488 



ILLINOIS. 



Some decisions relating to schools in the 

 State have been made. No board can employ 

 a teacher legally for a period extending be- 

 yond their term of office. The teacher must 

 have a legal certificate when he makes his con- 

 tract with the directors. 



A minority report from a committee on op- 

 tional studies made to the School Board in 

 Chicago objects to the higher branches, as Ger- 

 man, music, and drawing, introduced in the 

 lower grades of schools to the exclusion of 

 English studies. The minority say that Chi- 

 cago has school-rooms large enough to hold at 

 any one time but 40,000 of the 125,000 children 

 of a school age. On the average, children in 

 Chicago attend a school but 410 days before 

 leaving the public schools altogether, and one 

 fourth of the children in school, it was found on 

 inquiry, had averaged but 100 days of school- 

 ing. Of this limited time, which must of ne- 

 cessity include all the instruction received in 

 public schools in reading, writing, and arith- 

 metic, one sixth goes to learning to read music. 

 Taking the entire number of children collec- 

 tively, and the exclusion of music and drawing 

 would add one month a year to the instruction 

 of 43,000 children in common-school studies ; 

 and three fourths of these children do not stay 

 more than long enough to receive a rudimen- 

 tary drill in those studies under the roost fa- 

 vorable training. The Chicago school authori- 

 ties decided, however, to continue the present 

 course of music and drawing, a course arranged 

 for twelve years, although not one child in a 

 hundred completes it. 



The question, "Are school boards authorized 

 to make such regulations as will allow teach- 

 ers and principals to require written excuses 

 from the parents of pupils when the pupils are 

 absent from school ? " was asked of State 

 Superintendent Slade, to which he replied : 



In the 48th section of the school law are these 

 words : " They (the directors) shall adopt and enforce 

 all necessary rules and regulations for the manage- 

 ment and government of the schools." These neces- 

 sary rules and regulations certainly include those that 

 tend to secure prompt and regular attendance, and to 

 prevent truancy, tardiness, and absenteeism; and I 

 can think of no more reasonable regulation for secur- 

 ing regularity and punctuality of attendance than that 

 of requiring pupils to show, by means of a written 

 excuse from parent or guardian, that they are not ab- 

 sent from school without good cause. I fully concur 

 to the opinion given on this subject by Dr. Bateman 

 when he was Superintendent. He says: " The right 

 ftnd duty of directors to make and enforce such regula- 



tions as will secure regularity and punctuality of at- 

 tendance (those prime requisites ol a good school) 

 have been affirmed by several of our Circuit Courts, 

 and by the Supreme Courts of many States, notably 

 and recently that of Iowa." 



The right of directors to prescribe a course 

 of study was decided by the Supreme Court 

 during the previous year. It said : 



It is an indispensable element to the validity of all 

 by-laws (and such are, in effect, the rules and regula- 

 tions here authorized) that they be reasonable; and 

 whenever they appear not to be so, the courts must, 

 as a matter of law, declare them void. To render 

 them reasonable, they should tend in some degree to 

 the accomplishment of the objects for which the cor- 

 poration was created and its powers conferred. It is 

 unquestionably reasonable that pupils shall be classi- 

 fied with respect to the several branches of study pur- 

 sued, and with respect to proficiency or degree of ad- 

 vancement in the same branch; that there shall be 

 prompt attendance, diligence in study, and proper de- 

 portment. All regulations or rules to these ends are 

 for the benefit of all, and presumptively promotive of 

 the interests of all. 



By a decision of the Supreme Court, about 

 three million dollars of the obligations of the city 

 of Chicago, issued in excess of the constitutional 

 provision, were invalidated. It was held that 

 municipal bodies can exercise only such powers 

 as are conferred upon them by their charter ; 

 and all persons dealing with them are sup- 

 posed to see that they have power to perform 

 the proposed act. Such corporations are cre- 

 ated for governmental and not for commercial 

 purposes. Hence no power to borrow money 

 is incident to the performance of the duties 

 which their charters impose, and it is by a 

 grant of power only that they can create debts. 

 No one has the right to presume the existence 

 of such power, and persons proposing to loan 

 money to a city should see that there is such 

 power ; and if the holders of certificates omit- 

 ted to do so when they loaned the money, it 

 was their own fault. 



In the case of the Northwestern University 

 vs. The People, etc., the Supreme Court of the 

 United States thus speak of the term "for 

 school purposes," which was material to the 

 case: 



The distinction is, we think, very broad between 

 property contributing to the purpose of a school, made 

 to aid m the education of persons in that school, and 

 that which is directly or immediately subjected to use 

 in the school. The purposes of the scliool and the 

 school are not identical. The purpose of a school or 

 university is to give youth an education. The money 

 which comes from the sale or rent of land dedicated 

 to that object aids this purpose. Land so held 'or 

 leased is held for school purposes, in the fullest and 

 clearest sense. A devise of a hundred acres of land 

 "to the President of the University, for the purposes 

 of the school," would be not only a valid conveyance, 

 but, if the President failed to do so, a court of chan- 

 cery would compel him to execute the trust ; but if he 

 leased it all for fair rent and paid the proceeds into 

 the treasury of the corporation to aid in the support of 

 the school, he would DC supported as executing the 

 trust. 



"What is known as "minority representa- 

 tion," or the cumulative method, prevails in 



