State Expenditures. 83 



retrenchment. It was noticed that the dividends from the school fund 

 were increasing and in 1820 the comptroller suggested to the assembly 

 that a considerable saving could be made by merely adding to the 

 next dividend from the school fund an appropriation no larger than 

 would be necessary to leave the payment to the societies undimin- 

 ished.^ The idea was seized upon by the assembly and it voted to 

 suspend the school appropriation of two dollars on every thousand 

 dollars in the grand list as soon as the income of the school fund 

 should exceed sixty-two thousand dollars. ^ During this very year 

 (April 1, 1820, to March 31, 1821) the income from the school fund 

 was greater and consequently no payment for schools was made 

 from the state treasury except a small amount due to the societies 

 for the previous year. As no further appropriation was made b}' 

 the state, until 1839, for pubHc education, an annual saving of more 

 than twelve thousand dollars a year was made by this action. 



In 1838 the general assembly was sufficiently progressive to pass 

 an act providing for a board of commissioners to supervise the 

 public schools. This board consisted of the governor and the com- 

 missioner of the school fund, ex officio, and one other person from 

 each of the eight counties. The board received no compensation 

 for its services. It was allowed to appoint its own secretary and to 

 pay for his services an amount not exceeding three dollars a day 

 and his expenses.^ In 1842, owing to the demands for economy 

 and the complaints that the board was guilty of interference in the 

 local management of the schools, the board was abolished.'* The 

 expense of the board, as a matter of fact, had not been large. It 

 was only six thousand three hundred twenty-two dollars for the 

 whole period of its existence, an average of $1,264.50 per year. 



Although more money was actually paid from the state treasury, 

 the state extended less aid to collegiate institutions during the period 

 than it did in the first period. Its only aid to Yale 

 Institutions College was a grant of seven thousand dollars, which the 

 Connecticut Bank at Bridgeport gave as a bonus in com- 

 pliance with its charter. By the terms of the act incorporating this 

 bank in 1831, the bank was to pay at the end of the first year of its 

 existence the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars to Yale College 

 and fifteen hundred dollars to Washington College; one year later 



1 Comptroller's Report (Ms.), May 1820. 



2 Public Statute Laws, May 1820, chap. 50, sec. 1. 



3 Public Acts, 1838, chap. 52, sec. 1, 2, 6. 



* Report of Secretary Board of Education, Jan. 1888. (Leg. Doc. 1888, 

 vol. i.) 



