tion in Prussia,' which had been generally circulated in the United States, Mrs. Austin's translation appearing in 1834. This report indicates that certain professional literature was annually sent to Prussian teachers at State expense. The next was in Connecticut, where the assembly in 1840 appropriated $330 toward defraying the expense of sending to every school society in the State a bound copy of such numbers of the Common School Journal as had been previously placed at the disposal of the committee on schools. In 1840 the State superintendent of New York' recommended the appropriation of $2,800 to circulate gratuitously among school officers an official organ of the State department of education, and he cites the example of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Michigan. Next year, 1841, authority was given the State superintendent to subscribe for a copy for each organized district of the State, all official notices and laws to be published gratuitously. By the action of the five States mentioned the precedent was well established, and most of the State legislatures were petitioned or “memorialized" in behalf of new periodicals as fast as they were established by the State associations. In some States, as in New Hampshire, the legislature, after being repeatedly importuned, reported the matter as "inexpedient." In Iowa' a resolution was introduced into the senate authorizing the State superintendent to subscribe for 1,600 copies of the District School Journal of Education, at not more than 80 cents a copy, for the school districts of the State, but it was indefinitely postponed. The editor says this action came as no surprise to him after he had seen the legislators, but a later legislature, more favorably disposed, passed a similar measure. Usually such laws were enacted upon the recommendation of the State superintendent or commissioner of schools after a memorial had been presented by a committee representing the State Teachers' Association. The general nature of the various laws passed may be best inferred by examining the following quotations and summaries: In New York the annual appropriation for the District School Journal was not renewed after 1851, and the Journal was discontinued in 1855. A smaller appropriation was made to send the New York Teacher to town and city superintendents. After being reduced in amount, this was discontinued, and an appropriation of $1,000 made to send the Teacher to inexperienced teachers.* The Connecticut law, and an indication of its operation, follows: Resolved by this Assembly, That the sum of $250 annually be, and the same hereby is, appropriated to the use of the Connecticut State Teachers' Association to be drawn by the order of the president or the controller, to be paid from the civil-list funds of the State: Provided, That said association shall furnish one copy of the Connecticut School Journal and Annals of Education, each month, without charge to the active school visitor of each school society. (Passed, 1854.) A memorial of the State Teachers' Association" asked the legislature for an extension of this support in sending to each independent district a copy of the Journal. As indicated, the legislature of 1854 appropriated a sum sufficient to circulate the Journal among school visitors. The State superintendent, J. D. Philbrick, says of this: 11 The benefits which were anticipated from this measure have been fully realized. Indeed, they have proved much greater than was expected. Through this medium an edition of the school laws as compiled and passed * at the last session was circulated among the school visitors, and a mass of information has been disseminated with reference to the best plans of organizing, instructing, and elevating the character of our schools. The superintendent then points out the advantage of sending the Journal to every district and recommends that an appropriation be made to enable this to be done. This request was repeated' or suggested in most of the annual reports until the Journal suspended in 1866. By far the longest-continued State support of a school periodical is found in Pennsylvania. Section 9 of the law of May, 1855, is as follows: That the Pennsylvania School Journal shall be recognized as the official organ of the department of common schools of this Commonwealth, in which the current decisions made by the superintendent of common schools shall be published, free of charge, together with all official circulars and such other letters as he may find it necessary or advisable to issue from time to time, including his annual report; and the superintendent is hereby authorized to subscribe for one copy of said School Journal to be sent to each board of school directors in the State, for public use, and charge the cost thereof to the contingent expenses of the department of common schools. This law remained in force until after 1909; appropriations for the circulation of the Journal have been continued to the present (1916). According to the provisions of another law, every school director by vote of the local board might receive the Journal at the expense of the district. The Wisconsin law of March, 1856,' authorized the State superintendent to subscribe for a copy of the Wisconsin Journal of Education for each district and for each town superintendent. After several years of urging, the Michigan Legislature in 1855 provided for sending at State expense two copies of the Michigan Journal of Education to each district, one to be sent monthly, the other sent at the close of the year as a bound volume to become part of the district library. This law was in operation two years. The 1857 law follows: The people of the State of Michigan enact that the State superintendent of public instruction be and is authorized to subscribe for one copy of the Michigan Journal of Education, a periodical published under the direction of the Michigan State Teachers' Association, for each school district in the State, to be sent by mail, the postage being prepaid by the publishers, to the director of the said districts, the price of such subscription to be 60 cents a year for each copy, and such subscription to begin with the January number of the present year. All general laws relating to public instruction and all general notifications issuing from the department of public instruction to be published in such journal free of charge to the State. (Approved, Feb. 14, 1857.) The North Carolina law, enacted a year or two later, was similar. The Iowa law permitted the State superintendent to— subscribe for a sufficient number of copies of some educational school paper, printed and published in the State, to furnish one to each county superintendent but no paper shall be selected which will not publish each decision relating to the school law and which he may regard of general importance. And the certificate of having thus subscribed shall be sufficient authority for the auditor of State to issue his warrant upon the State treasurer for the amount of the subscription. Rep. Conn. Supt. of Common Schs., 1860, 32; 1862, 21; 1864, 14; 1865, 20; 1866, 68; 1867, 77. Pa. Sch. Law, 1855, sec. 9. Pa. Sch. Law, 1873, p. 121. Wis. J. of Ed., 1857, II, 26. 1857, IV, 169. Iowa Sch. Law (1911), sec. 2624, enacted 1864. The Kansas law,' 1865, authorized the State superintendent to send a copy of a school journal to every district clerk and required that two pages a month be devoted to the interests of school officers. Next to Pennsylvania, California made the greatest use of the plan of State support. The law of 1864 (section 84) declares: It shall be the duty of the superintendent of public instruction to annually subscribe for a sufficient number of copies of some monthly journal of education to supply each county superintendent, city superintendent, district clerk, and each district school library with one copy thereof. Said journal shall be designated by the State board of education, and shall be a journal devoted exclusively to educational purposes and published monthly in California. The superintendent of public instruction shall be one of its editors. * ** The subscription price * * * shall not exceed $1.50, and the State board of education shall have power to reduce the rate when said journal can be creditably sustained at a lower rate. The subscription was paid by the State. It may be noticed that designation by the State board of education was required. No State-subsidized journal in California managed to survive securely, as in Pennsylvania, and several in succession were thus selected. With minor variation the formal designation and agreement is indicated by the following: Resolved, That the Pacific Educational Journal, published monthly by the Educational Publishing Co., be, and the same is hereby, designated by the State board of education as the official organ of the department of public instruction. In making this designation it is understood by the board and agreed by the publishers that nothing of a partisan or sectarian nature shall appear in its columns; that it shall be maintained as a first-class educational journal and that the publishers or their managers shall furnish the superintendent of public instruction on or before the tenth day of each month with an affidavit that they have printed and mailed one copy to each school district clerk or school library in the State. The amount to be paid for each copy of the said Journal shall be the sum of $1.50 per annum. The copies to be mailed to school clerks shall bear on their title-page the words, "For District School Library." The board reserves the right to revoke this designation at any time, on giving 60 days' notice to the publishers. The California law of 1894* authorized the State board of education to designate the official organ, after which it was mandatory upon the county superintendent to subscribe for sufficient copies to supply all districts under his jurisdiction. The subscriptions were paid from the library funds of the district. Under this law, still in force in 1901, no State appropriation was made, but since county superintendents or local officers were given no option in case the State board designated an official organ, it closely resembled direct State support, though the money was taken from a local fund. The following summary indicates briefly the amount of direct State support: After the pioneer efforts of Ohio and Michigan, Connecticut appropriated $330 in 1840, and a smaller amount, usually $250, annually from 1851 to 1865; New York, $2,800 annually from 1840 to 1845, and $2,400 a year from 1846 to 1851, and again sums varying from $800 to $1,200 annually, 1855-1861; Michigan, at 60 cents a copy, spent about $2,200 annually, 1855-1861; Pennsylvania, with the exception of a few short intervals, has made appropriations usually between $1,500 and $2,500 since 1855, and continues such support; Wisconsin, at 50 cents a copy, expended approximately $1,700 a year, 1857-1862; Massachusetts aided the State Teachers' Association in supporting the Massachusetts Teacher much of the time between 1857 and 1868, the amount of the annual appropriation usually being $300; California, with many changes of the recipients of its appropriations, usually spent between $3,000 and $4,000 annually 1 Kansas Educational Jl., 1866, III, 13. Calif. Teacher, 1866, III, 265. Pacific Ed. Jl., 1887, I, 107. Cal. Sch. Law, 1901, sec. 1522, clause 8. in circulating school journals, 1865 to the close of the century; Kansas from 1865 to 1874 spent a varying amount, probably averaging more than $1,000 annually upon the Kansas Educational Journal; Virginia, 1870-1891, gave its journal an annual support amounting as a rule to a little more than $500; Rhode Island aided the Schoolmaster with about $350 a year for several years after 1855; and Iowa, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, and possibly one or two other States for short periods made annual appropriations to circulate “State” organs. Nevada sent to its school officers the official journal of California. The total amount of money spent by all the States in circulating school journals before 1900 was between $250,000 and $300,000, of which Pennsylvania and California expended more than half. The second means by which States officially lent support to school journals was through permissive legislation authorizing local boards or officers to pay for their subscription out of district funds. There was always an element of local option, even in cases of circulation by State appropriation, for before copies could be mailed to school officers their addresses must be secured, and it happened occasionally that county superintendents or school board members were indifferent to the real or supposed advantages of an educational periodical, or even objected to receiving it, and failed or refused to furnish the publishers with their addresses. Direct State support was more certain, less variable with the times, and was accordingly most sought. But permissive legislation or regulation was much better than none and was gladly made use of in the absence of more acceptable recognition. It was doubtless more pleasant for State legislatures to give an optional local support than to deny in toto the request of a committee representing a teachers' organization, not very numerous perhaps nor politically active, but highly respected. Thus the legislature in Iowa,' though unwilling to give direct State aid of great consequence, recognized the "Voice" as the official organ and authorized district clerks to make the subscription from local funds. The State board of education subsequently authorized every district to subscribe for the Iowa Instructor and make it part of the library. A single example will serve as an illustration of the permissive legislation enacted in several States, the Minnesota law framed in 1868 and passed at the request of the State superintendent,' which provided that: 2 Any district clerk desiring to receive a copy of the Minnesota Teacher and Journal of Education, at the expense of his district," may in writing direct the superintendent of schools for his county to order such copy to be sent to him, and for that purpose shall give his post-office address. The superintendent shall thereupon order the publisher of said journal to send a copy of it to such address, which shall be preserved by the clerk and transmitted to his successor in office as property of the district. It shall be the duty of the superintendent of public instruction to examine and approve each issue of said journal before it is issued and to require from the publisher of the Teacher a good and sufficient bond. * * * It not infrequently happened that when it proved impossible to secure legislative support, State school officers discovered that no laws after all were necessary. Thus in Indiana (1863)' after failure in repeated efforts to secure a law with reference to the Indiana School Journal, an opinion was rendered that trustees had a right to pay for the Journal out of district funds, though the law made no provision for doing so. Though this at first brought only moderate results in circulation,' the decision was given considerable publicity, 1 Laws of Iowa, 1858, 107. * Voice of Iowa, 1858, III, 1. Iowa Instructor, 1863, V, 385. Minn. Teacher, 1868, II, 208, 417. Minn. Sch. Law, 1873, secs. 73, 76. and in 1867 there were counties in which every trustee and director were supplied at the expense of local funds. Similarly in Kansas (1885)' the State superintendent secured from the attorney general an opinion to the effect that, since school boards "are usually composed of farmers and others who do not know the law, it will be helpful for them to receive the Journal at the expense of the district, if so voted by the people at the annual meeting," and the State superintendent of Nebraska decided that without a specific law on the subject, district boards could legally pay for a copy of the Nebraska Teacher for each member out of local funds, and advises this to be done. The third means by which States or State officials lent support to school Journals was official patronage without specific legal basis, for which the aid of laws was not invoked but much sought after by editors and publishers nevertheless. The most general of these was the mere statement, over official signature of the superintendent, that the Journal was his official organ, accompanied very often by an exhortation to teachers or officers to subscribe. The State school commissioner of Ohio advised each county auditor to take the Ohio Journal of Education' since it would contain school laws and comments. A little later the same advice is given to local school boards. From the great number of similar quotations which could easily be given, only the following cases are cited: It is the means adopted by the State superintendent to convey his decisions as to the intent, interpretation, and construction of the school law, and teachers and officers should take it for no other reason save this.' The State superintendent decided to publish monthly all decisions, reports, and questions used in quarterly examinations. This will practically make the Journal the official paper of the department, and since the subscription price is only $1 per year, I would like to see it in the possession of every teacher and school officer in Colorado." A newly elected State superintendent, continuing the policy, affixes his signature to this statement: ' * I have this day designated the Colorado School Journal as the official organ of the department of public instruction. This designation is an expression of confidence that this paper should be in the hands of all persons interested in education. Much more directly than by mere exhortation, State school officers stimulated interest in the State publication by exerting pressure upon teachers who were candidates for certificates. This influence, through a multitude of rather intangible connections, as well as openly and above board, it is quite impossible to measure, but as financial support and legal preference declined it became a rather powerful factor. The State superintendent exerted much of this pressure through his influence upon county superintendents. In the first volume of the Kansas Educational Journal* he asks county superintendents to work for the circulation of the Journal. Similar support is in evidence for the Indiana School Journal. If the State superintendent issued a circular letter or pub 1 Western Sch. Jl., I, 214, 1085. 5 Southern Sch. Jl., Arkansas, 1893, VI, No. 2, 21. Ibid., 1892, VIII, No. 86. |