246 SCHOOL -TAX IN NEW YORK STATE. 



number of pupils at each school. Thus the pressure 

 will cease to be unequal on the poorer districts, and the 

 obstacles on the part of parents and others will, it is to 

 be hoped, disappear when these and further alterations, 

 which will doubtless hereafter suggest themselves, shall 

 have been introduced. While I write, however, the 

 agitation on the subject is still very strong j and it was 

 made by many a party-cry in connexion with the elec 

 tions for 1851. 



It will interest the British reader, I think, to have an idea 

 of the amount of tax which it will be necessary to raise, or 

 the rate of taxation which will be necessary to maintain 

 this free common-school system in the State of New York. 



The present annual income of the common school- 

 fund from all sources is, in round numbers, 300,000 

 dollars.* Twice this sum gives 600,000 dollars as the 

 sum to be raised by tax, which on 3,000,000 of people 

 makes one-fifth of a dollar 20 cents or tenpence 

 a-head on each inhabitant. A tax of tenpence a-head 

 on the 20,000,000 of Great Britain would raise a yearly 

 school fund of 833,333, or on the 30,000,000 of the 

 two islands of 1,250,000 sterling. Do all our parish 

 and common-school endowments, and parliamentary 

 grants united, approach to anything like this sum ? 



But in the State of New York, and elsewhere, the tax 

 is levied on property. Now the total aggregate valua 

 tion of real and personal estate, according to official 

 documents, was in 1849, in the State of New York, 

 666,000,000 of dollars. A tax of 600,000 dollars upon 

 this valuation gives one dollar for every 1110, to be 

 paid by each holder of property supposing the tax to 

 be equally divided among all the property of the State. 



Our direct property-taxes are paid upon income. We 

 shall understand the weight of this tax better, therefore, 

 by converting it into an income-tax. 



* In 1847 it was 296,000 dollars, and in 1848, 282,000 dollars. 



