1917, for example, appropriated $41,430,447.49 
 for the general and special school funds, while the amount 
 yielded by the 3-mill tax and included in the budget for that year, 
 was only $25,753,057.53, The Department of Education acted 
 with and depended upon other city authorities, such as the Cor- 
 poration Counsel, the Department of Finance, Board of Estimate 
 and Apportionment and the Sinking Fund Commission, in connec- 
 tion with its contracts, leases, real estate transactions and pro- 
 posals for the construction of new schools. It is probably safe to 
 say that what independence the Board of Education may have 
 had under a strict interpretation of the law was not exercised. 
 
 The situation was radically changed by the enactment of Chap- 
 ter 786 of the Laws of 1917, which amended the State Education 
 Law, by providing for Boards of Education in the several cities 
 of the State and v/hich repealed nearly all the sections of the New 
 York City Charter with respect to the public school system. The 
 advoeates of this legislation contended that public education in 
 cities was as much a matter of State concern as in villages and 
 to\VTis, and that the many varying laws controlling school systems 
 should be brought together and made an integral part of the State 
 Education Law. 
 
 The consolidation and unification which was effected, however, 
 is strikingly similar to the kind of consolidation effected by the 
 first charter of the Greater City, where the customs and machin- 
 ery of the two cities of New York and Brookljm wei-e, to a con- 
 sideraible extent, perpetuated in the new instrument. The State 
 Law of 1917 provides for about as many different kinds of Boards 
 of Education as there were before, and it preserves the rights 
 enjoyed by certain communities and jealously defended by them. 
 It has the virtue of including, in one article, most of the provisions 
 of law relative to city schools, but it doea not provide a consistent 
 or a uniform svstem of control. 
 
22 
 
 Education under the Provisions of Chapter T8G, Laws of 
 1917, AS Amended through 1921. 
 
 It is not necessary in the present connection to comment on 
 the patchwork character of this law. The powers, duties and 
 composition of boards of education in the larger cities of the 
 State differ amazingly, and the organization of the school sys- 
 tems left in some cities to local control is in Xew York pre- 
 scribed with regard to certain phases such as the Board of 
 Superintendents and the Bureau of Compulsory Education. It 
 is enough to compare the conditions under the charter of 1901 
 as it stood in 1917, with the present legislative provisions. 
 
 The following analysis of the more important provisions of 
 both statutes is submitted in parallel columns to facilitate 
 comparison : 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 1055 School property vested in city 
 
 under control of Board of 
 
 Education. 
 
 1059 Board of Estimate and Board 
 
 of Aldermen given power to 
 raise by tax amounts re- 
 quired for school purposes, as 
 called for by annual city 
 budget. 
 
 1060 General and special school 
 
 funds established and Board 
 of Education given power to 
 administer " all moneys . . . 
 available for educational pur- 
 poses in the city of New 
 York." 
 
 1061 Board of Education created to 
 
 consist of 46 unpaid mem- 
 bers appointed by the mayor 
 for 5-year terms: 22 from 
 Manhattan, 4 from the 
 Bronx, 14 from Brooklyn, 4 
 from Queens, 2 from Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 1062 Board of Education given cor- 
 
 porate powers. 
 1064 Board of Education to be rep- 
 resentative of entire school 
 system. By Sept. 15th to 
 submit annually to Board of 
 Estimate a detailed estimate 
 
 Section State Law Provisions 
 868-3 Charter sec. 1055 not re- 
 pealed. Board of Education 
 given care, custody and con- 
 trol of all city school property. 
 
 Charter sec. 1059 repealed. 
 
 877-7 Charter sec. 1060 repealed. 
 General and special school 
 funds defined and established, 
 and Board of Education given 
 power to administer " all 
 moneys . . . available for edu- 
 cational purposes in the city," 
 subject to audit by the Depart- 
 ment of Finance. 
 
 865-866 Charter sec. 1061 repealed. 
 Board of Education created to 
 consist of seven members: two 
 from each of the two boroughs 
 Avith the largest population, 
 and one from each of the other 
 three appointed by the mayor 
 for seven-year terms. 
 
 300 Boards of education in cities 
 made corporations. 
 
 877-1 Charter sec. 1064 repealed. 
 Board of Education by Septem- 
 ber 1st to submit annual esti- 
 mate for ensuing fiscal year to 
 Board of Estimate and Appor- 
 
2 3 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 of moneys required for next 
 calendar year. Board of Esti- 
 mate required to appropriate 
 for general school fund not 
 less than the yield of 3 mills. 
 Board of Education to ad- 
 minister all moneys subject 
 to audit by Department of 
 Finance. 
 
 1066 Board of Education empowered 
 
 to dispose of personal prop- 
 erty. 
 
 1067 Board of Education empowered 
 
 to appoint secretary, super- 
 intendent of school buildings, 
 superintendent of school sup- 
 plies, city superintendent of 
 schools, supervisor of lec- 
 tures, director and assist- 
 ant director of reference 
 and research, and one or 
 more auditors; also a chief 
 clerk and " such other offi- 
 cers, clerks or subordinates 
 as it may deem necessary . . . 
 and as are provided for by 
 the proper appropriations." 
 These appointees removable 
 for cause by three-fourths 
 vote. 
 
 106S Board of Education empowered 
 to enact by-laws, rules and 
 regulations for the transac- 
 tion of its business and " de- 
 fining the duties of the city 
 superintendent of schools, the 
 director and assistant director 
 of the Division of Reference 
 and Research, the superin- 
 tendent of school buildings. 
 
 Section State Law Provisions 
 877-7 tionment, which is required to 
 appropriate the amount of such 
 estimate up to the yield of 4.9 
 mills. Board of Estimate au- 
 thorized to make additional ap- 
 propriations. Board of Edu- 
 cation empowered to adminis- 
 ter all moneys available for 
 educational purposes subject 
 to audit by Department of 
 877-8 Finance. Board of Education 
 may submit special estimates 
 to meet emergencies. 
 Charter sec. lOGO not repealed. 
 
 868 Charter sec. 1067 repealed. Pow- 
 ers and duties of Board of 
 Education as follows: To per- 
 form any duty imposed by 
 State law or regulation of the 
 University of the State of New 
 York or Commissioner of Edu- 
 cation; to create, abolish, 
 maintain and consolidate such 
 positions, divisions, boards, or 
 bureaus as it deems necessary; 
 to appoint a superintendent of 
 schools, such associate district 
 or other superintendents, etc., 
 as it deems necessary, and to 
 determine their duties, except 
 as otherwise prescribed by the 
 Education Law; to appoint 
 
 872 district superintendents, di- 
 rectors, supervisors, principals, 
 teachers and all other members 
 of the teaching and supervis- 
 ing staff upon recommen- 
 dation of the Board of Super- 
 intendents (except associate 
 superintendents and exam- 
 iners) and to appoint asso- 
 ciate superintendents and ex- 
 aminers and all other em- 
 ployees (except members of the 
 teaching and supervising staff, 
 the appointment of whom, must 
 be on recommendation of 
 Board of Superintendents). 
 
 868-9 Charter sec. 1068 repealed. 
 Board of Education empowered 
 to prescribe such regulations 
 and by-laws as may be neces- 
 sary to make effectual the pro- 
 visions of this chapter, etc. 
 
24 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 the superintendent of school 
 supplies, of its auditor or au- 
 ditors, its clerks and subordi- 
 nates," etc. 
 
 1069 Additional powers of Board of 
 
 Education : 
 
 1. To establish and conduct 
 
 elementary schools, kinder- 
 gartens, manual training 
 schools, trade schools, 
 truant schools, evening 
 schools and vacation 
 schools. 
 
 2. To maintain free lectures 
 
 and courses of instruction 
 for the people of the city 
 of New York. 
 
 3. To provide special classes 
 
 for instruction in English 
 to foreigners. 
 
 4. To provide '' one or more 
 high schools and training 
 schools." 
 
 5. To establish and conduct 
 
 playgrounds in connection 
 with the public schools. 
 
 6. To establish new schools 
 
 and discontinue or consoli- 
 date any schools. 
 
 7. To make contracts with ap- 
 
 proval of board of esti- 
 mate for transportation of 
 pupils. 
 
 8. To establish a bureau 
 of compulsory education, 
 school census and child 
 welfare. " On the nomina- 
 tion of the board of super- 
 intendents the board of 
 education shall have power 
 to appoint a director and 
 an assistant director " and 
 other employees, and fix 
 their salaries within the 
 proper appropriation. 
 
 1070 Secretary to have charge of 
 
 rooms, books, papers, etc., of 
 the board and to perform 
 " such other duties as may 
 be required by its members 
 or committees." 
 
 1071 Board of Education empowered 
 
 to establish branch offices of 
 the bureaus of school build- 
 ings and school supplies in 
 the several boroughs, super- 
 intendent of school buildings 
 to be executive officer of the 
 board " in respect to all mat- 
 ters relating to the bureau of 
 buildings." 
 
 Section State Law Provisions 
 
 S6S-5 Charter sec. 1069 repealed ex- 
 cept subdivision 8. Board of 
 Education has power to estab- 
 lish and maintain such free ele- 
 mentary schools, high schools, 
 training schools, vocational 
 and industrial schools, kinder- 
 gartens, technical schools, night 
 schools, part-time or continua- 
 tion schools, vacation schools, 
 schools for adults, open air 
 schools, schools for the men- 
 tally and physically defective 
 children, or such other schools 
 or classes as it may deem 
 
 868-6 necessary, and to establish and 
 maintain libraries, public lec- 
 ture courses, playgrounds, rec- 
 reation centers, social centers 
 and reading rooms. 
 
 871 -a Bureau of compulsory educa- 
 tion, school census and child 
 welfare made mandatory, em- 
 ployees continued in office dur- 
 ing good behavior and remov- 
 able only for cause. 
 
 Charter sec. 1070 repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1071 repealed. 
 
25 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 1073 All plans for new school build- 
 ings, additions and structural 
 alterations mu^t be approved 
 by superintendent of ychool 
 buildings, who shall submit 
 such plans to Board of Edu- 
 cation, whose action shall be 
 final. 
 
 lOTi Janitors shall be appointed by 
 the Board of Education. 
 
 107-J Board of Jiiducation shall pro- 
 vide for purchase of all books, 
 supplies, etc., and shall have 
 power to enact by-laws and 
 resolutions for government of 
 superintendent of supplies, 
 which by-laws, etc., shall pro- 
 vide that all supplies as far 
 as possible shall be obtained 
 by contract after public let- 
 ting in accordance with sec- 
 tion 419. 
 
 1076 Bureau under superintendent of 
 
 supplies to be subject to rules 
 and regulations of Board of 
 Education. Superintendent of 
 supplies may appoint such 
 deputies and other subordi- 
 nates as the by-laws of the 
 Board of Education may au- 
 thorize. He shall be the ex- 
 ecutive officer of the board in 
 respect of supplies, printing, 
 transportation of pupils and 
 such other matters as may be 
 assigned him by the board. 
 
 1077 City superintendent shall have 
 
 right of visitation and in- 
 quiry in all schools of the city 
 and shall report to the board 
 thereon. He shall have a seat 
 and a right to speak in the 
 board meetings, but no vote. 
 
 1078 City superintendent shall visit 
 schools and, subject to by- 
 laws, prescribe forms and 
 regulations for conducting 
 school business. Under direc- 
 tion of Board of Education 
 he shall enforce Compulsory 
 Education Law. He may ap- 
 point clerks as authorized by 
 the Board of Education, and 
 assign, su'^pend or discharge 
 them subject to appeal to the 
 Board of Education. He shall 
 
 Scclioii Slate Law Provisions 
 Charter sec. 1073 repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1074 repealed. 
 
 868-4 Charter sec. 1075 repealed. 
 Board of Education to secure 
 necessary books, supplies, etc. 
 
 Charter sec. 1076 repealed. 
 
 870-1 Charter sees. 1077 and 1078 
 repealed. Superintendent of 
 schools shall have power, sub- 
 ject to by-laws, to enforce all 
 rules, etc., relating to the man- 
 agement of the schools, etc. ; to 
 be the chief executive officer 
 of the Board of Education and 
 the educational system; to 
 have a seat and voice but not 
 a vote at board meetings; to 
 
 4 have supervision and direction 
 of all persons employed by the 
 Board of Education; to trans- 
 fer teachers on recommenda- 
 tion of board of superintend- 
 ents; to suspend any cnijiloyee 
 until next meeting of Board 
 
 5 of Education ; to have super- 
 vision and direction over the 
 enforcement of courses of study 
 and all the other educational 
 activities under control of the 
 Board of Education; to issue 
 
20 
 
 Section Charter rrorisions 
 
 asisigM associate and district 
 superintendents subject to by- 
 laws. Twenty-three district 
 superintendents to be as- 
 signed, each one to two local 
 school board districts. 
 
 1079 Board of superintendents estab- 
 lished, consisting of city su- 
 perintendent and eight asso- 
 ciate superintendents ap- 
 pointed by the Board of Edu- 
 cation for six years. Board 
 of Education empowered to 
 pass by-laws regulating du- 
 ties of city superintendent 
 and board of superintendents 
 There shall be twenty-six dis- 
 trict superintendents to be 
 appointed by Board of Edu- 
 cation for six years on nomi- 
 nation of board of superin- 
 tendents. Board of Education 
 empowered to appoint direct- 
 ors of special branches for 
 six years on nomination by 
 board of superintendents. 
 
 1032 Board of superintendents, sub- 
 ject to approval of Board of 
 Education, shall establish 
 rules governing promotion, 
 transfer, etc., of pupils. 
 
 1083 Board of Education shall, upon 
 recommendation of board of 
 superintendents, approve text 
 books, etc. 
 
 1084 Board of Education shall have 
 power to change grades and 
 adopt and modify courses of 
 study, but such changes must 
 first be presented to board of 
 superintendents and, in case 
 of adverse report by latter, 
 change shall not be effective 
 unless passed by two-thirds 
 vote. 
 
 1087 Creation of forty-six local school 
 board districts and local 
 school boards of five persons 
 appointed by borough presi- 
 dent, district superintendent 
 and Board of Education mem- 
 ber. 
 
 Section State Lav: Provisions 
 
 licenses to teachers on recom- 
 mendation of board of exam- 
 
 870-6 iners; to have general super- 
 
 871 vision of bureau of compulsory 
 education, school census and 
 child welfare. 
 
 869 Charter sec. 1079 repealed. Board 
 of superintendents continued, 
 consisting of superintendent of 
 schools and eight associate su- 
 perintendents, superintendent 
 to be chairman. It has power 
 
 870-2 to jii'epare the content of each 
 course of study authorized by 
 Board of Education, subject to 
 approval by Board of Educa- 
 
 870—4 tion; to recommend text books; 
 to recommend to superintend- 
 ent the transfer of teachers. 
 
 870-5 Charter sec. 1082 repealed. 
 Board of superintendents to 
 have power to make rules and 
 regulations for promotion and 
 graduation of pupils. 
 
 868-8 Charter sec. 1083 repealed. 
 Board of Education has power 
 to authorize and determine 
 text books from lists recom- 
 mended by board of superin- 
 tendents. 
 
 868-7 Charter sec. 1084 repealed. 
 Board of Education has power 
 to authorize the general 
 courses of study and to ap- 
 prove the content of such 
 courses before they become 
 operative. 
 
 873 Charter sec. 1087 repealed. Local 
 school board districts contin- 
 ued, but Board of Education 
 given power to modify bound- 
 aries, consolidate two or more 
 and establish new ones. Local 
 school boards to consist of five 
 persons appointed by the bor- 
 ough president, a member of 
 the Board of Education desig- 
 nated by the board, and a dis- 
 trict superintendent assigned 
 by the city superintendent. 
 
27 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 1088 Duties of local sthool boards: 
 
 1. To visit and inspect schools 
 
 at least once each quarter. 
 
 2. To report on needs for new 
 
 accommodations, recom- 
 mend sites, repairs, etc. 
 
 3. To report dereliction of 
 
 duty. 
 
 4. To excuse teachers' ab- 
 
 sences, subject to approval 
 of board of superintend- 
 ents, for absence with pay, 
 and in accordance with by- 
 laws. 
 
 5. To try and determine all 
 
 matters regarding discip- 
 line and corporal punish- 
 ment. 
 
 6. To try charges against a 
 
 t«acher. 
 
 7. To transfer teachers within 
 
 district, after hearing and 
 subject to approval of 
 board of superintendents. 
 
 1089 Board of examiners created to 
 
 license teachers, consisting 
 of city superintendent and 
 four persons appointed by 
 Board of Education upon 
 nomination by city super- 
 intendent. 
 
 1090 Principals, branch principals, 
 
 heads of departments, teach- 
 ers, assistants and all mem- 
 bers of teaching staff shall be 
 appointed by Board of Edu- 
 cation on nomination of board 
 of superintendents, from es- 
 tablished eligible lists. 
 
 1091 Board of Education shall have 
 
 power to fix salaries of mem- 
 bers of supervising and teach- 
 ing staff subject to certain 
 minimunis prescribed by the 
 statute. 
 
 1093 Board of Education empowered 
 to suspend principals, teach- 
 ers, etc., with or witnout pay, 
 pending trial o' cfiarges pre- 
 ferred against them. 
 
 1096 Mayor can remove any member 
 of Board of Education or 
 local school board for caiises 
 specified. 
 
 1098 Board of Education may remove 
 any school officer interested 
 in furnishing supplies, etc. 
 
 Section State Law Provisions 
 873-4 Charter sec. 1088 repealed. 
 
 Powers and duties of local 
 
 school boards : 
 
 1. To visit schools at least 
 once in each quarter. 
 
 2. To make recommendations 
 to Board of Education. 
 
 3. Subject to by-laws of 
 Board of Education, to 
 transfer teachers, excuse 
 absences of teachers, and 
 hear charges against prin- 
 cipals or teachers. 
 
 871 Charter sec. 1089 repealed. Board 
 of examiners to consist of 
 seven members to hold exami- 
 nations and promulgate eli- 
 gible lists, and perform the du- 
 ties required by Board of Edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Charter sec. 1090 repealed. 
 
 See sec. 872 summarized above. 
 
 882 Board of Education shall adopt 
 by-laws fixing salaries of mem- 
 bers of teaching and supervis- 
 ing staff, but they shall not be 
 less than the rates prescribed 
 by the State. 
 
 Charter sec. 1093 repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1096 not repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1098 not repealed. 
 
28 
 
 Section Charter Provisions 
 
 1099 Contributions by members of 
 
 teaching or supervising force 
 to fimds to ailect legislation 
 increasing their emoluments, 
 prohibited. 
 
 1100 Board of Education may inves- 
 
 tigate any subject over which 
 it has legal control or of 
 which it has cognizance, in- 
 cluding conduct of employees. 
 
 1101 Continuance in office of all em 
 
 ployees under public school 
 system. 
 
 1102 State school moneys payable to 
 
 city and credited to general 
 fund for reduction of taxa- 
 tion. 
 
 Section State Laic Provisions 
 
 Charter see. 1099 not repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1100 not repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1101 not repealed. 
 
 Charter sec. 1102 not specifically 
 repealed. 
 880 State school moneys to be cred- 
 ited to the Board of Education 
 as well as all funds raised by 
 the city for any purpose au- 
 thorized by the educational 
 chapter. 
 
 877-10 Board of Education shall not 
 incur a liability chargeable 
 against its funds or the city 
 in excess of the amount avail- 
 able therefor, or otherwise au- 
 thorized by law. 
 
 879-4 Board of Estimate authorized 
 to raise in its discretion money 
 for new schools, sites, etc. 
 
 880-3 Board of Education to make 
 such classification of accounts 
 as the comptroller of the city 
 shall require. 
 
 From the above coinparative summary the following outstanding 
 features of the new law are apparent, viz. : 
 
 1. Reduction in size in Board of Education from forty-six to 
 
 seven members. 
 
 2. Possibility of conflict between the Board of Education and 
 
 the Supeiintendent of Schools relative to their respec- 
 tive powers. 
 
 3. Possibility of conflict between the Board of Education and 
 
 the municipal authorities relative to their respective 
 powers. 
 
 4. Failure to concentrate in clear and unmistakable language 
 
 full responsibility for the proper administration of the 
 public school system either on the municipal authorities, 
 the Board of Education or the State of ISTew York. 
 
29 
 
 5. Limitation of the powers of the Board of Education, 
 
 6. Great increase in the powers of the Superintendent of 
 
 Schools. 
 
 7. Perpetuation of the Board of Superintendents. 
 
 8. Perpetuation of the Bureau of Compulsory Education, 
 
 School Census and Child Welfare. 
 
 9. Conflict between section 1102 of the charter, which was not 
 
 specifically repealed, and the State Education Law rela- 
 tive to the disposition to be made of the city's share of 
 the State school moneys ; the former providing that such 
 money be credited to the city's general fund for the 
 reduction of taxation, and the latter that it be credited 
 to the Board of Education. 
 
 10. Increase from three mills to four and nine-tenths mills in 
 
 the amount which the City is required amiually to 
 appropriate for the use of the Board of Education. 
 
 11. The inclusion within the State's educational system of city 
 
 beards of education, including the Board of Education 
 of the City of jSTew York and the subordination of the 
 municipal authorities to the State in matters of school 
 administration. 
 
 The new law effectin.o; these changes in the status of the local 
 educational system has been in force for almost four years and 
 its adequacy and effectiveness should be easily determinable from 
 the history of the public schools during that period. A consider- 
 able amount of data bearing on this subject has been collected and 
 the President of the Board of Education, the Superintendent of 
 Schools and the Superintendent of School Buildings have been 
 examined at public hearings. The following discussion of the 
 degree of success with which the State Education Law hns been 
 administered is based upon a combination of sworn testimony and 
 independent examination of the school records. 
 
 1. Reduction in size of tlie Board of Education from J/G to 7 
 memhers. 
 
 One of the most popular features of the new law at the time 
 it was before the Legislature for enactment was that it reduced 
 the size of the Board of Education in 'New York City from the 
 unwieldy number of 46 to the small compact numl>er of 7. But 
 the experiences of the past four years have shown that good school 
 
30 
 
 management depends on more than the size of the board. A 
 board of 7 must be composed of exceptionally conscientious and 
 capable persons if it is to discharge satisfactorily its many 
 responsibilities, and it must be composed of recognized authori- 
 ties in the field of education and business if it is to command 
 public respect. The appointments made to the new board of 7 
 do not seem to have been made with due regard to these considera- 
 tions. It is doubtful if the names of the present members are 
 known to more than a small proportion of the city's population, 
 and if the names are known, it is exceedingly doubtful if the 
 qualifications of these members are known. The President of 
 the Board of Education admitted on the witness stand that prior 
 to his appointment to the Board he had not been specially inter- 
 ested in educational matters or administration (Vol. Ill, p. 1205). 
 In response to further inquiries he stated that he was in the real 
 estate business, although at the present time he was not actually 
 engaged in any business. As to his personal educational qualifica- 
 tions, he stated (Vol. Ill, p. 1205) that he was a commcn school 
 and high school graduate, but had not attended college. 
 
 In January, 1922, the President of the Board of Education 
 resigned his office and accepted a political appointment to a 
 $7,000 job as Commissioner of Taxes and iVssessments. The 
 person appointed by the Mayor to fill the vacancy occasioned by 
 the President's resignation has, according to the City's civil list, 
 been a paid employee of the City of ISTew York, from 1914: to 
 the end of 1921, his last position being that of Commissioner 
 of Public Works, at a salary of $5,500, under a Borough President 
 whose term of office expired December 31, 1921. 
 
 One of the most important committees of the Board of Educa- 
 tion is the committee on buildings and sites. The chairman of 
 that committee is the personal physician of the Mayor's family. 
 Without wishing to reflect in any way upon the probity of the 
 individuals in question, or upon other members of the present 
 Board of Education, the committee believes that the persons 
 appointed during the last four years do not all possess the highest 
 qualifications for membership on this important body. 
 
 The newest appointee is almost totally unknown outside of 
 his own borough. Even in his own borough lie is not conspicuous 
 for his knowledge of and interest in educational problems. 
 
 The law establishes qualifications for the office of Superin- 
 tendent of Schools and other members of the professional staff. 
 
31 
 
 but members of the Board of Education who are to determine the 
 educational policies to be carried out by these professional school- 
 men may be selected with regard only to the borough of their 
 residence. With no other check upon the appointing power, it 
 is not surprising that political considerations should carry great 
 weight. Politics should be kept out of the public schools and 
 some statutory safeguard should be erected to insure the selec- 
 tion of persons qualified for other than political reasons for 
 membership in the Board of Education. This can be done by 
 requiring appointments to the Board of Education to be made 
 by some non-political agency; that the desirability for some such 
 provision is more than theoretical is adequately established by the 
 evidence below. 
 
 The best test of the qualifications and competency of the present 
 Board of Education is afforded by its record of the past four years, 
 a brief account of which will now be submitted. 
 
 a. Inadequate School Accommodations. 
 
 In December, 1917, the month before the present Board of 
 Education took office, there were 746,114 children registered in 
 the day elementary schools, of whom 34,153 were on part time and 
 76,214 on the so-called duplicate form of organization. In 
 October, 1921, the last month for which figures are now available 
 (December, 1921) there were 817,210 children on register in the 
 day elementary schools, of whom 81,242 were on part time and 
 194,234 on double session. 
 
 In the daj high schools there w^ere 58,063 registered in Decem- 
 ber, 1917, none of whom were on double session and only 1,796 
 were on part time In October, 1921, the register had increased to 
 82,265 and there were 1,516 children on double session and 
 33,892 on part time. 
 
 These figures demonstrate conclusively that the Board of Edu- 
 cation has not provided sufficient additional school accommoda- 
 tions to care for the growth of school population. It is a serious 
 reflection upon ISTew York City that 115,134 children should be 
 deprived of a full day's schooling and that 195,750 children 
 should be subjected to the disadvantage of the double session 
 expedient to which the city has resorted. Such a condition is 
 intolerable and the fault lies with the Board of Education, the 
 city authorities, or the provisions of law under which they operate. 
 If the trouble is with the law, it is the dutv of the Board of Edu- 
 
y2 
 
 cation to seek such amendments as will obviate the difficulty. 
 Unless the Board has actively concerned itself with desirable 
 modifications of the statute, however, it cannot be free from 
 blame fcr the failure to provide the necessary accommodations. 
 
 The conspicuous failure to provide sufficient accommodations for 
 elementary school pupils is demonstrated by the foregoing fic:iires. 
 Confirmation is afforded by the compilation of statistics showing 
 the capacity of new elementary school buildings and additions 
 opened during the past four years. The records show the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 No. of New Buildings or No. of Sittings 
 
 Year Additions Opened Therein 
 
 1918 2 1,294 
 
 1919 4 1,380 
 
 1920 None None 
 
 1921 to Dec. 6. 16* 19,203 
 
 Total...". 22 21,877 
 
 * Of the 16 opened in 1921, all but two were opened after September 1st. 
 
 During the preceding four years, 44 new elementary buildings 
 or additions were opened, with 52,847 sittings, so that the record 
 of the present Board of Education is unsatisfactory, both as com- 
 pared with requirements and as compared with the accomplish- 
 ments of its predecessor. 
 
 Various reasons have been given by city and school officials to 
 explain the delay in school construction, the war being the one 
 most frequently mentioned. The record, however, does not indi- 
 cate that the war played more than an incidental part in this 
 matter. At the time the small Board of Education took office, it 
 found a building program prepared by its predecessor, calling 
 for the erection of certain specified buildings, and plans were 
 practically completed for several typical schools. In addition 
 there were authorizations aggregating about $10,000,000 from 
 which the cost of construction could be defrayed. The new 
 Board, however, did not make use of this program or of the 
 funds. On May 10, 1918, the President of the Board reported that 
 " this Board undertook to set aside all previous plans and begin 
 de novo," and on December 30, 1918, the Board of Estimate 
 rescinded the authorizations made by the previous administration 
 frvr new school construction. The first bids called for by the new 
 Board were for P. S. No. 29, Brooklyn. They were opened July 
 10, 1918. The contract was let but was later rescinded at the 
 
33 
 
 request of the War Industries Board. It would appear, there- 
 fore, that the only delay in school constiniction actually attribut- 
 able to the war and the rules of the War Industries Board was the 
 four month period from July when the first contract was awarded, 
 and INrovember, when the armistice was signed. On November 
 13, 1918, the Superintendent of School Buildings reported that 
 plans and specifications for fourteen new buildings and additions 
 were ready for the estimating table, but the first construction 
 contract was not let until March 24, 1919. During 1919 fourteen 
 construction contracts were let and all fourteen covered buildings 
 on the program of the previous administration for which the 
 funds had been authorized by the previous administration. It 
 took the new Board of Education more than fourteen months to go 
 ahead with the identical schools selected by its predecessor. 
 
 It is difficult to find a satisfactory explanation of the delays in 
 school construction. The passive role played by the Board of 
 Education was one factor. It received pressure and criticism 
 from the Mayor and from the city authorities and it encountered 
 obstacles in its own organization and procedure, but instead of 
 responding actively to the pressure or striving vigorously to over- 
 come the obstacles it apparently more or less acquiesced in condi- 
 tions as it found them. The following quotations from letters of 
 the IMayor and from the testimony of the President of the Board 
 of Education are illustrative of this point. 
 
 On August 8. 1918, the Mayor wrote to a member of the Board 
 of Education in part as follows: 
 
 " Six months of our administration have passed by and 
 very little has been done toward the construction of schools. 
 If Mr. Snyder cannot build more than one or two schools at 
 a time, would it not be a good idea to replace him with a man 
 who could have five or six schools in the course of constnic- 
 tion at the same time ? 
 
 " If the Board of Education will first fig-ure out how 
 many schools can be constructed with the money now avail- 
 able and after conferring with the Presidents of the various 
 boroughs will then reconunend where the schools are inuue- 
 diately required, I will then submit your plan to the mem- 
 l;crs of the committee on finance and budget, so that action 
 can be at once taken and at least seven or eight new schools 
 be started without any further delay. . . . You have a 
 standard type of ?chool. You have some school sites where 
 
34 
 
 schools are necessary. If you have not enough, let us pro- 
 ceed to secure a sufficient number of sites in accordance with 
 the money we have on hand and start the schools at once." 
 
 This letter was read into the testimony and the President of 
 the Board was then questioned as follows (Vol. Ill, p. 1264) : 
 
 " Q. Now, at the time you received that letter, the 
 $10,000,000 authorization was in force? A. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Q. Remained in force until the 30th of the following 
 December ? A. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Q. But that letter did not result in any action along the 
 line of new school buildings under that authorization? A. 
 Well, no; not under that particular authorization, no. 
 
 " Q. Well, or any other authorization until after Decem- 
 ber 30th ? A. I can't recall whether it was prior to that date 
 that the Board submitted its program for 27 new elementary 
 schools. 
 
 " Q. You said in May that you had made a complete new 
 program and wiped out the old program? A. Yes. But I 
 think perhaps that program had been sent in — I am not 
 certain — I think it had been sent in before the receipt of 
 this letter." 
 
 On October 17. 1918, the Mayor wrote again, in part, as follows 
 (Vol. Ill, p. 1266) : 
 
 " The question of a sufficient number of new school build- 
 ings in this city to properly house the school children is giv- 
 ing me great concern. . . . We have some ten millions 
 of dollars available for building schools. I would like to 
 have that money employed for that purpose and I would like 
 to begin making preparations for the construction of these 
 schools at once. Mr. Bernard Baruch, representing the Gov- 
 ernment of the IJTiited States, has declared that we cannot 
 at this time have the material necessary for the construction 
 of a certain type of school building . . . . if we cannot 
 build one type of school building we can build another 
 equally good type of school building. If we cannot use steel 
 construction we can use reinforced concrete construction." 
 
 The examination of the President of the Board then prcceedcd 
 as follows (Vol. Ill, p. 1268^ : 
 
35 
 
 " Q. Now, the Mayor wrote on October 18th that very 
 urgent letter to you, hoping you would use that $10,000,000, 
 and I do not understand how, in view of a letter of that kind 
 from the Mayoi-, you did not begin to operate on the ten 
 million dollars. A. Well, I can't very well answer that, 
 Senator, for this reason : First, I was not the President of 
 the Board at that time and I was not on the Building Com- 
 mittee at any time, never on the Sites and Buildings. 
 
 " Q. You seem to be a good man to write letters to. A. 
 But we were at that time under that ban, and I do not know 
 whether or not at that time the Board understood just what 
 this ten million dollars meant, whether it was tied up spe- 
 cifically on certain sites or buildings, I really couldn't say. 
 * * * * * 
 
 " Q. I can't make out, in view of this correspondence, how 
 it was that the 1918 program, the 1918-1919 program of the 
 Board of Education was delayed the way it was. I am 
 unable to find out. A. Well, it made a contract, as I under- 
 stand in the beginning, we advertised for several contracts; 
 we made one when the ban was put on. That ban was not 
 removed until November, until after the Armistice was 
 signed. 
 
 " Q. The 11th of November? A. Until after the Armis- 
 tice. Now this letter came in October, and the other letter 
 in July. 
 
 " Q. Yes; from August to November, there was a hiatus 
 there. A. Well, we were helpless at that time. 
 
 " Q. What ? A. We were absolutely helpless, as far as 
 making contracts was concerned. 
 
 " Q. About three months ? A. Oh, no ; it is more than 
 that, from July until practically the end of the year. 
 
 " Q. That would be four months " 
 
 The foregoing quotations show the flayer's impatience at the 
 failure of the Board of Education to accomplish more and demon- 
 strate how imperfectly the President of the Board of Education 
 could explain the Board's failure. Every menibor of a small 
 board should be familiar with such vital matters as insulficiont 
 school accommodations and every member should charge himself 
 with the duty of facilitating a building program that is so sorely 
 needed, and with the responsibility of eliminating obstacles to the 
 completion of such programs. That there are many obstacles in 
 the existing practice is shown below: 
 
36 
 
 Superintendent of Scliools 
 Associate Superintendent Shallow 
 
 Board of Superintendents 
 Board of Education 
 
 Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
 ment 
 
 Associate Superintendent Shallow 
 Board of Superintendents 
 Board of Education 
 Superintendent of School Buildings 
 
 Municipal Art Commission 
 Bureau of Buildings 
 
 Department of Water Supply, Gas 
 and Electricity 
 
 directs preparation of building pro- 
 gram by 
 
 who studies city's needs, reports on 
 order of urgency and, with assistance 
 of superintendent of school buildings, 
 estimates cost of program, which he 
 recommends to the 
 
 which considers, and then makes spe- 
 cific recommendations to the 
 
 which considers program through its 
 committee of the whole or committee 
 on buildings and sites, and then acts 
 on such committee's recommenda- 
 tions, sending its recommendations to 
 the 
 
 which has recommendations examined 
 by its committee on finance and 
 budget and its engineers and acts 
 upon their report, then notifying the 
 Board of Education of its action. 
 
 reports on layout of individual build- 
 ings in approved program to 
 
 which acts thereon and sends its rec- 
 ommendations to 
 
 and takes appro- 
 
 which considers 
 priate action 
 
 as soon as site is acquired, and sur- 
 vey received, selects type best suited 
 to neighborhood and causes detailed 
 plans to be prepared, submitting pre- 
 liminary and final drawings to 
 
 which must approve design before 
 buildings can l)e erected ; when this 
 approval is given the general con- 
 struction plans and specifications are 
 submitted by the Superintendent of 
 School Buildings to 
 
 of appropriate borough for examina- 
 tion and approval, while the plans 
 and specifications for heating and 
 ventilating (prepared by bureau of 
 plant operation) and for plumbing, 
 gasfitting and electrical work are sub- 
 mitted to the 
 
 for examination and approval. These 
 plans and specifications, together 
 with those for furniture and all other 
 equipment, are also transmitted to 
 the 
 
 Board of Education 
 
 which, after approvint 
 wards them to the 
 
 them, for- 
 
37 
 
 Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
 ment 
 
 Board of Education 
 
 Superintendent of School Buildings 
 Corporation Counsel 
 Superintendent of School Buildings 
 
 Board of Education 
 
 Board of Education 
 Comptroller 
 
 Board of Education 
 
 Comptroller 
 
 Board of Education 
 
 Superintendent of School Buildings 
 Deputy Superintendent 
 Contractor 
 
 Final payment cannot be made to the 
 Commission issues a certificate that 
 approved plans. 
 
 whicli, through its committee on 
 finance and budget and its engineers, 
 examines the plans and specifications 
 for general construction, sanitary 
 work, heating and ventilation, and 
 electrical work, together with those 
 for furniture and all other equipment, 
 acts thereon and notifies the 
 
 of its action, and when this action is 
 favorable the Board of Education 
 informs the 
 
 who then submits proposed advertise- 
 ment and contract to the 
 
 for approval, and when this approval 
 is obtained the 
 
 advertises for bids in the City Rec- 
 ord for ten days, then opens bids and 
 reports thereon to 
 
 which may award the contract, if the 
 bid is within the authorized amount. 
 If not within the estimate, the Board 
 of Estimate and Apportionment must 
 approve the increase before the con- 
 tract can be awarded. After the 
 award the 
 
 notifies the 
 
 who examines and passes on the sure- 
 ties and returns bonds to 
 
 which then signs contract, lias it re- 
 corded by its auditor and returns it 
 to the 
 
 who gives final approval as to finan- 
 cial ability and then advises 
 
 which notifies the 
 
 who notifies appropriate 
 
 who directs 
 
 to start work. 
 
 contractors until the Municipal Art 
 the building is in accordance with 
 
 An examination of the periods of time actually consumed by 
 the various agencies cooperating in the construction of schools 
 also disclosed some most significant facts. A brief life his- 
 tory was composed for each of the schools on the Board 
 of Education's building program. In two instances it was 
 found that twenty years or more had elapsed from the time the 
 recommendation for a new building was made by a local school 
 board and the time when the building was opened for use. P. S. 
 
38 
 
 No. 54, Brookljai, for example, was recommended by the school 
 board of Brooklyn in 1901 ; the contract date for its completion is 
 September, 1922. 
 
 There is also delay due to the requirement that plans and 
 specifications be submitted to the Board of Estimate for approval. 
 The examination of the record of some twenty schools on the 
 current building program shows that plans and specifications 
 were before the Board of Estimate in one instance for 356 day.s, 
 another for 211 days, and in eight cases for more than 50 days. 
 This did not take into account the time between the return by the 
 Board of Estimate and a resubmission by the Board of Educa- 
 tion. In one case the same matter was four times before the 
 Board of Estimate. In four other cases the same matter was 
 before the Board of Estimate three times. 
 
 A further index of the actual accomplishments of the Board of 
 Education in providing additional school facilities is afforded ])y 
 the following table of authorizations and expenditures for such 
 purposes, annually from 1910. 
 
 Statement Showing the Corpoeate Stock Authorizations 
 AND Cash Expenditures from January 1, 1910, to June 
 
 30, 1921 Cash Expenditures 
 
 Year Authorizations (Sites and Buildings) 
 
 1910 $5,270,173 26 $2,632,110 72 
 
 1911 12,138,387 39 4,388,647 65 
 
 1912 360,490 00 4,851,716 26 
 
 1913 6,131,085 00 4,726,394 67 
 
 Total $23,900,135 65 $16,598,869 30 
 
 1914 $798,194 89 $5,386,927 68 
 
 1915 1,505,500 00 4,138,094 66 
 
 1916 6,172,084 68 2,567,537 06 
 
 1917 6,797,571 13 2,177,079 21 
 
 Total 15,273,350 70 14,269,638 61 
 
 1918 *$678,754 24 $2,233,113 32 
 
 1919 7,000,000 00 2,648,070 46 
 
 1920 8,000,000 00 5,562,616 73 
 
 1921 15,250,000 00 4,780,531 46 
 
 Total 29,571,245 76 15,224,33197 
 
 Grand Total $68,744,732 11 $46,092,839 88 
 
 * Net rescindment. 
 
 It will be noted that the expenditures of the three and a half 
 years, 1918 to July, 1921, were but $15,224,331.97 which, in view 
 of the depreciated value of the dollar during all this period rep- 
 
resents not more than $8,000,000 in building- value on the basis of 
 1910 to 1917, or about one-half of the previous four-year totals. 
 The average annual authorization for the eleven and a half 
 years covered in the above table was $5,977,802.79 and the 
 average annual expenditure $4,008,073.03, or about $0,000,000 
 and $4,000,000, respectively. 
 
 h. Fire Hazards in the Schools. 
 
 It is the duty of the Bureau of Fire Prevention of the Fire 
 Department and the Bureaus of Buildings in the live boroughs to 
 inspect school buildings to determine whether the requirements of 
 law respecting exits and the elimination of fire hazards are being 
 complied with. In the event that violations are discovered, it is 
 the duty of these bureaus to serve notice thereof on the Board of 
 Education. 
 
 An examination was made of the records of the Board of 
 Education with respect to such violations. It was found 
 that at the time of this examination, August, 1921, there 
 were 7,353 violations of fire prevention rules recorded against 
 496 of the city's 695 school buildings. The Committee's engineer 
 esitimated the cost of removing these violations at about $4,500,- 
 000. Some of the violations are less serious than others, but, on 
 the other hand, some are of the very greatest moment, as, for 
 example, stairways that are not enclosed with fire and smoke 
 proof partitions and not provided with self-closing doors ; interior 
 fire alarm systems that do not work; wooden and not self-closing 
 fireproof doors along the line of exit stairways; no hand fire 
 extinguishers; and storage of dangerously inflammable materials 
 in non-fireproof rooms or compartments. 
 
 The seriousness of this situation is emphasized by the words 
 of the Superintendent of School Buildings, quoted in the minutes 
 of the Board of Education for March 23, 1921, as follows: 
 
 " This with the continued growth of the schools and conse- 
 quent overcrowding and congestion, causes me great un- 
 easiness and distress of mind. If the fire prevention work 
 was and is required for schools under noniial conditions, 
 how much more important must it be when a building con- 
 tains quite one-half or more in excess of the nomial . . . 
 why paint and renovate the interior of a building when 
 there are essential items of fire prevention work to be per- 
 formed which would actually operate to safeguard life and 
 lessen fire risk." 
 
40 
 
 Eut in spite of the importance of this work and of the fact that 
 many of these violations date back several years, only $250,000 
 was made available for the removal of fire violations during the 
 past four years, and that appropriation was not made until April, 
 1921. The following table shows how the schools have been 
 neglected in this respect as compared with the years preceding 
 this administration and while it should be stated that the Board 
 of Education has made repeated requests since 1918 for fire pre- 
 vention funds, these requests have not been effective. 
 
 Authorizations and Expenditures for Fire Prevention 
 Work as of August 10, 1921 
 
 Date of Amount of 
 
 Authorization Authorization Expenditures Balance 
 
 Sept. 16, 1904 $300. 000 00 $300 , 000 00 
 
 550 ,000 00 550,000 00 
 
 April 3,1908 1,000,000 00 1,000,000 00 
 
 June 3,1910 450,000 00 450,000 00 
 
 July 17,1911 450,000 00 447,666 59 $2,333 41 
 
 Nov. 19,1915 250,000 00 250,000 00 
 
 July 7,1916 250,000 00 250,000 00 
 
 April 20,1917 250,000 00 240,660 85 9,339 15 
 
 April 22,1921 250,000 00 250,000 00 
 
 On Seplf-mber 14th the Committee examined the Superintend- 
 ent of School Buildings on this subject. Significant portions of 
 the testimony are given below (Vol. Ill, p. 1364ff) : 
 
 "Q. Well, this question of doing away with violations of 
 the fire prevention rules has been a matter of a good deal of 
 concern to you for several years, hasn't it ? A. It has. 
 
 "Q. And you have made efforts to secure moneys for the 
 purpose of correcting the conditions ? A. Yes, sir. 
 
 "Q. You have reported it frequently to the Board of Edu- 
 cation ? A. I have. 
 
 "Q. And seen that it was presented to the Board of Esti- 
 mate and Apportionment ? A. That would not be for me 
 to do. 
 
 "Q. That would not be your function ? A. ISTo, sir. 
 
 "Q. I see in your letter of Mar. 18, 1921, that you say: 
 'The condition in relation to fire prevention with the con- 
 tinued gi'owth of schools and consequent overcrowding and 
 congestion, causes me great uneasiness and distress of mind.' 
 Is that true ? A. It was. 
 
41 
 
 "Q. ^If the fire prevention work was and is required for 
 schools under normal conditions, how much more important 
 must it be when buildings contain quite one-half or more in 
 excess of the normal V A. Yes, sir. 
 
 "Q. 'I sincerely hope that a resumption of the carrying 
 out of this most important work may be brought about with- 
 out the stimulus represented perhaps by some awful acci- 
 dent, either here or elsewhere.' You said that, didn't you ? 
 A. That is in the letter, yes. 
 
 "Q. You adhere to it? A. I do. 
 
 " Q. And I notice you say, ' These orders (that is, the fire 
 prevention rules) have been and are now available at a mo- 
 ment's notice. If there be no intention of granting funds 
 for fire prevention work, then we should know it and make a 
 study of the situation, looking to a decision as to whether 
 or not all moneys for certain repairs should be used for this 
 work.' Was any such decision made to divert moneys for 
 repairs generally to this work? A. What was the date of 
 that letter, please ? 
 
 "Q. March, 1921 ? A. I^o. 
 
 "Q. You need the money for other repairs that you get? 
 A. We do. 
 
 "Q. And you use it for other repairs ? A. We do. 
 
 ''Q. I notice you say, 'Why paint and renovate the interior 
 of a building, when there are essential items of fire preven- 
 tion work to be performed, which would naturally operate 
 to safeguard life and lessen fire risk.' A. That is a question 
 of judgment. 
 
 "Q. 'The situation becomes more serious with each day's 
 delay,' and then comes an appeal to the Board of Education 
 to apply to the Board of Estimate. I will read it : 'I would 
 earnestly recommend that the Board of Education adopt 
 resolutions for transmission to the Board of Estimate and Ap- 
 portionment, stating the stern necessity of prompt action 
 upon the Board's request for funds to enable the department 
 to undertake immediately fire prevention work that is ab- 
 solutely necessary if we are to safeguard properly the lives 
 of the children entrusted to our care.' That is your letter? 
 A. I believe it is, yes, sir. 
 
 "Q. And T notice elseAvhere that you state that if the cor- 
 rection of the violations was compelled, it would result in 
 the shutting down cf a lot of schools ? A. Pardon me. I do 
 
42 
 
 not thiuk that that is quite the meaning of that paragraph 
 as I recall it. I have not seen it in some time. 
 
 "Q. Well, I was trying to be brief. Sometimes I am brief 
 at the expense of accuracy. A. I meant this, that the fire 
 department have the right to close up any premises which it 
 considers unsafe, and we might possibly be confronted — 
 someone might reach such a decision, and we would be con- 
 fronted with such a decision. 
 
 *' Q. Here it says, ' In the event, however, of the Fire 
 Department enforcing through legal proceeding the carry- 
 ing out of the orders now outstanding on our buildings, 
 there would be no alternative, it would seem, except to close 
 such structures for the time being, either in whole or in 
 part, until funds had become available and the orders 
 executed.' A. That is what I had reference to. 
 
 " Q. That is an accurate statement, is it ? A. That is what 
 I had reference to. The Fire Department could do that. 
 
 "Q. I meant to state it in substance in that form ? A. Yes, 
 sir. 
 
 Senator Downing: Did the Fire Department close any 
 school buildings ? 
 
 The Witness : No, sir. 
 
 " Q. Here you say, ' For instance, in Public School 117, 
 Brooklyn, which was not originally intended for a school 
 building, we have been obliged, much against the wishes of 
 the District and Division Superintendents, to prohibit the 
 use of the upper floor, owing to the absence of enclosed fire- 
 proof stairway and other items, the cost of which was esti- 
 mated about two years ago to be about $34,000, and no funds 
 being available for the work.' .... 
 
 In reply to a question as to how much money would be required 
 to correct outstanding fire violations, Superintendent Snyder 
 stated (Vol. Ill, p. 1368): "Around four millions of dollars." 
 The following quotation from the testimony gives Superintend- 
 ent Snyder's recommendation for the prevention of such an accu- 
 mulation of uncorrected violations. (Vol. Ill, p. 1381). 
 
 "Q. ISTow what is the matter with the system ? A. Why, 
 the system was that there has never been a policy — the Board 
 of Education was never in a position to fix a policy and go 
 ahead and do the work systematically and know what it could 
 do this vear and next voar and the vcar after that. 
 
4a 
 
 " Q. Because they didn't have the money ( A. They didn't 
 have the right to fix a policy. 
 
 "Q. To have the money? A. I wouldn't put it that \vay. 
 They didn't have the right to fix a policy and the ability to 
 carry it out when once fixed. 
 
 "Q. Where would you vest that powder, where should it be 
 vested so as to insure it being carried out ? A. I think all 
 these things resolve themselves simply down to this, that 
 the Board of Education either should be absolutely independ- 
 ent and handle its own affairs and be able to fix its policy, or 
 should know that it is not independent and must bow to the 
 city departments or something of the kind. It is either one 
 thing or the other, and everything can be traced to that one 
 thing. 
 
 "Q. Would you regard the system under which this large 
 accumulation of fire violations occurs, is wrong, needs cor- 
 rection ? A. I believe it does ; yes, sir. 
 
 " Q. By statute, by law ? A. Whatever is necessary to 
 bring it about. You know better than I do. 
 
 "Q. By law? A. Some way that it should be done. 
 
 " Q. And there should be some power in connection with 
 the Board of Education which will enable it to meet these 
 violations of the fire prevention rules as they come up ? A. 
 Yes, sir ; and anything else that comes up. 
 
 " Q. Well, particularly these? A. Yes, sir." 
 
 c. Failure to Bepair Fire Damage to Board of Education 
 Building 
 In February, 1918, the seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the 
 Hall of the Board of Education, at 500 Park Avenue, housing the 
 executive offices of the Board, were completely burned out. Bids 
 for the rebuilding of these floors were not, however, opened until 
 December 7, 1921, nearly four years after the fire. During this 
 interval the work of the Board has been seriously interfered with 
 because of compulsory vacancy of the three top floors of its build- 
 ing. The Bureau of School Buildings, for example, had to be 
 moved to inadequate quarters in the jMunicipal Building, several 
 miles away from the other offices of the Board. The delay in 
 agreeing on new plans, in securing an appropriation and in letting 
 the contract lays the Board of Education open to the most serious 
 criticism, ^o business corporation would tolerate such slovenly 
 and inefficient methods. 
 
44 
 
 The following extract from the testimony of the President of 
 the Board of Education on this subject is illuminating (Vol. Ill, 
 p. 1325) : 
 
 " Q. Was there a fire in the Board of Education Build- 
 ing? A. * * * Yes, in our building. 
 
 " Q. In your- building? A. In Febraary, I think, 1918. 
 
 " Q. What did that do? A. A¥ell, it destroyed, I think, 
 the three upper floors of the building. 
 
 " Q. How many floors have you got ? A. It is a 9-story 
 building. 
 
 " Q. Did you need that room ? A. Yes, we needed it badly. 
 
 " Q. You have needed it badly during all that time ? A. 
 Yes. 
 
 " Q. But it has not been restored ? A. 'No, it has not. 
 
 " Q. Only a temporary roof put on it ? A. That is all. 
 
 " Q. Is anything being done now to correct it ? A. Yes. 
 The Department is working on plans. The Building Bureau 
 is working on plans. 
 
 " Q. That is, the Building Bureau of the Board of Educa- 
 tion ? A. Of the Board of Education. 
 
 " Q. Haven't they worked on plans before ? A. Plans 
 have been prepared, yes. 
 
 '^ Q. They must have had the plans in the same year it 
 burned, didn't they ? A. No, we had no appropriation that 
 year. 
 
 " Q. You have to get plans before you get an appropria- 
 tion, don't you? A. Yes, but I think we prepared plans 
 but failed to secure an appropriation. 
 
 "■ Q. That is, you prepared the plans in 1918 ? A. I am 
 not sure. I think in 1918, yes. 
 
 " Q. Right after the fire ? A. And thereafter, I think the 
 plans were changed. They were to change the stairways and 
 make some other changes in the building. 
 
 " Q. When were they changed ? A. Well, that I can not 
 tell you. The details as to that the Building Superintendent 
 has. 
 
 " Q. Who recommended the changes, the same Bureau ? 
 A. I thinlc the members of the Board requested changes, and 
 I think perhaps the Superintendent of Schools. 
 
 " Q. Well, now, this plan for the repair of this building 
 was submitted to the Board of Estimate when, first ? A. I 
 can't tell you, Senator. 
 
45 
 
 " Q. 1918? A. I couldn't say; I would have to get the 
 facts on that; I couldn't remember the dates. 
 
 " Q. It has been pending a long time ? A. They were 
 pending a long time, yes. 
 
 " Q. November 27, 1918, my records show? A. They 
 were subsequently changed, 
 
 " Q. And presented again June 25, 1919, the record 
 shows, and then again in July and then again March, 1920, 
 and then in May, 1920, so you have made abundant applica- 
 tion to the Board of Estimate ? A. I have followed that up 
 pretty closely myself personally. We were anxious to get in 
 the building to have the building repaired and we were over- 
 crowded, and as I say, we were very anxious to get in there. 
 
 " Q. You have needed the room all the time, it was occu- 
 pied before the fire, wasn't it? A. It was necessary to have 
 some of our departments housed outside of the building, be- 
 cause of lack of space there, due to the fire. 
 
 " Q. I say, it was occupied when the fire occurred ? A. 
 It was. 
 
 " Q. You have needed it ever since ? A. We have. 
 
 " Q. You have had to hire some rooms outside ? A. We 
 have. 
 
 " Q. To what extent ? A. Well, we are not hiring any 
 rooms outside but we are occupying city owned property. 
 
 " Q. City property ? A. Yes." 
 
 J. Incomplete By-Laivs and Delayed Minutes 
 
 Matters of less public importance but of almost equal signifi- 
 cance as indicating the degree of efficiency with which the Board 
 of Education has administered the new Education Law are those 
 relating to the revision of the Board's by-laws and the prepara- 
 tion of its minutes. The new law of 1917 so changed the 
 organization and scheme of the school system that a complete re- 
 vision of the by-laws was necessary in order to make them con- 
 form with the new statute. This complete revision had not, 
 however, been made up to September 12, 1921, when the Presi- 
 dent of the Board of Education was examined on this point by 
 the Committee. A few sections had been adopted in new form, 
 but the great bulk of the by-laws was still in the form of a vol- 
 ume published in 1914 with literally hundreds of amendment 
 slips pasted to the appropriate pages, many of which antedate 
 
46 
 
 the law of 1917 and in tlie form of special documents containing 
 salary schedules as enacted by the Legislature. 
 
 A Board which can permit a delay of nearly four years in the 
 preparation and adoption of by-laws to govern the administration 
 of the public school system of which it is the head, cannot escape 
 criticism on the ground of incapacity or lack of interest in the 
 great responsibility with which it is charged. 
 
 The Board has also tolerated during its term of office a condi- 
 tion which no business house would peraiit to exist for a moment. 
 The minutes of Board meetings are records of the greatest import- 
 ance to teachers, board members, board officers and city authori- 
 ties as they are the official documents setting forth the Board's 
 determinations and decisions. The last volume of minutes, how- 
 ever, to be furnished with a printed index is that for 1915. The 
 index for 1916 is said to be completed, but it has not yet gone to 
 the printer. A delay of five years in indexing current minutes is 
 inexcusable. Another instance of the dilatoriness permitted by 
 the Board is the fact that it takes the secretaiy's office about two 
 months to issue printed minutes of Board meetings. The Com- 
 mittee has been on the mailing list for these minutes and on the 
 day that this statement is written (December 7, 1921) the last 
 meeting for which minutes have been received is that of Septem- 
 ber 28, 1921, and those minutes came only a few days ago. There 
 has been a constant lag of about two months between board 
 meeting and receipt of minutes ever since the Committee started 
 inquiry in this direction. 
 
 It is generally agreed that a small Board of Education can be 
 more efficient than a large board, and that the abolition of the 
 former board of 46 members was most desirable. It seems quite 
 certain, however, that a Board of Education of seven members is 
 too small for the City of New York. Boards of Education in 
 other cities of the state number from three to nine members ; 
 about twenty cities having boards of nine ; about twenty-five cities 
 having boards of from five to seven, and the others having boards 
 of from three to five. It is not logical that New York, the largest 
 city of the state, should have a Board of Education smaller than 
 the Board of Education in twenty other cities with far less inhab- 
 itants. The New York Board of Education should be large enough 
 to handle its problems efi"ectively and yet not so large as to be 
 unwieldy, and its term of office should be uniform with the terms 
 of office of Boards of Education in the other cities of the state. 
 
47 
 
 It seems equally certain that the statutes should impose 
 some means for guaranteeing the quality of the local appoint- 
 ments to the Board of Education. Appointment should be made 
 on the basis of qualification for the duties to be performed. iVn 
 appointing officer with unrestricted power to appoint is subject 
 to a degree of external political pressure to which it is difficult 
 not to respond, and political considerations should play no part 
 in the selection of members of a Board of Education. 
 
 From the foregoing account of the division of responsibility 
 between city and educational authorities under the present stat- 
 ute, it is also clear that the only remedy lies in so amending the 
 law as to centralize power in a single agency. If the Board of 
 Education is to be responsible for the proper conduct of the 
 schools, it should have the power to cany out its program without 
 hindrance. 
 
 2. Possibilities of conflict hetiveen the Board of Education and 
 the Superintendent of Schools, relative to their respective powers. 
 
 Under the Greater ISFew York Charter, the Board of Education 
 had specific power to enact by-laws " defining the duties of the 
 city siiperintendent of schools." The Education Law of 1917 re- 
 pealed this section of the charter (Section 1068) and did not 
 enact an equivalent. 
 
 In addition to this negative act, it specifically constituted the 
 Superintendent of Schools, " the chief executive officer of such 
 board" (of education), and gave him power subject to the by- 
 laws, " to enforce all provisions of law and all rules and regu- 
 lations relating to the management of the schools." He was also 
 given specific jurisdiction over the employees of the Board of 
 Education. 
 
 The material for a serious controversy between the Board and 
 its Superintendent was thus at hand and controversy developed. 
 The new Board of Education adopted new by-laws, defining the 
 powers of its Pi'esident, of the Board and of its subordinates. 
 The Superintendent of Schools felt that his prerogatives under 
 the statute had been invaded by these by-laws and appealed to the 
 State Commissioner of Education for relief. The Commissioner 
 upheld him and directed the Board to amend its by-laws so as to 
 eliminate the objectionable provisions. The significance of the 
 decision bv the Commissioner is indicated by the alterations that 
 
48 
 
 were made by the Board pursuant to his injunction, some of which 
 are quoted below. 
 
 First Version 
 Sec. 3. "Any salaried officer, clerk 
 or other employee may be suspended 
 by the President or Superintendent of 
 Schools. ..." 
 
 Sec. 4, Par. 2. " The President shall 
 exercise general supervision over the 
 transaction of the business affairs of 
 the Board of Education and shall 
 have the power to require that re- 
 ports be made to him by any olhcer 
 or employee for his use and informa- 
 tion, or for presentation to the Board 
 for its consideration and action. The 
 Superintendent of Schools shall act 
 in the administration of business af- 
 fairs under the advice and guidance 
 of the President." 
 
 First Versiooi 
 Sec. 6, Par. 5. The Superintendent 
 of Schools " shall recommend to the 
 Board of Education the organization 
 of day and evening schools and other 
 educational and recreational activi- 
 ties into major divisions, each of 
 which shall be supervised by an asso- 
 ciate superintendent, to be assigned 
 by the Superintendent of Schools, 
 subject to the approval of the Board 
 of Education." 
 
 Sec. 6, Par. 8. Relative to the Su- 
 perintendent of Schools, " In his ab- 
 sence or inability to serve, the Board 
 of Education shall designate an as- 
 sociate superintendent to serve as 
 acting Superintendent of Schools." 
 
 Sec. 7, Par. 10. Relative to the 
 Board of Superintendents, " It shall 
 make rules and regulations with the 
 approval of the Board of Education 
 for the admission of pupils to the 
 schools, for their promotion, gradua- 
 tion and for their transfer from one 
 school to another." 
 
 Amended Version 
 
 "Any salaried officer, clerk or other 
 employee may be suspended by the 
 Superintendent of Schools. . . .' 
 
 " The President shall perform the 
 functions that appertain to the office 
 of a presiding officer. The Board 
 may require that reports be made for 
 its consideration and action by any 
 officer or employee." 
 
 Amend ed Version 
 The Superintendent of Schools 
 " shall recommend to the Board of 
 Education the organization of day 
 and evening schools and other edu- 
 cational and recreational activities 
 into major divisions. Each of said 
 divisions shall be supervised by an 
 associate superintendent, to be as- 
 signed by the Super inter dent of 
 Schools." 
 
 " In his absence or inability to 
 serve, he shall designate an associate 
 superintendent as acting superintend- 
 ent of schools." 
 
 " It shall make rules and regula- 
 tions for the admission of pupils to 
 the schools, for their promotion and 
 graduation and for their transfer 
 from one school to another." 
 
 The testimony of the Superintendent of Schools before the 
 Committee on September 14, 1921, on this subject was as follows 
 (Vol. Ill, p. 1407) : 
 
 " Q. I understood you to say that reasonable coordination 
 could be expected from the educational system as it is now 
 
4t) 
 
 organized ; that is, between the Board of Education and the 
 Superintendent and the Board of Associate Superintendents. 
 That works well, does it ? A. Within the Board, yes. That 
 is, between the Board of EdvTcation, the Board of Superin- 
 tendents, and the Superintendent of Schools. 
 
 " Q. They cooperate with a reasonable degi^ee of success 
 and efficiency ? A. Yes, sir, they do now. 
 
 " Senator Downing : In harmony ? 
 
 " The Witness : Yes. It took a good while to get har- 
 mony, naturally. I might explain here that this new law 
 created an entirely new condition, and the tradition was in 
 the Board of Education that affairs should be carried on as 
 they had been carried on before this law, and in the carrying 
 out of the business of the Board, there may have been a 
 little conflict with the powers of the Superintendent of 
 Schools, as he conceived them, and the Superintendent of 
 Schools, of course, in his high regard for the sacredness of 
 his oliice, had to protest against any such action and appeal 
 to the State Commissioner. That was perfectly natural. 
 There was not any acrimony on either side. It was simply 
 a definition of powers. It took two years to straighten that 
 out. 
 
 " Q. You have it straightened out now ? A. Yes, sir, it 
 is straightened out now. 
 
 " Q. And the present workings are smooth ? A. At pres- 
 ent, yes, sir." 
 
 A situation where a Board of Education, nominally the head 
 of a school system., is by statute given inferior powers to those of 
 one of its subordinates, is unwholesome and subversive of dis- 
 cipline. It is liard to see hov/ a self-respecting Board of Educa- 
 tion could acquiesce in such a condition. Responsibility and 
 authority should be placed in the same hands. If a Board of 
 Education is not deemed competent to administer the aifairs of 
 the school system, the remedy lies not in elevating an appointee 
 of that Board to a position superior to that of the Board itself, 
 but in changing the character of the Board. 
 
 A continuance of this unwholesome condition would be most 
 unfortunate. The Board of Education should be the unquestioned 
 fiscal and policy determining head of the school system and it 
 should liave full power to delegate to its subordinates the responsi- 
 
50 
 
 bilitv of carrying out the policies upon whicli it determines. 
 It is of course tnie that a Board of Education has not the technical 
 pedagogical training possessed bj the professional staff and 
 that lay interference in the actual teaching of the children 
 might be most dangerous, and that certain safegaiards must 
 be established by law which will insure a reasonable degree of 
 freedom to the professional head of the school system. On the 
 other hand there is ample evidence that the law under which 
 the Board of Education now operates does not satisfactorily 
 meet this problem. In a city like ISTew York, w^hich has the 
 greatest educational problem in the world, it does not necessarily 
 follow that the professional schoolman best qualified to carry out 
 the educational program of the schools will also possess the quali- 
 fications to supervise the strictly business duties of the school 
 system, such as the purchase of supplies, the construction and 
 alteration of buildings, the assignment of janitors and other em- 
 ployees, etc., even if he had the time. In a smaller city, where 
 these business matters do not constitute the burden that they do 
 in I^ew York, the Superintendent may be able to exercise the two 
 functions without detriment to either. This is not likely, how- 
 ever, ever to be true in 'New York City, and yet under the present 
 Education Law the Superintendent of Schools is made the execu- 
 tive officer of the Board of Education, with jurisdiction not only 
 over the educational side of the Board's work, but also over the 
 Board's business activities. Authority should, therefore, be given 
 to the Board of Education to delegate the non-professional and 
 administrative duties to some officer other than the Superintend- 
 ent of Schools, if it deems it wise to do so. 
 
 3. Possibility of Conflict Bctireen the Board of Education and the 
 Municipal Authorities BeJative to their Respective Powers 
 
 The repeal of most of the educational chapter of the charter 
 and the enactment of an entirely new statute changing the rela- 
 tionship between the Board of Education and the city authorities 
 afforded an opportunity for either friction or co-operation in the 
 working out of the new relationship. From the records it appears 
 that it was friction and not co-operation which resulted, and this 
 in spite of the fact that the Board of Education was composed 
 wholly of persons appointed by the present Mayor. 
 
 The chief points at issue are set forth fully in a brief submit- 
 ted on April 4, 1919, by the Superintendent of Schools to a Com- 
 
51 
 
 mittee of the Board of Regents, requesting relief from "the unlaw- 
 ful control of the public school system ... by the municipal 
 authorities." This brief noted the following points. 
 
 1. That the municipal authorities diverted the State school 
 
 moneys for 1918 amounting to some $2,300,000 from the 
 Board of Education to the general fund for the reduction 
 of taxation, following the provisions of Sec. 1102 of the 
 charter instead of Sec. 880 of the Education Law. 
 
 2. That the municipal authorities sought to control educational 
 
 policies and administrative details by a minvito segregation 
 of appropriations and the imposition of terms and condi- 
 tions. 
 
 3. That the municipal authorities assumed a jurisdiction over 
 
 administrative employees of the Board and by withholding 
 their pay worked great hardship. 
 
 4. That the municipal authorities sought to gain entrance into 
 
 the school system and establish jurisdiction over school affairs 
 through the intrusion of the Commissioner of x\ccounts into 
 the business of the Board. 
 
 5. That the attitude of the Mayor, as indicated by his oral and 
 
 Avritten utterances, was significant of the relationship be- 
 tween the City and the scliool authorities. 
 
 The Mayor's attitude toward school affairs was further devel- 
 oped in the testimony of the Committee, copies of letters written 
 by him having been read into the record. 
 
 Extracts from these letters and from others in the Committee's 
 possession follow: 
 
 (Vol. Ill, p. 1272) From the Mavor to Mr. Prall, Nov. 25, 
 1918. 
 
 The by-laws "now pending and supported by Superintend- 
 ent Ettinger would place that department in a position that 
 would require all reports upon investigations ordered by 
 the Board of Education to come to the Board through the 
 Superintendent. This is part of a policy which, if persisted 
 in, makes the Sui)erintendent a dictator and practically the 
 superior of the Board of Education. 
 
 "Superintendent Ettinger is submissive to and is practi- 
 cally controlled by Cook, the Auditor, who is the trouble- 
 maker in the Board of Education and has little regard for 
 the expenditure of money appropriated for educational pur- 
 poses. 
 
"I regret to be obliged to write yen about this, but unless 
 the Board of Education puts an end to the dictation of Cook, 
 through Ettinger, there is little hope that we will be able to 
 accomplish anything for the improvement of school condi- 
 tions in this city. A year has almost passed and practically 
 nothing in a constructive way has been accomplished by the 
 new Board of Education. 
 
 "Won't you please exercise the rights given you under the 
 law to see that the Board of Education and not the subordi- 
 nates run the schools of this City ? " 
 
 When questioned about the "Cook" referred to in this letter, 
 President Prall testified, "He is an auditor, a very good auditor; 
 understands his business thoroughly. We depend on him abso- 
 lutely." 
 
 "Q. He has the confidence of the Board ? A. We depend 
 on him absolutely. 
 
 "Q. He has the confidence of the Board ? A. He has. 
 "Q. And Ettinger the same ? A. Yes, sir. 
 
 (Vol. Ill, p. 1277) From the Mayor to Mr. Prall, June 27, 
 1919. 
 
 "My Dear Commissioner : I wish you would confer with 
 the members of the Board of Education and see to it that 
 no increases in salary are made in the Educational Depart- 
 ment, until such time as we find how financial matters stand 
 in the Department. 
 
 "Cook, Ettinger and Company have so bungU'd matters 
 that it will be hard to straighten things out." 
 
 (Vol. Ill, ]). 1277) From lhe ]\rayor to :\rr. Prall, June 14, 
 1919. 
 
 "Dear Sir: I note that Superintendent Ettinger, who is 
 anxious to have the Legislature increase his salary by $5,000, 
 which the Board of Estimate and Apportionment opposed, 
 is attempting to give the public the impression that the Board 
 of Estimate and Apportionment is opposed to keeping open 
 the swimming pools in the public schools. This is absolutely 
 false, and Ettinger knows it. 
 
 "There has been $45,000,000 appropriated by the present 
 Board of Estimate and Apportionment for the public schools 
 of the city, and out of that there will be sufiicient to pay the 
 few attendants necessary, the cost of which is less than 
 $7,000, to look after the swimming pools for the summer. 
 
" Ettiiiji'or had no trouble in finding money out of the 
 $45,000,000 to start new actixdties so that his friends could 
 get high salaried jobs and increases in salary for other Ettin- 
 ger favorites. 
 
 ''A man who resorts to such methods to mislead the public 
 is not the proper person to be Superintendent of the Schools 
 of the City of K'ew York." 
 
 On August 6, 1919, the Mayor referred to the Police Commis- 
 sioner for investigation an anonymous letter charging that the 
 Superintendent of Schools had improperly pensioned a teacher. 
 The Police Department made an investigation and reported on 
 Sept. 3, 1919, naturally finding nothing to support the accusa- 
 tion as all pensions are under the jurisdiction of the Teachers' 
 Retirement Board and not under the Superintendent of Schools. 
 
 On September 2, 1020, the Mayor wrote President Prall as 
 follows: 
 
 ''Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of September 
 1st with reference to the refusal of the Department of 
 Finance to honor the payrolls of the Board of Education 
 so that the teaching force will receive the increases granted 
 them under the mniidatoi-v legislation passed by the Legis- 
 lature at its last session. 
 
 ''The Board of Education should immediately begin man- 
 damus proceedings against the Comptroller to compel him 
 to y)ay the salaries now legally due the teachers. 
 
 " T have directed Corporation Counsel O'Brien to confer 
 with you vvithout delay to the end that the teachers' salaries 
 be paid wi^^hout any further quibbling.'' 
 
 On Septenil)er 2;>, 1010, the Mayor wrote President Prall in 
 part as follows : 
 
 '' Ettinger bitterly opposed the investigation of the expen- 
 diture of $44,000,000 appropriated for educational purposes. 
 He now seems to have the City Club behind him to help him 
 thwart your investigation of the finances of the educational 
 department and ether conditions in our school system. The 
 Board of Education should take some action so that Ettinger 
 will give his time to educating the children and bettering 
 conditions in our public schools instead of playing education 
 politics and making trouble for those who want school-houses 
 erected and the children given a proper education.'' 
 
54 
 
 On December 4, 1919, the Mayor wrote the Corporation. 
 Counsel as follows: 
 
 " Dear Mr. Burr: I congratulate you upon your success 
 in the Court of Appeals in the case of Hirshfield, Commis- 
 sioner of Accounts of the City of Xew York against Cook, 
 Auditor of the Educational Department. I understand the 
 decision was unanimous in favor of the city investigating 
 the financial condition of the educational system. 
 
 '' The Board of Education have at all times, as you know, 
 been in favor of a thorough investigation of the financial 
 condition of the educational system under Superintendent 
 Ettinger, but this policy was opposed by Superintendent Et- 
 tinger and Auditor Cook, and other prominent persons in the 
 city who for some reason, feel that the taxpayers should not 
 know what is being; done with their monev. However, the 
 Court of Appeals has sustained the city's contention and the 
 investigation can now go on. 
 
 " If Ettinger and Cook had not been encouraged by Fine- 
 gan of the State Educational Department they would not 
 have attempted to override the action of the Board of Educa- 
 tion, their superiors, and the people of this city would have 
 known long ago whether the finances of the Board of Educa 
 tion were being properly expended. 
 
 " The decision of the Court of Appeals should be suffi- 
 cient to convince Superintendent Ettinger that his superiors, 
 the Board of Education, must be recognized, and that he can- 
 not override them M^itli the aid of De|mty Einegan at 
 Albany. 
 
 " Superintendent Ettinger can now devote his time to the 
 proper housing and education of the children and the better- 
 ing of the moral tone of the schools of the city. 
 
 " The people of the city appropriate millions of dollars 
 yearly for the better education of their children. They 
 want a sufficient number of school-houses to properly house 
 the little ones and a thorough fundamental education given 
 to them. They do not want their money wasted for unneces- 
 sary textbooks, fads, frills and fancies. 
 
 " It is a pleasure to remember that the great judges of the 
 Court of Appeals have stood by the people and against the 
 traction interests in their fight for an increased fare, and 
 again by the people and against those in the school system 
 
55 
 
 who objected to the people knowing what is done with the 
 millions they appropriate yearly for education, as well as 
 the many other important cases which are of great interest 
 and importance to the people." 
 
 On December 9. 1919, President Prall wrote the Mayor as fol- 
 lows (Vol. Ill, p.' 1282) : 
 
 " My Dear Mr. Mayor: Some time between Friday even- 
 ing, December 5th, and yesterday (Monday) moniing, De- 
 cember Sth, certain corresjx>ndence in my files, i. e., all the 
 letters received by the President of the Board of Education 
 from the Corporation Counsel, and all the duplicate 
 copies of letters sent to the Corporation Counsel during the 
 period from January, 1919, to date, were surreptitiously 
 removed. 
 
 " I, therefore, respectfully request that you assign to this 
 case capable men from the detective bureau of the Police De- 
 partment in order that I may apprehend the person or per- 
 sons of-uiltv of this outrage." 
 
 Mr. Prall testified that he regarded this as an important loss 
 but that the guilty parties were never apprehended. In reply to 
 the question whether there were any matters pending at the time 
 of the theft on which the correspondence had a bearing Mr. Prall 
 stated (Vol. Ill, p. 1285): 
 
 '" I think the controversy between the Superintendent of 
 Schools and the Commissioner of Accounts was on at that 
 time." 
 
 On December 20, 1919, the Mayor wrote President Prall a 
 letter in which the following statement is made: 
 
 " There is no discipline in the educational system under 
 Superintendent Ettingcr. Certain principals and certain 
 high officials spend little time performing the duties for 
 which they are paid. Some action should be taken by tlia 
 Board of Education to punish insubordination." 
 
 The y)crson not already familiar with conditions in Xew York 
 City during the past four years must read this coiTespondence 
 with amazement. But even the foregoing extracts do not tell the 
 whole story of the antagonism between municipal and educational 
 authorities. 
 
 The Court of Appeals decided a case on l^ovember 22. 1921, 
 that may prove of great significance in the future determination 
 
50 
 
 of the relationship between municipal and educational authori- 
 ties, but unless the City and the Board of Education can agree 
 as to the bearing cf this decision upon the current business of the 
 public school system there may be frequent recourse to litigation 
 of a similar nature. A certain cure would be the revision of the 
 Education Law as affecting New York City. The decision 
 referred to is printed in the New York Law Journal for Decem- 
 ber 20, 1921, and reads in part as follows: 
 
 " ISectiou 880 of the Education Law provides that all 
 funds coliectted or received from any source for school 
 purjjoses shall be paid into the treasury of the city and shall 
 be credited to the board of education ; that such funds shall 
 be disbursed only by authority of the board of education 
 and iipon written orders drawn on the city treasurer or 
 other fiscal otiicer of the city, such orders to be signed by the 
 superintendent of schools and the secretary of the board of 
 education or such other officer as the board may authorize. 
 The city treasurer is inhibited from permitting the use of 
 said funds for any purpose other than that for which they 
 are lawfully authorized, or paying out said funds except on 
 audit of tlie hoard of educdtion and the countersignature of 
 the comptroller. A casual reading of the Education La^w 
 leads to the conclusion, so tersely stated in the Gunnison case, 
 that the only relation of the city to the subject of education 
 is as custodian of the school funds and to disburse the same 
 according to the instructions of the board of education. 
 
 " The language quoted from subdivision 7, ' the board of 
 education shall administer all moneys appropriated or avail- 
 able for educational purposes in the city, subject to the pro- 
 visions of law relating to the audit and payment of salaries 
 and other claims by the department of finance,' must be 
 read in connection with section 880 of the Education Law, 
 which provides that school funds shall be disbursed only by 
 the board of education, and clothes that body with power of 
 audit. 
 ^ " The power vested in the board of education to administer 
 the school fund is a grant of authority to that body to fix 
 salaries of all employees of the board. Such salaries when 
 fixed by the board are presumably embodied in the estimate 
 filed with the board of estimate and apportionment. Upon 
 receipt of a requisition from the board of education the 
 
57 
 
 comptroller is authorized to ascertain whether or not the 
 requisition made upon him embraces charges against the 
 education fund as disclosed in the record in his department 
 relating to the board of education. If such requisition be 
 found correct there remains but one dutj on the part of the 
 comptroller, viz, to draw the necessary warrant for the pay- 
 ment of the salaries, etc. He is powerless to exercise a power 
 of audit conferred on the board of education. We cannot 
 ascribe to the Legislature an intention to provide for two 
 several boards of audit. The language used in subdivision 7 
 was applicable only to the procedure to be adopted by the 
 board of education that in the disbursement of its funds it 
 shall adopt the procedure prevailing in the case of claims 
 against the city, require as it did in the case at bar pre- 
 sentation of the claim, proofs in support of the validity of 
 the same, the extent and value of the labor and material and 
 generally all information obtainable relating thereto before 
 any allowance or audit of the same shall be made. Had 
 relator in the first instance filed its claim with the comp- 
 troller, as is asserted it should have done, and the comptroller 
 audited the same for a stated amount and drawn a warrant 
 for the same on the city treasurer, the latter officer could 
 not pay the same save by a violation of the provision of the 
 Education Law, which prohibits the treasurer from making 
 payment from the school fund except on audit of the board 
 of education." 
 
 Ir is regrettable, to say the least, that the possibility for such 
 controversies should exist and that if existing, the issues should 
 have been raised. It is equally regi-ettable that it should have been 
 necessary for the parties to such disputes to have recourse to the 
 courts, to the Regents and to the State Commissioner of Educa- 
 tion, because whichever side was favored in the decisions, the 
 litigation, confusion and consequent irritation must necessarily 
 react on the children whose education is suffering from the dis- 
 agreement lietween school and city authorities. So far as the 
 wording of the statutes affords an excuse for such conditions the 
 statutes should be amended and the excuse removed. 
 
 This decision of the Court of Appeals lends judicial sanction to 
 the suggestion that the dual control over school moneys hereto- 
 fore exercised or claimed be ended, by specifically excluding the 
 municipal authorities from any control over school funds. 
 
58 
 
 Jf. Failure to Concentrate in Clear and Unmistakable Langvxige 
 Full Besponsihility for the Proper Administrntion of the 
 Puhlic School System Either on the Municipal Authorities, 
 the Board of Education or the State of New Yorl; 
 
 The evidence to support this interpretation is adequately set 
 forth under the two sub-divisions immediately preceding. It is 
 only necessary to add here that if the State is to assume full 
 responsibility for the proper administration of the New York 
 City school system it should enunciate that fact in clear terms 
 and should specifically repeal those sections of the charter and 
 other local laws in conflict with that theory. 
 
 5. Limitation of the Powers of the Board of Education 
 
 This point has been touched upon under sub-division 2 above. 
 The powers of the present Board of Education are demonstrably 
 far inferior to those of its predecessor. It cannot be successfully 
 argued that the powers of a Board of Education should be limited 
 in favor of one of its subordinates, or that if local control is desir- 
 able the Board should be unable to modify or dispense with two 
 powerful agencies nominally subordinate to it, viz., the Board 
 of Superintendents and the Bureau of Compulsory Education. 
 The State Education Law in so far as it applies to the City of Xew 
 York clearly curtails the power of the Board of Education. It 
 does not seem that the experience of the past four years indicates 
 that this was a wise provision. So long as responsibility and 
 authority are not entrusted to the same hands there is encourage- 
 ment for an evasion of obligation and a shifting of blame for 
 non-performance. And in all cases of this character the ultimate 
 sufferers are the children for whose benefit Boards of Education, 
 Boards of Superintendents and school officers are supposedly 
 created. 
 
 6. Great Increase in the Powers of the Superintemlent of Schools 
 
 This matter has also been discussed at length under sub-division 
 2 above and it will not be further dealt with here. 
 
 7. Perpetuation of the Board of Superintendents 
 
 The Board of Superintendents is a unique institution. It is an 
 inheritance from the time of consolidation (1898) when it was 
 apparently deemed desirable to carry over into the structure of 
 the Greater City local officers of the Boards of Education of New 
 York and Brooklvn. It survived all the amendments to the 
 
59 
 
 Greater !N^e\v York charter and was continued in the education 
 law of 1917 as a mandatory institution. But this law while pro- 
 viding a general statute for all cities of the State, established a 
 Board of Superintendents only in the City of New York by the 
 common expedient of creating such a board in "a city having a 
 population of one million or more." It is hard to see why the 
 requirements of a city with a population of over a million should 
 differ so materially from those of a city of under a million. If a 
 proper school administration requires a Board of Superintendents 
 in the one case, why does it not require a Board of Superintend- 
 ents in the other case ? And if a Superintendent and a group 
 of iVssistant Superintendents can operate successfully in a city of 
 less than a million, why should it be necessary for a larger city to 
 })lace its educational administration in the hands of a board of 
 nine persons and to be able to make progress only when a majority 
 of such board can be secured. The opportunity for discussion by 
 a board cannot always be said to accelerate school business. The 
 President of the Board of Education sought to explain the delay 
 of his Board in adopting by-laws by saying that the Board of 
 Superintendents had been considering a draft of by-laws "I guess 
 for a year, perhaps for two years." Examination of the minutes 
 of the Board of Superintendents shows the many discussions and 
 the many references and reports relative to matters which should 
 be settled by prompt executive action. The records show that one 
 of the major contributing factors to the delay which has charac- 
 terized the provision of additional school facilities is the fact 
 that the Board of Superintendents has to originate the program 
 and approve the layout of the new buildings contemplated therein. 
 Much time could be saved in the working out of an educa- 
 tional program, and that the management of the schools would 
 bo much more efficient, if the Board of Superintendents were 
 abolished as a board, and if the Superintendent of Schools, with 
 a staff of competent Assistant Su])erintondents, was made the 
 agent of the Board of Education in the carrying out of educational 
 policies. 
 
 S. Pcrpchindo)) of Hie Bureau of Compulsori/ Echicnlwn, 
 School Census and Child Welfare 
 
 Reference has already been made to the provision of law, mak- 
 ing mandatory a Bureau of Compulsory Education, Schorl Census 
 and Child Welfare. The State Education Law, passed in 1917. 
 did not single cut this bureau for special recognition. It was 
 
00 
 
 left on a parity with the other administrative bureaus of the Board, 
 subject to modification, abolition and consolidation by the Board 
 of Education, 
 
 Chapter 612, Laws of 1920, however, added a new section to the 
 State Education Law, placing the Bureau of Compulsory Educa- 
 tion in the mandatory class with the Board of Superintendents 
 and the Board of Examiners. This amendment applied only to 
 the City of l^ew York as it was worded to affect " a city having 
 a population of one million or more." 
 
 Mandatory legislation of this character affecting only the 
 City of i^ew York, particularly when in the form of amend- 
 ments to general State acts, should not be passed unless there 
 is a compelling reason in its favor. It is hard to believe 
 that any such compelling reason existed in the case of the statute 
 in question. If the enforcement of the compulsory education law, 
 in the City of New York, requires the organization of a Bureau 
 of Compulsory Education, the Board of Education can be relied 
 upon to establish such a bureau, but if the Board of Education 
 prefers to enforce the compulsory education law through some 
 agency other than a specially constituted l)ureau, it should be 
 permitted to do so. 
 
 It is the prerogative of the State to enact a compulsory educa- 
 tion law and to hold Boards of Education responsible for its 
 enforcement. It should be the privilege of the Boards cf Educa- 
 tion to determine the machinery by which such enforcement is to 
 be carried out, and the Board of Education of jSTew York should 
 have the same privilege in this respect as is enjoyed by the other 
 cities of the State. 
 
 9. Conflict between Section 1102 of the Charter, whicli was not 
 specifically repealed, and the State Education Lair, relative 
 to the dispositiofi to he made of the City's share of the 
 Stale school moneys, the former providing thai swell money 
 he credited to the City's general fund for tlie reduction of 
 taxation and the latter that it he credited to the Board of 
 Education. 
 
 Reference has been made to this matter under subdivision 3, 
 above. The controversy was resolved in favor of the Board of 
 Educatioii, and at the piesent time, the proceeds of the State's 
 apportionment to the City of ISTew York are credited to the Board 
 of Education. That the amounts now involved are bv no means 
 
61 
 
 inconsiderable is shown by the following table, giving the totals 
 apportioned to ]^ew York for the calendar years 1914 to 1922, 
 inclusive : 
 
 Amount Apportioned 
 Year to the City 
 
 1914 $1,923,025 00 
 
 1915 2,115,679' 73 
 
 1916 2,220,730 03 
 
 1917 2,414,837 16 
 
 1918 2,321,191 13 
 
 1919 2,700,657 19 
 
 1920 5,025,570 17 
 
 1921 16,938,023 85 
 
 1922 *18,097,534 51 
 
 * Estimated. 
 
 10. Increase from 3 mills to Jf.9 mdlls in the amount ivhicJi the 
 City is required annually to appropriate for the use of the 
 Board of Education. 
 
 The State's policy of prescribing a certain minimum tax to be 
 levied for local school purposes long antedates the creation of the 
 Greater City. 
 
 The application of this principle to the present City, however, 
 was first made in the Charter, which took effect in 1898, and 
 which prescribed a minimum of 4 mills. By Chapter 43, Laws of 
 1903, this was reduced to 3 mills, the reduction taking effect in 
 the 1904 Imdget, a provision contemporaneous with the increase 
 of nearly a billion and a half dollars in the assessed valuation of 
 New York City's real estate, due to a change in the basis of 
 assessment. The figure remained 3 mills until the State Law of 
 1917 raised it to 4.9 mills. 
 
 The 3 mill tax applied to the 1903 valuations yielded, for the 
 purposes of the 1904 budget, $16,297,250.75, as compared with 
 $15,428,190.87, which was yielded for the budget of the preced- 
 ing year by the 4 mill tax on 1902 values, so the decrease in rate 
 really meant an increase of $870,000 in available funds. 
 
 The following table shows the expenditures by the Board of 
 Education from its current funds for school purposes from 1910, 
 through the first six months of 1921, and gives also the 1922 
 
02 
 
 budget appropriation from City and State sources. It shows tlie 
 tremendous growth that has taken place in the last few years 
 in school costs. 
 
 Year Expenditures. 
 
 1910 $28,456,945 68 
 
 1911 28,958,179 29 
 
 1912 33,791,974 40 
 
 1913 35,481,641 12 
 
 1914 38,185,495 90 
 
 1915 39,797,960 64 
 
 1916 39,708,764 22 
 
 1917 41,101,074 41 
 
 1918 43,884,893 59 
 
 1919 45,490,121 68 
 
 1920 66,194,668 04 
 
 1921 (first 6 mos.) 44,828,326 69 
 
 1922 *88,798,546 81 
 
 * IiK-liuling $18.097.534..'31 from the State. 
 
 The fi.rst budget affected by the law increasing the minimum 
 provision .for school purposes to the yield of a 4.9 mill tax was 
 that for 1918, and the amount appropriated by the City for school 
 purposes in that budget was $42,501,156.04, the exact amount of 
 the 4.9 mill yield as then computed nnd the approximate amount 
 required by the Board of Education as indicated by its expendi- 
 tures at the time. It seems clear, therefore, that the legislature 
 sought to guarantee to the City's school system, an income suffi- 
 cient to meet its requirements, relying on increnses in assessed 
 valuation to provide some money at least for expansion, thus 
 assuring the Board of Education a reasonable degree of financial 
 independence. The 4.9 mill yield, however, has not proved 
 wholly adequate. The legislature in 1,919 and 1920 passed laws 
 increasing the statutory minimums for teachers' salaries. These 
 new schedules, when fully effective, increased the salaries of 
 teachers in i^ew York City's schools by about $30,000,000 a year. 
 According to figures ]n-epared by the Board of Education, the 
 total salary cost for teachers as of December 31, 1919, was 
 $37,625,157, and the cost as of Dei-ember 31, 1921, for the same 
 staff is estimated at $67,947,108. 
 
63 
 
 In order to lighten the financial burden imposed by these 
 mandatory increases, the Legislature undertook to provide a part 
 of the necessary funds and levied a direct tax for educational 
 purposes to supplement the local city taxes. 
 
 As shown above, the State funds received by ISTew York from 
 1914 to 1919, inclusive, averaged annually about $2,000,000. In 
 1921, however, by reason of this action by the Legislature, the 
 amount received totals $16,938,023 85, and the estimate for 1922 
 is $18,097,534.51. 
 
 But this is not enough to offset the entire additional burden 
 in Ne\v York, and, as a result, the schools are again placed in 
 financial dependence on the city authorities. The City's appro- 
 priation for 1922 for school purposes is $70,701,012.30, whereas 
 the 4.9 mill tax on 1921 valuations yields only about $50,000,000. 
 The Board of Education is therefore dependent en the City for 
 about 30% of its requirements for current running expenses, to 
 say nothing of its requirements for new school buildings, altera- 
 tions and the like. In this respect, therefore, the situation is 
 no better than it was in 1917, when the Board's budget was 
 $41,430,447.49, or nearly $16,000,000 in excess of the mandatory 
 3-mill tax of $25,753,057.53. 
 
 A most anomalous situation is thus created. The Board of 
 Education, which is recognized as an agent of the State by the 
 new Education Law, is at the mercy financially of the local city 
 authorities, who have it in their power completely to wreck the 
 school system. That this is a power that may be exercised before 
 long is evidenced by two facts. 
 
 The requirements of the Board of Education for funds from 
 City sources as set forth in the budget for 1921 amounted to 
 $77,946,038.77, but because, in spite of a most unusual increase 
 in the assessed valuations for 1921, the Board of Estimate found 
 that it could not appropriate the full amount it desired to for 
 city and county purposes and remain within the 2% constitutional 
 limitation as interpreted by it, it arbitrarily reduced the amount 
 appropriated for the Board of Education to $50,720,880.83, 
 leaving a deficit of $27,225,157.94 U) he made up during the 
 year. The action of the Legislature in continuing for another 
 year the direct State levy for teachers' salaries made an additional 
 $7,225,000 available, reducing the deficit to $20,000,000. 
 
 The Board of Estimate undertook to finance this deficit by the 
 issue of special revenue bends and the transfer of available bal- 
 
64 
 
 ances from other appropriations, but throughout the gi-eater part 
 of 1921, the Board of Education had no assurance, other than the 
 statement of the Board of Estimate, that the necessary funds for 
 the support of the schools would be provided by the city. This 
 first move by the city authorities can be summarized as an arbi- 
 trary refusal to appropriate in the annual budget a sufficient sum 
 for school purposes, coupled with the undertaking to make up the 
 deficit from other city sources during the year. 
 
 The second fact is of more recent occurrence and it may be 
 summarized as a desire on the part of the city authorities arbi- 
 trarily to reduce the budget appropriations for the Board of Edu- 
 cation below requirements and to deny responsibility for the 
 deficit, passing it along to the State, This is evidenced by a com- 
 munication sent by the Comptroller to the Board of Aldermen, 
 on December 2, 1921, calling attention to the fact that the prob- 
 able tax rate for city and county purj^oses in two of the five 
 counties would exceed 2%, and that in view of the constitutional 
 provisions, it would be safer to reduce the budget so as to bring 
 the rates below 2%. He recommended that this reduction be 
 eifected by taking $10,000,000 away from the appropriations 
 made for the Board of Education, saying: 
 
 ^'Education is a State function, and because it was a State 
 function the legislature increased teachers' salaries in the 
 ■ City of New York at the rate of $31,000,000 per year, but 
 when it came to providing the means wherewith to meet this 
 increased outlay, the legislature did not consider that educa- 
 tion was a State function. It passed this liability on to the 
 City of 'New York, and, in order that a show of economy 
 might be made in the State's appropriation bills, the amount 
 provided to aid the City of New York to carry this increased 
 budget was less than half of the sum required. 
 
 "■Unless the State is to be faithless to the cause of educa- 
 tion, the legislature can do no less than provide the necessary 
 moneys to sustain the activities in the manner that it has 
 required." 
 
 The significance of this is not so much the speciousness of the 
 argument as the fact that the exigencies of municipal finance have 
 led the city authorities to assume a hostile attitude toward the 
 city schools. The Board of Aldermen wisely rejected the Comp- 
 troller's recommendation, but next year, it may very well be that 
 the Board of Estimate, acting at the Comptroller's instance, may 
 
65 
 
 refuse to appropriate sufficient funds for the schools, and, as the 
 Board of Aldermen has no power to increase appropriations, 
 there would be no means for compelling the City to make the 
 necessary appropriation, so long as the statutory minimum of 4.9 
 mills is provided. 
 
 In connection with the Comptroller's recommendation, how- 
 ever, mention should be made of the fact that the Mayor testified 
 that he was in favor of the increased salaries for teachers, con- 
 cerning which the Comptroller complains, that the city's finan- 
 cial condition was and is such that it could not possibly provide 
 the money for these increases had the legislature not come to its 
 aid by imposing a State tax for the purpose and that the amount 
 to be received by the city during 1922, from State school moneys 
 is estimated at about $4,000,000 more than the amount of the 
 direct State tax which the city has had to include in the 1922 
 budget, so that the city gets from the State more than it pays by 
 about $4,000,000. 
 
 It seems highly desirable, therefore, that the Legislature take 
 the necessary steps to make it impossible for the City to starve 
 the schools at will. In doing so, however, regard should be had, 
 not only to the current running expenses as reflected in the appro- 
 priations to the general and special school funds, but also to the 
 requirements for new school accommodations. Only half of the 
 problem would be solved if the Board of Education were depend- 
 ent on the City for funds for new buildings, because there is no 
 more reason to assume that the City, when confronted by the con- 
 stitutional debt limit, would treat the schools any more gener- 
 ously than when confronted with the constitutional limit on tax- 
 ing power. 
 
 The City's appropriation for the IJoard of Education in the 
 1.922 budgk of $70,701,012.30 represents about 7 mills on the 
 1921 valuation of about ten billions. An increase in the manda- 
 tory minimum from 4.9 mills to 7 mills would therefore insure 
 suflicient funds to conduct the schools at the present rates of 
 expenditure, provided the State continues its distribution of school 
 moneys in the same amount as at present. If, in addition, the 
 equivalent of another mill or fraction thereof were set aside by 
 statute for new school projects, to be provided by taxation or bond 
 issue, the Board of Education would have the assurance of a defi- 
 nite sum annually for such purposes. 
 
CO 
 
 The total expenditure from 1910 to the middle of 1921 for new 
 buildings and sites was $46,092,839.88, making an average 
 annual expenditure of $4,008,073.03 during this period. This 
 amount has demonstrably been insufficient to keep pace with the 
 growing requirements of the City and it should not be a criterion 
 in determining the funds to be made available by the City in the 
 future for such purposes. On the other hand, the City's financial 
 condition is such that it cannot be expected to make up at once the 
 deficiencies of prior years in school constniction. The Board of 
 Education could easily and advantageously spend many more 
 millions than the City could furnish. It is necessary, therefore, 
 to effect a compromise based on the City's financial ability and the 
 requirements of the schools and adequate to give the Board of 
 Education the necessary financial independence. 
 
 11. The inclusion iviihin (lie State's educational system, of City 
 Boards of Education, including the Board of Education 
 of the City of Neiv York and the subordinatio7i of the 
 municipcd authorities to the State in matters of school 
 administratio7i. 
 
 The foregoing discussion demonstrates that the apparent at- 
 tempt by the new State Law of 1917, to secure this change in the 
 relationship between the City, the Board of Education and the 
 State, was not successful. The present division of responsibility, 
 while differing from the j)TGceding division of responsibility, is 
 none the less embarrassing and is not conducive to the efficient 
 administration of the schools. The history of public education in 
 Xew York State shows that the State has increasingly concerned 
 itself with the education of its children. Generally speaking, 
 however, its concern has been to see to it that the local authorities 
 fulfilled their responsibilities. The details of school administra- 
 tion were left to communities, while the State prescribed general 
 }"equirements, supervised the carrying out of these requirements, 
 appropriated money to help meet these requirements and passed 
 laws which sought to guarantee a proper education to its future 
 citizens. Experience seems to show that this is a wise position 
 for the State. It cannot successfully and should not centralize in 
 its own hands the administrative control of local schools. It can, 
 however, exercise general supervision, establish minimum i*e(]uire- 
 ments, set up local agencies to administer the affairs of local 
 schools, and see to it that these agencies are not interfered with 
 
67 
 
 in the performance of their duty. Education is not a State func- 
 tion, it is a State responsibility. The guaranteeing that every 
 child in every community shall have an opportunity for education, 
 however, is a State function and so is the exercise of compulsion 
 on local communities to provide adequate educational facilities. 
 The State can enunciate that principle and it can establish in 
 'New York City a Board of Education with complete financial 
 independence, subject to restrictions imposed by the State and the 
 State only. The City can be comjDelled to furnish the necessary 
 funds, but in the interests of the taxpayer these funds must be 
 provided out of the 2 per cent tax which the City may, under the 
 constitution, levy for city and county purposes. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE 
 STATE AND CITY OF NEW YORK PEIOE TO 189Y.* 
 
 Historical Developmei^t of the Educational Section of 
 THE State Constitution 
 
 Article IX, section 1 of the Constitution of the State of New 
 York reads as follows : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 This section was added to the Constitution by the Constitu- 
 tional Convention of 1894 upon the recommendation of the Com- 
 mittee on Education which reported an educational article of 
 which the foregoing was the first section. The Committee's report 
 contained the following statement: 
 
 " The present Constitution is silent upon the vital point 
 of the establishment and maintenance of a sysrem of free 
 common schools. 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 com- 
 mittee have reported in section 1 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 ; and it is a significant fact 
 that within the last half century of constitutional revision 
 no other State of the Union has considered it superfluous or 
 unwise to make such an affirmation in its fundamental law. 
 
 *Most of tlie historical material presented here lias been taken from Lin- 
 coln's " Constitutional Hiftory of New York," vol. Ill, pp. 475-580, and from 
 Palmer's " The New York Public School." In many instances sentences have 
 been borrowed bodily, and. generally speaking, there has been little more than 
 summarization and rearrangement of the material collected by these authors. 
 Material has also been taken from the School Inquiry Report published in 
 1913 by the Board of Estimate, especially from vol. Ill, pp. 45-108. 
 
 [68] 
 
69 
 
 Your committee, tlierefore, recommends the ailoption of 
 section 1 as an explicit direction to the legislature to pro- 
 vide for a system of free common schools wherein all the 
 children of this state may be educated. This requires, not 
 simply schools, hut a system; not merely that they shall be 
 common, but free, and not only that they shall be numerous, 
 but that they shall be sufficient in number, so that all tho 
 children of the state may, unless otherwise provided for, 
 receive in them their education. No desire to confine the 
 new Constitution to the narrowest possible limits of space 
 should prevent the adoption of an enactment declaring in tho 
 strongest possible terms the interest of the state in its com- 
 mon schools. Whatever may have been their value hereto- 
 fore, and language has been strained to the utmost in apply- 
 ing 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 educa- 
 tion, to which reference will presently be made, too much 
 attention cannot be called to the fact that the highest leader- 
 ship is impossible without intelligent following, and that 
 the foundation of our educational system must bo permanent, 
 broad, and firm if the superstructure is tO' be of real value.'' 
 
 The Constitutional Convention of 1894 found an educational 
 system in two parts, one culminating in the University Law of 
 1892 and the other in the Common School Law of 1894. In 
 addition, there were numerous independent statutes relating to 
 both departments of education. The Convention combined both 
 branches in one educational article and the state electorate by 
 adopting the revised constitution definitely declared that ele- 
 mentary, secondary and higher education should be maintained 
 at public expense within limitations prescri])ed by the State 
 Legislature. By this action there was incorporated in the funda- 
 mental law of the State a policy which, as a matter of fact, had 
 existed for mauv years through legislation. The constitutional 
 provision unified the two systems al)ove referred to, but both 
 systems were prior to 1894 subject to State control. 
 
 The following brief sketch of the development of a jniblic edu- 
 cational policy in the State of T^cw York shows tho gradual forma- 
 tion of a new conception that ])ul)lic ('(lucation was a vital con- 
 cern of the State. 
 
70 
 
 Dutch Colonial Period 
 
 The Dutch were firm believers in education and carried to the 
 new world their determination to provide for the instruction of 
 their youth. An official school and school master were provided 
 in New Amsterdam as early as 1633. During the Dutch control 
 of New York the expense of maintaining the schools was some- 
 times paid in part from the treasury of the Dutch West India 
 Company, sometimes from excise moneys, sometimes, apparently, 
 by general tax and, in addition, teachers derived a part of their 
 income from direct payment by pupils. Religious and secular 
 instruction were combined in the same course and the same per- 
 son was often both minister and school master. The Dutch West 
 India Company began the administration of the colony which it 
 was permitted to establish in America by invoking the direct aid 
 of the minister and the school master. A union of church and 
 state was not then deemed objectionable. But while the govern- 
 ment through the church and sometimes by direct taxation 
 encouraged the formation of schools, it did not consider itself 
 responsible for the development of a consistent and comprehensive 
 educational policy for the children of the colony. 
 
 English Colonial Period, 166Jf — 1776 
 
 The transfer of New York from Dutch to English control in 
 1664 had little immediate effect on the educational policy of the 
 colony. The Dutch policy was not interrupted, but as the Eng- 
 lish apparently did not regard education as an essential subject 
 of public administration, little was done to foster schools at pub- 
 lic expense. English teachers were licensed to teach schools, but 
 usually without public aid. The colonial government acting 
 under orders from the crown tried to keep the control of educa- 
 tion as a prerogative of the Church of England, and, accord- 
 ingly, under the instructions of colonial governors school masters 
 were pemiitted to teach only if licensed, first by the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury and later iu the history of the colony by the Bishop 
 of London. During the first few years of English jurisdiction 
 school masters were also required to obtain a civil license from 
 the governor, but this practice later fell into disuse. Education, 
 while not discouraged by the government, was left largely to 
 private enterprise, but under public control, and the schools were 
 maintained either directly or indirectly by private contributions 
 including the direct ]iayinent of tuition and the funds admin- 
 
71 
 
 istered by some society organized for that or similar purposes. 
 The English " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- 
 eign Parts," for example, carried on an extensive educational 
 work in the colony, establishing schools, appointing teachers and 
 often supporting them out of its own treasury. But while the 
 schools were, during the latter half of the English Colonial period 
 under the general care and supervision of this Society, the gov- 
 ernment kept its hand on the school system directly and through 
 the instrumentality of the church by the requirements as to the 
 licensing of teachers referred to above, and not by direct legis- 
 lation of a general character. 
 
 Only two statutes were enacted by the English Colonial gov- 
 orament of New York relating directly to education and neither 
 of these disclosed any intention to establish a public school sys- 
 tem. The first was passed in 1702 and recited that the munici- 
 pal authorities of ISTew York had re])resented to the general 
 assembly the importance of establishing in that city a free school. 
 The assembly thereupon made provision for a grammar school 
 and directed that an annual tax of £50 be raised to maintain the 
 school. The act was to continue in force seven years. It was not 
 then extended. The second statute was passed in 1732 and 
 authorized a school in Xew York foi- the teaching of Latin, 
 Greek and mathematics. This school was to be free, its expenses 
 being paid from moneys received from licenses to hawkers and 
 peddlers. The act was limited to five years. It was then con- 
 tinued for another year, but was not again renewed. This seems 
 to have been the last attempt to establish public schools during 
 the (Vdonial period. 
 
 Education under tlie First Constitution, 1777 — 1821 
 
 Education was given no place in the first constitution. The 
 Legislature was, therefore, left free to act as it saw fit with 
 respect to schools. The Revolutionary War, of course, absorbed 
 much if not most of the Legislature's energy and the first definite 
 recognition of school needs was tacked on to an act providing for 
 the raising of two regiments for volunteer service and for lx)un- 
 tics of public land to eneourage enlistments. By this act (Chap- 
 ter o2. Laws of 1781) the State reserved in each township five 
 hundred acres of public land for the sup])ort of the gospel and 
 three hundred and sixty acres for the use of the school. The 
 policy of appropriating public lands fox these purposes was con- 
 tinued by subsequent b'gislation. and, according to a report by 
 
72 
 
 the Superintendent of Public Schools in 1839, there had been 
 thus reserved up to that time as gospel and school lands 47,620 
 acres. This policy obviously was not applicable to all parts of the 
 State and necessarily could have only a limited effect. It was 
 only an incident in the State's educational development. 
 
 What is said to be the earliest official declaration of a state 
 educational program is found in a statement by Governor George 
 Clinton to the special session of the Legislature called in 1782 
 to devise means for more vigorous prosecution of the war. He 
 is quoted as having said: 
 
 " * * * it is the peculiar duty of a government of a 
 free state where the highest employments are open to citi- 
 zens of every rank to endeavor by the establishment of 
 schools and seminaries to diffuse that degree of literature 
 which is necessary to the due discharge of public trusts. 
 You must be sensible that the war has occasioned a chasm 
 in education extremely injurious to the rising generation, 
 and this afl'ords an additional consideration for extending 
 our earliest care to their instruction." 
 
 In 1784 the Governor repeated his views and the Legislature 
 passed an act to establish a university under a Board of Regents. 
 If this university had been erected on a broad foundation with- 
 out reference to any particular institution then existing, it could 
 have supervised all education, but the intervention of Kings Col- 
 lege brought about amendments which concentrated on Columbia 
 College (the later name for King's College) the energies of 
 friends of education in the State. This law of 1784 was 
 amended, materially altered in 1787 and in the latter form was 
 the basis of the University Law of 1892. 
 
 The Committee of Regents which recommended the modifica- 
 tion of 1787 in the University Law made the first direct reference 
 to public common schools as such, stating that: 
 
 " They feel themselves bound in faithfulness to add that 
 the erecting of public schools for teaching reading, writing 
 and arithmetic is an object of very great importance which 
 ought not to be left to the discretion of private men, but be 
 promoted by public authority." 
 
 The amended law, however, contained no provision for the 
 organization of primary education. 
 
 The first free common school established by statute in a settled 
 portion of the State was provided for by Chapter 41 of the Laws 
 
73 
 
 of 1791. The people of Clermont asked authorization from the 
 Legislature for the use for school purposes of the surplus of excise 
 moneys not needed for the support of the poor, aud this authority 
 was granted by the above-mentioned act. 
 
 In 1793, 1794 and 1795 the Regents repeated their recom- 
 mendation for the establishment of public schools for the teaching 
 of reading, writing and arithmetic, and the Legislature in 1795 
 passed a Common School Law (Chapter 75) which appropriated 
 £20,000 annually for five years and required each city and county 
 to raise by tax a sum equal to one-half the amount apportioned 
 to it by the State. These two sums constituted the local school 
 fund. There was no rate bill. This law expired in 1800 and was 
 not renewed. The Legislature of 1801, however, provided for a 
 lottery to raise $100, 0€0, one-half of which was to be used by the 
 Regents and the other half to be used for the support of the com- 
 mon schools as the Legislature might direct. 
 
 In 1802, 1803 and 1804 the Governor recommended again that 
 the Legislature continue the system of common schools. In 1805 
 Governor Lewis sent a special message to the Legislature urging 
 the adoption of a liberal policy toward education and recom- 
 mending that 1,500,000 acres of unappropriated land then owned 
 Ijy the State be devoted to educational purposes ; the funds real- 
 ized from the sale thereof to be placed under the supervision of the 
 Regents ; the interest to be used for the support of colleges, com- 
 mon schools and " perhaps of academies." This plan, if adopted, 
 would have unified the State's educational system under one head, 
 the Regents. The Legislature, however, included in the new law 
 only that part of the plan relating to a common school fund and 
 set aside only 500,000 acres of unoccupied land for establishing 
 the common school fund. The creation of this fund was, appar- 
 ently, the only result of Governor Lewis' plan to establish a gen- 
 eral system of education. 
 
 In 1810, and again in 1811, Governor Tompkins urged logi?;- 
 lative action for popular education, and in the latter year the 
 Legislature appointed a commission to study the subject and 
 report. The report was submitted in 1812 accompanied by a bill 
 which, with modifications, became Chapter 242. This law pro- 
 vided for a Superintendent of Common Schools, for the distribu- 
 tion of the interest of the common school fund; authorized the 
 election of town commissioners and inspectors of schools ; re- 
 quired teachers to be examined and licensed by the inspectors: 
 provided for school districts in towns, and required a local tax 
 
74 
 
 for school moneys in addition to the fund distributed by the 
 State with the limitation that the offer of State aid must have 
 been accepted at a town meeting, in which case a sum equal to 
 the State apportionment was to be raised by a town tax. The 
 town might also raise an additional sum. These amounts con- 
 stituted the local school fund. There was no rate bill. This act 
 was revised and repealed in 1814. By the new act the towns 
 were required to raise by tax an amount at least as great as the 
 amount of the State apportionment, and provision was made for 
 the rate bill which was used to collect money for teachers' salaries 
 in excess of the amount of the local school fund. The rate bill 
 was continued in the revision effected by Chapter 161, Laws of 
 1819. The office of Superintendent of Common Schools was 
 abolished by Chapter 240, Laws of 1821, and his functions trans- 
 ferred to the office of the Secretary of State. 
 
 Education under the Second C onstitui'wn, 1822-18Jf6 
 
 The Constitutional Convention of 1821 gave but little atten- 
 tion to the subject of education. The common school fund was 
 protected and was made perpetual. Its foundation was enlarged 
 to include the proceeds of all the State lands not otherwise appro- 
 priated. Except for these provisions, however, the new constitu- 
 tion contained no educational material, but during its life con- 
 siderable legislation on this subject was enacted, much of it hav- 
 ing to do with the training of teachers. By Chapter 133 of the 
 Laws of 1843 the Legislature abolished the offices of Commis- 
 sioner and Inspector of Common Schools and created the office 
 of Town Superintendent of Schools, to be chosen annually by the 
 people. The same law authorized the State Superintendent to 
 issue teachers' certificates which could be used anywhere in the 
 State and were valid until revoked. This act completed the 
 policy of supervision by Superintendents, including the State 
 Superintendent, Deputy County Superintendents and Town 
 Superintendents. 
 
 Prior to 1846 several separate free school laws were enacted. 
 But, as a general rule, parents were required to pay a separate 
 and additional tax (rate bill) for the instruction of their children, 
 if the public money was not sufficient to pay teachers' wnges. 
 Poor people might, however, be relieved from this additional 
 charge. 
 
 A resolution was offered in the Assemblv of 1846 requesting 
 the Committee on Colleges, Academies and Common Schools to 
 
75 
 
 report on the expediency of providing free schools in all cities 
 and also in all incorporated villages with a population of 10.000 
 or more. The Committee reported itself in favor of the idea 
 but advised postponing action until the Constitutional Convention 
 then about to meet could consider the matter. 
 
 Education under the Third Constitution, 18J/-7-lS9Jf. 
 
 The Constitutional Convention in 1846 considered the matter 
 of free public education and on the day before adjournment 
 adopted two sections to be submitted to the people separately and 
 not as part of the Constitution. One section read : 
 
 " The Legislature shall provide for the free education and 
 instruction of every child in the state in the common schools 
 now established or which hereafter shall be established 
 therein." 
 
 The other section related to taxation. These two sections, how- 
 ever, were reconsidered by the Convention later in the same day 
 and the earlier action reversed. The Convention struck out the 
 free school provisions by a vote of 61 to 27. 
 
 Numerous petitions were submitted to the Legislature of 1849 
 for a general free school law. The Legislature responded and 
 enacted a law providing that: 
 
 " Common 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 '" and that " free and 
 gratuitous education shall be given to each pupil " in all 
 public schools. 
 
 A free school law was such a radical departure from tlie exist- 
 ing policy of the State, however, that the Legislature decided to 
 sulmiit this new law to the electors. It was api)rovcd by them at 
 the l^ovember, 1840, election by a vote of 249,872 to 91,951 and 
 became effective January 1, 1850. The constitutionality of the 
 law was attacked because of the provision requiring its submis- 
 sion to the people before becoming effective, and in 1853 the 
 Court of Appeals held it to be unconstitutional (8 IST. Y. 483). 
 
 This decision had little practical effect because the law had been 
 repealed in 1851, many complaints having been made of the 
 oppressive tax burden on account of free schools. Cha|)tpr 151 
 of the Laws of 1851 was enacted to provide relief and restored 
 the rate bill. In 1855 Governor Clark recommended that the rate 
 bill be abolished and that schools be made entirelv free, but the 
 
76 
 
 revised school law of 1864 (Chapter 555) continued it in force. 
 In 1867 Governor Fenton made a similar recommendation and 
 the Legislature by Chapter 406 did abolish all rate bills, thus 
 making the schools really free. 
 
 In 1853 (Chapter 433) the Legislature sought to encourage 
 the establishment of schools by providing for the union of two or 
 more districts, or parts of districts, in one school under the imme- 
 diate supervision of a Board of Education. These union free 
 schools, while in their general character common schools, might 
 have an academic department. Thus there was a union of common 
 and academic education in the same school. The academic de- 
 partment was, however, under the general su}>ervision of the 
 Regents. In other respects the Board of Education had the 
 " superintendence, management and control of the school." This 
 law did not specifically give the Superintendent of Common 
 Schools any supervision over a union school but laws relating to 
 the powers and duties of trustees of common schools were made 
 applicable to boards of education. 
 
 The Superintendent of Public Instruction whose otKcc was cre- 
 ated by Chapter 97 of the Laws of 1854 w^as jn-actically the suc- 
 cessor of the former Superintendent of Common Schools. He 
 was specifically required to 
 
 " visit as often as may bo practicable such and so many of 
 the common schools, academies and other literary institu- 
 tions of the state as he may deem expedient ; to inquire into 
 the course of instruction, management and discipline of such 
 institutions, and to report the results of such visitation and 
 inspection annually to the Legislature, with such recom- 
 mendations and suggestions as he may deem suitable.*' 
 
 In 1856 Governor Clark recommended the abolition of the 
 office of Town Superintendent and the creation of local Boards of 
 Education. He also urged the more thorough supervision of 
 schools, and the Legislature, by Chapter 179 of the Laws of 1856, 
 created the office of School Commissioner in each assembly dis- 
 trict except in the counties of jSTew York and Kings, to whom was 
 given the general power of visitation, inspection and supervision 
 of common schools in his district. He was also authorized to 
 grant teachers' licenses and to hold teachers' institutes subject to 
 niles prescribed by the state 'superintendent. The same act abol- 
 ished the office of Town Superintendent of Common Schools. 
 
77 
 
 By Chapter 555 of the Laws of 1864 the general acts relating 
 to public insti-uction were revised and consolidated. Union 
 schools were made subject to the visitation of the Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, who was also made responsible for the 
 '' general supervision of its board of education and their man- 
 agement and the conduct of all its departments of instruction." 
 The Superintendent was also empowered to remove members of 
 a Board of Education, As a result, a double supervision was 
 established for union schools with academic departments, the 
 Superintendent being one of the instruments and the Board of 
 Regents the other. And, similarly, there was a double inspection 
 and distribution of State funds. This duplication of function 
 continued until the unification act of 1904. 
 
 The Convention of 1867 included a free school provision in 
 its draft of the Constitution. The Commission of 1872 con- 
 sidered but did not adopt propositions relating to compulsory 
 education and free common school instruction. The Legislature 
 of 1876 passed a free school amendment to the Constitution, but 
 it was not agreed to by a subsequent Legislature and was not, 
 therefore, submitted to the people for acceptance. 'Not until 
 1894 were effective steps taken toward the inclusion of a fret.' 
 education section in the state constitution. The constitutional 
 convention of that year adopted the section quoted at the begin- 
 ning of this sketch and that section has remained ever since as 
 a part of the state conslitutidii. 
 
 Suininarji 
 
 The foregoing sunnnary of the develoi)nient of constitutional 
 free j)ublic education in Xew York shows clearly that the pro- 
 cess was not a consistent one. The present system is an outgrowth 
 of a variety of conflicting ideas and tendencies. Most of the 
 progress has l)een of comparatively recent years. 
 
 The Dutch Colonists had a lively regard for the value of edu- 
 cation, but it was not free state education. It was church educa- 
 tion sanctioned aud encouraged by the state. The English 
 Colonists had no conception of free public education. There were 
 no public schools at the end of the colonial period. The general 
 policy was to leave education to individual effort. The goveni- 
 m(>nt felt itself absolved from responsibility. If the people 
 desired schools they could have them by i)aving for ihcm. The 
 church would license proper teachers and the schools could be 
 supported by private contributions. 
 
78 
 
 This was the educational inheritance of the new State. The 
 first education law passed by the new state government had 
 to do with the establishment of a state university. There was 
 no recognition of any need for state common schools. The evi- 
 dent purpose of the first University Law was to establish a private 
 educational institution and not to institute a comprehensive sys- 
 tem of public education. The differentiation between the two 
 ideas is shown by the fact that when the Legislature passed the 
 first Common School Law (1795) the Regents of the state uni- 
 versity were not made the instrumentality for administering the 
 new law. The university had to do with private educational 
 institutions while the state government was then about to try 
 an experiment in public education. The Legislature, accordingly, 
 left the university at one side and used means with which they 
 were familiar, namely, the township governments. Township 
 government was a colonial inheritance and was recognized and 
 perpetuated by the first constitution of the State, which guar- 
 anteed to the people of the town the right to elect their own ofticers. 
 The towns themselves had an organized government and it was 
 natural that the State should resort to these local governments 
 for the machinery to cany out the new plan. It is also probable 
 that the Xew England to^vnship school policy had an influence 
 in shaping the New York statute. Massachusetts in 1789, six 
 years before the New York law, had enacted a common school 
 law by which each town was directed to maintain public schools. 
 There was no central administration at all, the whole subject, 
 including taxation, being committed to the people of the town, 
 who might subdivide the town into school districts. The New 
 York law was constructed on this model. The town was made 
 the basis of school administration and taxation, and local officers 
 were made responsible for the enforcement of the law. The 
 New York statute was strikingly difl^erent in one respect, how- 
 over, in that the state contriliuted funds from its treasury for the 
 support of local schools, while in Massachusetts the schools were 
 maintained wholly at local expense. In neither State was there 
 any central state supervision. 
 
 A speech by Governor Clinton in 1802 indicates that the first 
 Common School Law was a failure. The revival of the common 
 school plan in 1812 included the idea of local supervision but 
 added the element of state supervision by a Superintendent of 
 Common Schools. The duties of this office were transferred to the 
 
79 
 
 Secretary of State in 1821, who administered them until 1854 
 when the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction was 
 created. Since 1812 the State has maintained an unbroken policy 
 of supervising public schools through one state officer or another. 
 The growth of educational policy in the state of New York 
 was rapid in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The State 
 increasingly assumed responsibility for the education of its 
 citizens. Years before the adoption of the educational section 
 of the Constitution of 1894 the Legislature was exercising its 
 rights with respect to public education, and this gradual develop- 
 ment of the idea of state control over this matter became crystal- 
 ized in the fundamental law of the state as Article IX of the 
 Constitution of 1894. 
 
 The Evolutioa^ of Public Education in the Present City 
 
 OF New York 
 
 Up to 1898 when the Greater New York Charter (Chapter 378 
 of the Laws of 1897) became effective, the history of education 
 in what is now the City of New York was the history of the 
 several independent communities which, by consolidation at that 
 time, or by earlier consolidation with the constituent munici- 
 palities, became the Greater City. Before treating of the devel- 
 opment subsequent to 1898, therefore, there will be outlined the 
 growth of a public educational system in the former City of I^ew 
 York, in the City of Brooklyn and very briefly in what are now 
 the other two boroughs. These sketches should afford a suffi- 
 ciently clear picture of the experimental and inconsistent char- 
 acter of the legislative and other provisions through which the 
 present city's educational system was developed. 
 
 The earliest history of education in the territory now con- 
 tained within the City of New York is little different from the 
 general history of the State. L^p to the Ecvolutionarv "War and 
 for some years thereafter there is nothing of gi'eat significance 
 to differentiate the treatment accorded to schools in the City from 
 that accorded to schools outside the City. But early in the nine- 
 teenth century the individual school history of the City l)Cgan, 
 and it is at that time that the following outline commences. 
 
 Thr Former City of New Yorh 
 
 In 1805 there was a new and strictly local development in 
 educational policy in the shape of the formation of a society 
 incorporated by the Legislature under an act entitled " To Incor- 
 
80 
 
 porate the Society Instituted in the City of New York for the 
 Establishment of a Free School for the Education of Poor Chil- 
 dren who do not Belong to or Are not Provided for by any 
 Religious Society.'' 
 
 The school opened by this Society in 1806 with funds pro- 
 vided by private subscription marked the beginning of what in 
 later years became the public school system of the City. It soon 
 became evident that this first school must be followed by others, 
 and in 1807 the Society obtained an appropriation from the 
 Legislature and also assistance from the municipal authorities 
 to enable it to furnish additional educational facilities. These 
 early schools were, however, of a strictly eleemosynary character. 
 
 In 1808 the Society's name was changed by the Legislature to 
 '• The Free School Society of New York " and its powers were 
 extended to cover "all children who are the proper objects of a 
 gratuitous education." The first apportionment of the State 
 common school fund established in 1805 was made in 1815 and 
 the Free School Society then received $3,708.14: as its share of 
 the amount paid to the City and County of jSTew York. Under 
 the Act of 1813 permitting the city to participate in the common 
 school fund, the City's portion was paid to the Free School Society, 
 the Orphan Asylum Society, the Society of the Economical School 
 in the City of New York, the African Free School and to such 
 " incorporated religious societies in said City as now support or 
 hereafter shall establish charity schools within the said City who 
 may apply for the same." The State funds thus apportioned 
 were dedicated solely to the payment of teachers' salaries. 
 
 In 1817, however, the Free School Society, finding that the 
 Lancasterian system was so economical that the State moneys 
 were more than enough for teachers' salaries, secured permission 
 from the Legislature to apply the surplus to the erection of build- 
 ings or any other needful purpose. In 1822 the Bethel Baptist 
 Church, which participated in the common school fund under the 
 law of 1813, secured a similar dispensation from the Legislature. 
 Considerable alarm was felt by the Free School Society and by 
 the other church schools lest this lead to a perversion of State 
 school funds to sectarian rather than to school purposes. Repeated 
 attempts were made to have the Legislature repeal the exemption 
 made in favor of the Bethel Baptist Church, but without success. 
 The scene of the controversy was moved from Albany to New 
 York by the passage of a law in 1824 placing the distribution 
 
81 
 
 of the school fund for Xew York City in the hands of the Com^ 
 mon Council. In 1825 the Common Council passed an ordinance 
 excluding all religious societies from participation in the income 
 from the common school fund, leaving only the Free School 
 Society, the Mechanics' Society, the Orphan Asylum Society and 
 the African Free Schools as beneficiaries. 
 
 The Free School Society was eager to extend the field of its 
 operations and in 1824 suggested that its schools which had 
 suffered from the stigma that they were charity schools should 
 also receive as pupils children of parents able and willing to pay 
 small sums for instruction. In 1826 the Legislature granted a 
 new charter whereby the Society's name was changed to " The 
 Public School Society of Xew York," whereby the Society was 
 permitted to charge a moderate fee for instniction, provided that 
 no child be denied the benefits of education because unable to 
 pay (this pay system proved unsuccessful and was abolished in 
 1832), and whereby the Society was authorized 
 
 " to convey their school edifices and other real estate to the 
 Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York, 
 upon such terms and conditions and in such forms as shall 
 be agreed upon between the parties, taking back from the 
 said corporation a perpetual lease thereof upon condition 
 that the same shall be exclusively and perpetually applied 
 to the purposes of education." 
 
 The Society was not satisfied with the adequacy of the system 
 of schools existing in 1828. It estimated that 12,000 children 
 between five and twelve years of age were entirely without means 
 of instruction and it stated that the principle which had led to 
 the recent change from free schools to public schools should be 
 extended so that schools "should be supported from public reve- 
 nue, should be public property, and should be open to all, not as 
 a charity but as a matter of common right." The specific recom- 
 mendation was then made that a tax be levied of half a mill upon 
 the dollar of assessed city property , and a vigorous effort was 
 made to arouse public sentiment in favor of this tax measure, the 
 result being the enactment by the Legislature in 1829 of a tax 
 law levying a local tax of one-eightieth of one per cent. 
 
 A controversv as to the application of ])ublic school moneys to 
 the support of schools under the control of religious societies com- 
 menced in 1840 and had far-reaching consequences. The Roman 
 Catholic churches which maintained free schools requested from 
 
82 
 
 the Common Council a share of the school moneys. Similar 
 requests were made by a Hebrew congregation and by the Scotch 
 Presbyterian church. They were all strenuously opposed by the 
 Public School Society and were denied by the Board of Assistant 
 Aldermen. The Catholics then petitioned the Board of Alder- 
 men, which after a public hearing on the matter, denied the 
 request. 
 
 The Legislature was the next point of attack and lengthy mei 
 orials were submitted by the proponents and opponents of tl 
 plan. All of these documents were referred to John C. Spence 
 the Secretary of State and ex-officio state Superintendent of Coi 
 mon Schools. Mr. Spencer studied the entire problem and the 
 outlined a plan of education in Xew York City providing for tl 
 election of a Commissioner of Common Schools in each ward ; fd 
 the extension of the general school laws of the State to the Citi 
 with certain modifications ; for the transfer to the elected Cori 
 missioners of " the schools of the Public School Society and tl 
 schools of the other associations and asylums now receiving tl 
 public money as schools under their general jurisdiction, leavin 
 the immediate government and management of them to thei 
 respective trustees and directors" ; for the establishment, by tl: 
 Commissioners, of schools in other parts of the city as distric 
 schools, and for the payment of the public school money by th 
 Chamberlain directly to the Commissioners. The Legislature pos 
 poned action until January, 1842, and the school questio: 
 became an ini])ortant issue in the city campaign. 
 
 In his annual message for 1842 Governor Seward gave co 
 siderable space to the school problem in New York City, savin 
 among other things: 
 
 ^'Happily in this, as in other instances, the evil is dis- 
 covered to have had its origin no deeper than in a departure 
 from the equality of general laws. In our general system of 
 common schools, trustees chosen by tax-paying citizens, levy 
 taxes, build school-houses, employ and pay teachers, and 
 govern schools which are subject to visitation by similarly 
 elected inspectors, who certify the qualifications of teachers 
 and all schools thus constituted participate in just propor- 
 tion in the public moneys, which are conveyed to them by 
 commissioners also elected by the people. ... In the 
 public school system of the city, one hundred persons are 
 trustees and inspectors, and, by continued consent of the 
 
 
83 
 
 Common Council, are the dispensers of an annual average 
 sum of $35,000, received from the Common School Fund of 
 the State, and also of a sum equal to $95,000, derived from 
 an undiscriminating tax upon the real and personal estates 
 of the City They build school-houses, chietiy with public 
 funds and appoint and remove teachers, fix their compensa- 
 tion, and prescribe the moral, intellectual, and religious 
 instruction which one-eighth of the rising generation of the 
 State shall be required to receive. Their powers, more effec- 
 tive and far-reaching than are exercised by the municipality 
 [ of the City, are net derived from the community whose chil- 
 I dren are educated and whose property is taxed, nor even 
 from the State, which is so great an almoner, and whose 
 welfare is so deeply concerned, but from an incorporated 
 and perpetual association, which grants, upon pecuniary 
 subscription, the privileges even of life membership, and 
 yet holds in fee simple the public-school edifices, valued at 
 eight hundred thousand dollars. Lest there might be too 
 much responsibility, even tO' the association, that body can 
 elect only one-half of the trustees, and those thus selected 
 appoint their fifty associates. The philanthropy and patrio- 
 tism of the present managers of the public schools, and their 
 efficiency in imparting instruction, are cheerfully and grate- 
 fully admitted. Nor is it necessary to maintain that agents 
 thus selected will liecome unfaithful, or that a system that 
 so jealously excludes popular interference must necessarily 
 be unequal in its operation. It is only insisted that the insti- 
 tution, after a fair and sufficient trial, has failed to gain 
 that broad confidence reposed in the general system of the 
 State, and indispensable to every scheme of universal edu- 
 cation. . . . T submit, therefore, with entire willingness to 
 approve whatever adequate remedy you may propose, the 
 expediency of restoring to the people of the City of jN'ew York 
 — what I am sure the peoj>le of no other part of the State 
 would, upon any consideration, relinquish — the education of 
 their children. For this purpose, it is only necessary to vest 
 the control of the common schools in a board to be composed 
 of commissioners elected by the people; which board shall 
 apportion the school moneys among all the schools, including 
 those now existing, which shall be organized and conducted in 
 conformity to its general regulations and the laws of the 
 State, in the proportion of the number of pupils instructed. 
 
84 
 
 It is not left doubtful tliat the restoration, to the common 
 schools of the City, of this simple and equal feature of the 
 common schools of the State, would remove every com- 
 plaint, . . ." 
 
 By chapter 150, Laws of 1842, entitled "An act to extend to the 
 City and county of New York the provisions of the general act in 
 relation to common schools " the Legislature established the first 
 Board of Education for the City. The statute provided that there 
 should be elected in each ward at special elections held in June, 
 two Commissioners of Common Schools, two Inspectors of Com- 
 mon Schools and five Trustees of Common Schools. The Com- 
 missioners were to constitute a Board of Education. The Board 
 had very little power, however. Its importance can be measured 
 by the fact that the law required it to meet at least once in three 
 months. The real authority was vested in the ward officers. Under 
 the statute each ward was to be considered as a to^^m for the pur- 
 poses of school administration ; the ward trustees initiated new 
 school projects and these projects, if approved by the respective 
 inspectors and commissioners, became binding on the city. The 
 supervisors of the city and county were required to raise annually 
 by tax a sum equal to the amount of the State apportionment of 
 school moneys, plus a special tax of one-twentieth of one per cent 
 of the total assessed valuation, plus such further amount as was 
 necessary. The Board of Education distributed the school moneys 
 among the wards on the basis of average attendance, and the 
 ward officers had charge of the expenditure of the funds. The 
 schools of the Public School Society and those of other incorpo- 
 rated societies were continued under the management of their 
 respective trustees. It was further provided that no school should 
 receive any portion of the school moneys in which "any religious 
 sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught, inculcated or practiced." 
 
 This act proved unsatisfactory and was, therefore, amended 
 in 1843 and 1844. By chapter 320, Laws of 1844, passed May Y, 
 1844, the same school officers were provided for as in the first 
 act, but with a transfer of powers from the ward officers to the 
 central Board of Education. New school projects deemed desir- 
 able by the ward officers had to be submitted to the Board of 
 Education for approval before they became effective, with the 
 provision that appeals from the Board's decision could be made 
 to the State Superintendent of Common Schools whose determina- 
 tion was binding for one year. A form of local supervision was 
 
85 
 
 also established under tins act in that it authorized the Board 
 of Supervisors to appoint a County Superintendent of Common 
 Schools for a two-year term. The compensation of this officer 
 was fixed at $2.00 a day and necessary expenses. The schools 
 established under the Acts of 1842, 1843 and 1844 were desig- 
 ited as ward schools. 
 
 But the double system of schools and of public and private 
 !hool control was not a happy one. There was friction between 
 le Board of Education and the Public School Society and in 
 846 the Board questioned the Society's right to erect new school- 
 ouses. A hearing was held and the Board decided that since 
 le Act of 1844 the Society had had no such right. The Society 
 ppealed to the Legislature which in 1848 passed a law legalizing 
 hose schools which the Society had established since May 7, 
 844, but providing that it should establish no others without the 
 onsent of the Board of Education. 
 
 In 1851 the Legislature passed an act (Chapter 386) "to 
 anend, consolidate and reduce to one act the various acts relative 
 the common schools of the City of ISTew York." By this act 
 he powers of the Board of Education were materially enlarged; 
 school funds were deposited in the city treasury and withdrawn 
 oy the Board as a whole instead of being handled by the separate 
 commissioners. The Board was given authority to make rules 
 and regulations to secure economy and accountability and was 
 authorized to appoint a City Superintendent of Schools, i\.ssistant 
 Superintendents and a Superintendent of School Buildings. For 
 the past ten years there had been a County Superintendent of 
 Schools elected by the Board of Supervisors, but he was not 
 directly amenable to the Board of Education. The City Superin- 
 tendent was now empowered to visit schools, inquire into all mat- 
 ters pertaining to the administration thereof and to advise with 
 the trustees. The same school officers were continued but their 
 terms of office were adjusted to a change made by an earlier 
 statute, whereby the special June elections were abolished and 
 provision made for the election of school officers at the general 
 elections. The school system was really established on a pretty 
 independent basis by this law. One very sig-nificant provision 
 required the City to raise annually by tax not only the equivalent 
 of the State apportionment as prescribed by the general State 
 law, and not only one-twentieth of one percent on the assessed 
 valuations as prescribed by another special statute, but also " such 
 
86 
 
 additional sums as the Board of Education * * * shall have 
 reported to be necessary." 
 
 in 1853 the Legislature ended the dual control of the City's 
 public schools by joining the schools of the Public School Society 
 and those of the Board of Education and providing for the trans- 
 fer to the City of all the property of the Public School Society. 
 The same law provided for the appointment by the Society from 
 among its trustees of fifteen commissioners of common schools 
 to hold office until January 1, 1855, and also for three trustees 
 of common schools " for each ward of said City in which one or 
 more of the schools of said Society are now established " to serve 
 until the first of January, 1855, 1856 and 1857, respectively, and 
 for the merging of its schools into the system of common schools 
 established by law. In 1853, therefore, the Board of Education 
 consisted of 59 members, two commissioners from each of the 22 
 wards and the 15 representatives of the Public School Society. 
 The latter remained in office vmtil January 1, 1855, when the 
 number of commissioners again became 44. The law also limited 
 to $4.00 per pupil the amount which the Board of Education 
 could require annually from the City in addition to the equivalent 
 of the State apportionment and to the yield of the special tax of 
 one-twentieth of one per cent. 
 
 Xine years later, in 1864, an act was passed establishing seven 
 school districts in the City of New York and reducing the Board 
 of Education from 44 members elected by wards to 21 members 
 elected by districts, each district to elect one commissioner of 
 conmion schools each year. The new law also reduced the num- 
 ber of trustees elected in each ward from eight to five, provided 
 for three inspectors in each of the seven districts to be named by 
 the ^faycr subject to confirmation by the Board of Education. 
 The power of appointing teachers and janitors was retained by 
 the tiiistees, but nominations of principals and vice-principals 
 made by the trustees were subject to approval by the Board of 
 Education, and the Board was also given authority in the matter 
 of the removal of teachers. 
 
 A measure was introduced in the Legislature of 1867 which, 
 although it failed of passage, deserves mention at the present 
 juncture. It provided for the abolition of the Board of Educa- 
 tion, the trustees and the inspectors and created a commission of 
 seven, termed the ]\fetropolitan Board of Instruction, and 
 appointed by the Governor and the Senate. This was to be a 
 paid board and its members were to hold office for eight years. 
 
87 
 
 In 1SG9 the Legislature passed an act providing for a Board 
 of Education of twelve members who were to be appointed by the 
 mayor and to serve until December 31, 1871. It was further 
 provided that at the general election of 1871 twelve Commis- 
 sioners of Common Schools should be voted for on a general ticket, 
 recognition being given to the principle of minority representa- 
 tion. This law was repealed in 1870, so that the election pro- 
 vided for was never held. 
 
 The Act of 1870 "to reorganize the local government of the 
 City of New York" was amended in 1871 by Chapter 574, which 
 created a Department of Public Instruction as one of the depart^ 
 ments of the city government, and turned over to it all the powers 
 and duties of the Board of Education. The existing Board was 
 legislated out of office and provision made for the appointment 
 by the Mayor of twelve commissioners for terms of five years, 
 recognition being given to the principle of minority representa- 
 tion. The Mayor was also authorized to apjwint the school trus- 
 tees and inspectors. This law did away with the machinery of 
 ward and district representation and created a centralized school 
 system under the ]\rayor. 
 
 But this new arrangement did not last. By Chapter 112 of 
 the Laws of 1873 the seven school districts set up by the law of 
 LS()4 were re-established, and provision was made for the appoint- 
 nunit by the flavor of a Board of Education consisting of twenty- 
 one Commissioners of Common Schools whose terms were for three 
 years. This Board was empowered to ap|X)int five trustees for 
 eacli ward for five year terms and the Mayor was authorized to 
 appoint twenty-one inspectors, three from each district. This sys- 
 tem remained substantially unchanged until 1896. Its advan- 
 tages were said to be the removal of the schools from political 
 supervision, the provision of moderate local control by the trus- 
 tees, and the estalilisbment of centralized supervision and final 
 control by the B(wrd of Education without placing a danger- 
 ously great authority in the hands of the central Board. 
 
 The next important modification of the admiiiistrative machin- 
 ery of the school system was the abolition by Chapter 387 of the 
 Laws of 189G of the ward trustees. These officers had ]x^rsi£ted 
 since 1842 and had exercised many important powers. For many 
 years they were elected and, under the short-lived act of 1871, 
 th(>y Avere a])pointed by the mayor. After 1873 they W(>re 
 appointed liy tlie Loavd of E(lucatit)n. T]i(> trustees were often 
 
88 
 
 attacked by persons interested in the welfare of the schools. It 
 was claimed that some of them were illiterate ; that they were 
 appointed for political purposes; that they considered the appoint- 
 ment of teachers as legitimate patronage and that they showed 
 favoritism in promotion and in the selection of contractors. A 
 telling argument against the ward trustee system was that it was 
 absurd to use the ward as a basis of selection, as some wards had 
 very few schools while other wards had many. In 1888, in the 
 second ward, for exam})le, there was only one school with but two 
 teachers, while in the twelfth ward there were 499 teachers. 
 
 The result of this agitation was the passage of a law by the 
 Legislature (Chapter 532, Laws of 1893) providing that the 
 j\Jayor should appoint a conmiission to report to the Legislature 
 a comprehensive revision of the laws aifecting common schools 
 and public education in the City. This commission reported in 
 1894 and recommended abolishing the inspectors and depriving 
 the trustees of all powers except those of visiting schools and 
 reporting on their condition. Some of the trustees' powers were 
 ■given to the Board of Education and others were conferred on a 
 Board of Superintendents, to consist of the City Superintendent 
 and twenty Division Superintendents. This Board was given 
 large powers. Provision was also made for a Superintendent of 
 School Buildings and Supplies. The proposed law failed of pas- 
 sage at the 1894 session. It was reintroduced in 1895 with some 
 amendments, but failed again. 
 
 Chapter 387 of the Laws of 1896 abolished the trustees and 
 gave the Mayor power to appoint five inspectors in each district 
 whose duty was to visit schools. The statute also created a Board 
 of Superintendents, consisting of the City Superintendent and as 
 'many Assistant Superintendents as the Board of Education might 
 deem necessary. The professional control of the schools was 
 lodged almost entirely in the new Board of Superintendents, 
 only a veto power being given to the Board of Education, whose 
 composition remained unchanged. 
 
 BrooMyn 
 
 In Brooklyn there was no " Public School Society." The 
 schools that were established and maintained there, after the 
 recognition by the State that education was a matter of public 
 concern, were administered by local authorities subject to the 
 general State laws. 
 
89 
 
 As mentioned al)ove, the State established the common school 
 fund in 1805. The first distribution was made in 1815, and in 
 1816 a local tax of $2,000 was levied and a common school 
 opened in the village of Brooklyn. Several other schools were 
 established prior to the incorporation of the City of Brooklyn in 
 1834 and the creation of a Board of Education in 1843. But 
 prior to 1843 all the schools were organized as special district 
 schools. It is true that in 1835 a law was passed (Chapter 129) 
 authorizing the Common Council to appoint three trustees of com- 
 mon schools in each district, and for the whole City three inspec- 
 tors and three commissioners, but the district organization was 
 still paramount. 
 
 The statute of 1843, creating a Board of Education, provided 
 that the members of the Common Council should be Commissioners 
 of Common Schools in and for the City, and that on the first Mon- 
 day in April, 1843, they should apj>oint tw^o or more persons to 
 represent each of the school districts as members of the Board of 
 Education. The full term of office was fixed at three years and 
 the Mayor and Deputy County Superintendent of Common Schools 
 were made members ex-ofiicio. The new Board was organized 
 with only twenty-eight appointed members, as in two districts 
 the full number of appointments was not made. The Board was 
 authorized in 1848 to appoint a City Superintendent of Common 
 Schools, the office of County Superintendent having been abolished 
 by statute in 1847. 
 
 By Chapter 143 of the Laws of 1850 the Board of Education 
 was made to consist of thirty-three members appointed by the 
 Common Council. The law provided that at least one membc:- 
 should reside in each district. The terai of office continued to 
 be three years. The law of 1854 annexing the City of Williams- 
 burg and the town of Bushwick to Brooklyn required the Com- 
 mon Council to appoint additional members of the Board of 
 Education for the new part of the City, and that body fixed the 
 membership at forty-five, of whom thirteen were to be residents 
 of the new territory. This number remained unchanged through- 
 out the rest of the Board's existence. In 1862 the Mayor was 
 given authority to nominate members of the Board of Education, 
 subject to confirmation by the Common Council. 
 
 In 1873 the charter was amended by providing that there should 
 be a Department of Public Instruction in Brooklyn under the con- 
 trol of tlie Board of Education ; that the City Superintendent of 
 
90 
 
 Schools should be called the Superiuteiident of Public lustruc- 
 tion; that his term should be increased from one to three years 
 and that the Board of Education might appoint two Associate 
 Superintendents for three-year terms. 
 
 The amended charter which was passed May 25, 1880, pro- 
 vided that any vacancy in the Board of Education occurring dur- 
 ing the remainder of 1880 should be filled b^^ the Mayor and 
 Comptroiler (an act passed June 16, 1880, provided that in case 
 the Mayor and Comptroller failed to agree, the Auditor of the 
 City should become one of the appointing- powers), and any 
 vacancy during 1881 should be filled by the Mayor alone. After 
 January 1, 1S82, the sole power of appointment was with the 
 Mayor. Some confusion resulted in 1886 from the fact that the 
 amended charter fixed two-year terms for the heads of all city 
 departments without specifically mentioning the Board of Educa- 
 tion whose members had been serving three-year terms. In 1882 
 Mayor Low acted on the assumption that the Legislature had not 
 intended to change the term of office of Board members and made 
 regular three-year appointments. His successor, in 1886, took 
 the other view, declared vacancies and made appointments on the 
 two-year theory and doubt Avas cast on the legality of some of the 
 Board's acts. In 1887 the Legislature settled the matter by spe- 
 cifically extending the terms of the 1885 and 1886 appointees 
 and establishing the three-year term. 
 
 One unique feature of the Brooklyn public school system can- 
 not be left untouched upon. The by-laws of the Board of Educa- 
 tion of 1843 provided for district committees consisting of the 
 Board members for each district. The schools of the district were 
 especially committed to these committees. This scheme lasted but 
 a short time, being followed by the local school committee, pro- 
 vided for by nn nmendment to the by-law^s made soon after the 
 leorganization necessitated by the statute of 1850. These local 
 school committees consisted of three members for each school. In 
 the course of time these committees acquired large powers in the 
 appointment and promotion of teachers, in the making of repairs, 
 etc., until they were practically supreme in their respective schools. 
 This system was continued until the abolition of the Brooklyn 
 school board in 1902 and was even then carried over as Section 
 llOo of the first Greater ISTew York charter. The abuses of the 
 local committee system, particularly with respect to the appoint- 
 ment and promotion of teachers, were repeatedly the subject of 
 criticism. 
 
91 
 
 Queens and Bdchmond. 
 
 The Borough of Queens is composed of several formerly inde- 
 pendent communities, such as Newtown, Flushing and Jamaica. 
 The early history of education is the history of these separate 
 towns. The towns became school districts under the general State 
 law, the subdivision in Newtown taking place in 1814, and schools 
 were established from time to time. In 1870 a portion of New- 
 town was incorporated as Long Island City and the schools were 
 placed under the city government in charge of a Board of Educa- 
 tion of five members appointed by the Mayor. The village of 
 Flushing was incorporated in 1837. In 1848 it was provided with 
 a Board of Education of five members elected by the people. 
 
 In neither Queens nor Richmond, however, was there any 
 central organization in charge of the public schools. There were 
 numerous school districts and district officers, but not until the 
 incorporation of these two boroughs into the Greater City was, 
 there anything that resembled centralized local school authority. 
 
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