Sources of Revenue. 81 



The act which created the school fund required that the annual 

 income should be distributed among the school societies of the state 



in proportion to their lists of polls and taxable prop- 

 nf'Vncome^^ srty.'^ An equitable distribution was intended thereby, 



but it is difficult to see what relation the taxable 

 property of a society bore to the expense of maintaining pubhc 

 schools for the children. After the system of taxation was changed 

 in 1819, in an attempt to tax property according to its true valuation, 

 the retention of this provision would have been positively unjust. 

 Those societies which possessed the most valuable property and 

 which were naturally most able to provide for the education of the 

 children would have received, under the operation of the old \a.w, 

 the larger shares of the income from the school fund, even though 

 the poorer societies might have the greater number of children to 

 educate. This injustice was seen and the method of distribution 

 was changed to allow each school society to receive the proportion 

 of the entire dividends which the number of its children between 

 four and sixteen years of age bore to the whole number of children 

 of the same description in the state. 



^ Conn. LaAvs, May 1795, p. 487 



Trans. Conn. Ac.^d.. Vol. XVII. March, 1912. 



