INTRODUCTION. 
13 
mon schools. A law was passed in 1811, authorizing the governor to appoint 
commissioners to devise a system for that purpose. Jedediah Peck, John Murray 
junior, Samuel Russell, Roger Skinner and Robert Macomb were appointed such 
commissioners; and in 1812, they submitted to the legislature a report, which 
was adopted, and is the basis of the existing system of common schools. 
The fund was increased in 1819, by various appropriations, which raised its 
productive capital to about $1,200,000. The new constitution, adopted in 1821, 
not only declared the school fund to be inviolable, and guaranteed its perpetual 
application, but added to it all the unappropriated public lands. Forty thousand 
dollars were added to the fund in 1824; and in 1827, other appropriations were 
made to the amount of about $180,000.* In 1838, an annual appropriation of 
$110,000 was added to the income of the fund, and the principal was also con¬ 
siderably augmented. The invested and productive capital of that fund is now 
$2,030,025. The sum annually distributed from the state treasury in support 
of common schools, is $201,000. Adding to the principal the unsold lands, 
valued at $200,000 and principal moneys sufficient to yield an interest equal 
to the amount annually appropriated from the treasury, beyond the income of the 
invested and productive capital, the entire capital would be $5,820,000. The 
whole capital permanently invested for the support of education in colleges, acade¬ 
mies and common schools, including all endowments, contributions from the trea¬ 
sury, and moneys derived from taxation in the school districts, is $10,500,000.f 
The chief features of the common school system, are the annual election of 
commissioners of common schools by the people in the several towns; the divi¬ 
sion of towns by the school commissioners, into school districts; the election of 
trustees in such school districts, by the inhabitants thereof; the erection and 
maintenance of a school house in each district, with funds derived from the tax 
levied upon the inhabitants by the trustees, in pursuance of a resolution passed 
at an annual meeting of the inhabitants ; the employment of teachers whose qua- 
* Report of A. C. Flagg, superintendent of common schools. 
t Governor’s message, 1842. 
