312 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
by the State ranged from 1.8 percent in Kansas to 83.4 percent in 
Delaware. The median was 16.5 percent (162, p. 36). However, 
these figures do not tell the whole story. If the State raises the 
amount it returns to the localities from a property tax, the arrange- 
ment serves to mitigate tax inequalities but does not result in any 
reduction in the aggregate burden on property. 
In 1919 Delaware passed a law abolishing the school district and 
establishing in its stead the county unit. The advantages of the 
larger school unit became manifest almost immediately, and in 1921 
the State was made the principal unit of school support. 
One State has now taken a more extreme position even than Dela- 
ware. In 1931 North Carolina enacted a law by which the State 
assumed the current operating costs of a minimum school term of 6 
months, and in 1933 the State assumed the corresponding costs for 
8 months. The State is assuming this responsibility without use of 
the property tax, a general sales tax being adopted to obtain the 
additional revenue needed after heavy reductions were imposed. 
HIGHWAYS 
State aid for highways is a comparatively recent development and 
is, of course, a product of the widespread use of the automobile. To 
a considerable extent it represents no more than a sharing of the State- 
collected revenue from motor-vehicle and gasoline taxes with the 
local units to help them maintain local roads. At first the revenue 
derived from these taxes was mostly expended by the States on the 
primary roads, the local units even contributing from the property 
tax toward the cost of their construction. Later the States generally 
assumed the entire cost of an ever-increasing mileage of primary 
roads. But the attempt to improve the vastly greater mileage of 
secondary and tertiary roads was a heavy burden on the counties and 
towns and led to an insistent demand for a part of the motor revenues. 
This demand has been met in various ways—by returning part of the 
proceeds from these taxes to be expended by the local units, by aiding 
in the construction of certain kinds of roads, or by taking over and 
maintaining more and more of the main- traveled roads. The method 
has so varied among the different States and has changed so constantly 
in every State that no purpose would be served in tracing the develop- 
ment in detail. It may be said, however, that the main objectives 
have been to encourage local support of road-building programs, to 
standardize and harmonize the efforts of the local units, to insure 
proper maintenance of completed highways, and to relieve to some 
extent the tax burden on property. 
One of the chief difficulties has been to find a basis for distributing 
the aid that is both just and conducive to maximum accomplish- 
ment. Animproved highway benefits both the user and the adjoining 
property, but it is not easy to measure these respective benefits. 
The extent to which each of these types of benefit is recognized in the 
tax system will naturally influence the division of support between 
State and local governments, for the motor-vehicle taxes are most 
readily collected by the State. 
The amount of State aid which can be distributed depends not 
‘only on the form of the tax system but on the extent to which the 
State itself assumes the function of road administration. The pro- 
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