Expenditures. 39 



income to be distributed for school purposes.^ During this period 

 of thirteen years, in which the fund was administered first by the 

 committee which made the sale and after 1800 by the board of managers, 

 the interest divided and paid out to the school societies according 

 to their respective lists of polls and rateable estates was $456,757.44, 

 an average of $35,135.19 a year. In spite of the fact that the ex- 

 penses of managing the fund were paid, after 1810, from the income 

 of the fund, the total amount of dividends distributed by James 

 Hihhouse during the first nine years of his administration was 

 $370,225.63, an average of $41,136.18 per annum. The total amount 

 of money arising from this fund and distributed among the school 

 societies in the state from 1799 to 1819 inclusive, this being the 

 period during which the dividends were apportioned according to 

 the town lists, was over $826,983, or more than two-thirds of the 

 original capital of the fund. 



E. ExPENDrruRES. 

 1. Education. 

 In addition to the dividends arising from the school fund, the state 

 paid annually from its treasury to each school society the sum of 

 two dollars on every thousand dollars in the list of the given 



^s^y^^^. society. This amount was taken from the taxes paid into the 

 Schools -^ , , • , 1 1 • 



state treasury by the towns and this method was used to m- 



sure for the schools an expenditure by local school units of an amount 

 equal to at least two dollars on the thousand in their respective lists. 

 Instead of leaving to the towns the collection of this tax. the state added 

 it to the state tax imposed upon the towns and then returned it to 

 the school societies.^ The idea was by no means new. In the Oc- 

 tober session of the legislature in 1700, almost a century earlier, 

 provision was made for a uniform school tax of forty shilUngs on 

 every thousand pounds in the town lists. The method of collection 

 was similar, as the act provided: "When and so often as the treasurer 

 sends forth his warrants for lev3dng the county rates, he shall also, 

 together with the county rate, assess the inhabitants of the several 

 towns in this colony, the said sum of forty shillings upon every 

 thousand pounds, and proportionably for lesser sums in their county 



1 Report (p. 19) of committee to whom was referred that part of His 

 Excellency's Speech which relates to the School Fund 1819. (Bound with 

 Reports of Commissioner School Fund, etc., 1819). 



2 Conn. Laws (Revision of 1795), p. 372, sec. 5. 



