American Agriculturist, February 23, 1924 
177 
Some Farm Opinion on the School Bill 
Sensible Letters By Those Who Have Studied Facts 
T IME and again when opponents of the 
Downing-Porter Rural School Bill, now 
in the New York State Legislature, have 
made some statement in regard to the 
bill providing for forced consolidation, doing away 
with the “little red schoolhouse,” or increasing the 
taxes, they have been asked to point to the exact place 
1 in the bill to prove their arguments. Every time they 
are unable to do this, and end with some lame 
statement like: “Well, I can't find it just now, but 
just the same I know that it is there.” 
As a matter of fact, such statements are not in the 
bill, neither in words nor spirit, and the sentiment is 
rapidly changing all over the State as farmers are 
getting the real facts about this proposed legislation 
and as they learn what it will do, both „_- 
in the way of reducing school taxes and 
giving country children better educa¬ 
tional opportunities. All we suggest is 
that you get the real facts before making ’ 
your decision, as those who wrote the 
following letters have done .— The 
By A. A. READERS 
of the district school and who are wasting two or 
three years there because conditions are such that 
they can not have an academic education? 
If you believe there should be no forced con¬ 
solidation, that there should be more local control, 
that your boy and girl should have equal educa¬ 
tional opportunities with the city boy and girl, 
that the farmers’ school taxes should be lower or 
at least that the burden of school taxation should 
be equalized, that you as a farmer want to be 
progressive, modern, and alive to the best inter¬ 
ests of yourself, your community, and the coming 
generation, work for this new rural educational 
Resolutions From Ontario County 
V 
Editors. 
* * * 
From a Woman on a Back 
Hill Farm 
I F YOU read A. A. carefully and 
enjoy it I feel that in addressing 
you that I am in the presence of a 
people sane, intelligent and high- 
minded, and if you will kindly read 
between the lines and get at what I 
am trying to say I am sure you will 
agree with me. 
Weren’t you glad that the thought 
to improve the rural schools and put 
a just burden of taxation on our 
farmers originated at Cornell in the 
midst of a bunch of farmers, that the 
big percent of the Committee of 21 
are farm folk and know and feel the 
hard farm problems, that with far¬ 
sighted, painstaking, and indefatig¬ 
able efforts they studied the situation 
and that with even greater discern¬ 
ment and wisdom they found promis¬ 
ing remedies for our undernourished 
and ailing schools? Some of these 
remedies are embodied in the rural 
school legislation that you are going 
to put through this winter. 
Isn’t it the fair and considerate thing 
to do to take the consolidation of our 
schools from the hands of the educa¬ 
tional officials and put it into the 
hands of the people in the districts? 
If you will read the bill (and that is 
the safe thing to do) you can see for 
yourself that there can be no consolidation unless a 
majority of the people in that district vote for it. 
Do you think it is just that you have to pay 
eleven times as much to educate a child in your 
T HE following resolutions were duly passed, unanimously, by the Board of 
Education of School District No. 8 of the Town of East Bloomfield, On¬ 
tario County, N. Y., at a regular meeting held February 4, 1924. 
WHEREAS, we believe that the Downing-Porter School Bill will, if it 
becomes a law, place the rural schools of the State on a much higher plane, 
both in economy and efficiency of management, and will distribute the tax 
burden for their support more equitably on the taxable property throughout 
the State, and 
WHEREAS, we believe that the wide-spread opposition to the bill is based 
on misinformation circulated by those in very wealthy rural districts, where the 
school tax is now insignificant and where it ought, in all justice, to be much 
higher than it is, and 
WHEREAS, the largely increased State appropriation, under the bill, which 
is greatest in those districts where the assessable property is least, will reduce 
the average cost to rural districts for the support of their schools, and 
WHEREAS, the opposition to the bill comes mainly from the same class 
who, in 1898, vigorously opposed the building of improved roads by State Tax, 
but who, after the roads were built, saw that they received the primary benefit 
while the wealthy cities paid more than nine-tenths of the cost, changed their 
opposition to support of the law and are now insistant in their demands for 
more and more State roads, so now we believe that, if this bill becomes a law, 
the opposition will in a few years melt away, when the opponents see that the 
rural districts have better schools, while the State contributes to their support 
much more largely than it did before, and 
WHEREAS, they confuse community control of the schools with consolida¬ 
tion and loss of local control, while the direct opposite is the effect of the bill, 
since every district in the State has at least one member on the community 
board, and no districts can be consolidated with others unless every district 
interested votes in favor of consolidation at its own district meeting, and 
WHEREAS, the Committee of 21, of which a majority were appointed by, 
and from, the rural organizations of the State, after a careful investigation, 
lasting over several years, have recommended this bill, we believe that it ought 
not to be rejected because some individual thinks that, in some particular it 
is not perfect, for if, after trial, it is found that it can be improved, it can then 
be amended as are all other laws, even our State and federal constitutions. 
Therefore, BE IT RESOLVED, that our representatives, in the State leg¬ 
islature be urged to vote for the bill, and thus share the credit which we believe 
will surely come to those who are instrumental in securing its passage, and be 
it further 
RESOLVED, that copies of these resolutions be sent, by our clerk, to our 
State Senator, our Member of Assembly and the secretary of the State associa¬ 
tion of school boards and trustees, and that copies be furnished to the three 
Canandaigua papers. 
B. B. CARTWRIGHT, 
Clerk of Board of Education. 
bill and see that it goes through this winter. 
Do stop, study and see the good strong points 
of this bill; don’t join the rabble in fault-finding, as 
that is the “cheapest, stupidest and easiest thing 
district as a neighbor district has to pay? That is to do” and the one most deadly to advancement. 
May Abbuhl, Chenango County, New York. 
* * * 
From a Farmer 
I N ORDER to clear from the atmosphere some 
of the rural school fog which is afloat, let me 
you like to see that unjust burden lifted from their say a word about the subject as it appears to me 
shoulders? There is justice and sense in a larger on this farm, 
unit of taxation. 
I have known trustee after trustee, and so have 
you, whose life and thought have been very far 
removed from school problems and obligations 
the condition in some places. Shouldn’t the taxes 
be equalized? You and I know districts whose 
assessed valuation is only $20,000 or $25,000, the 
farmers in those districts would have a hard time 
to sell one of these farms, yet their taxes are often 
$25 on a thousand just for their schools. Wouldn’t 
If we would inform ourselves, we would find 
that all the so-called horrors of the proposed law, 
as recommended by the Committee of 21, have 
been in the present law for a century and- more. 
newly elected and with very little time to give to Let me point out some of them, 
the work who, if associated on a community board Under the present law (the old law) the author- 
with experienced trustees, would help administer ities at Albany can inspect our schools, condemn 
the school affairs in a much more efficient and them, order repairs or new construction, issue 
acceptable way and would get breadth and under- bonds on the district to pay for them, decide the 
standing. There are real advantages in a larger salary we are to pay our teachers, withold all or 
unit of administration as truly as there is more any part of our State moneys they choose, reject 
speed in an auto than in a horse. or approve any site we may have decided on, 
Who does not know a boy or a girl 13 or 14 accept or reject our choice of a building, demand 
years old who has gotten all he or she can get out a strict accounting of all our receipts and ex¬ 
penditures, and then say with undisputed author¬ 
ity to the inhabitants within the district, YOU 
PAY. And if we do not, they can put our farms 
up for sale to the highest bidder and squeeze it 
out of us in that way. 
Those are the conditions we have been living 
under a great many years, and are held in high 
esteem by the opponents of the proposed new 
law. All the difference is that it is stated in the 
same terms as the opponents use in complaining 
of the new law. When speaking of the new law, 
some are quite apt to get hysterical and cry 
“hungry office seekers,” and “a bunch of hungry 
politicians” “high brows, entirely out of touch 
with country life.” While under the present 
condition the executive heads of the 
» y State educational department reside 
* as follows: New York City, Yonkers, 
Binghamton, Brooklyn, Ogdensburg, 
Tuxedo, Buffalo, Syracuse, Brook- 
v lyn, Albany and Palmyra. None of 
\ them live in Chandlers Corners or 
Luce Hill. Every man of them were 
political appointees. In all candor, I 
would ask how better could they be 
appointed if not through the political 
method? Would they return to the 
old method of connecting church and 
State. 
No, the great fault is not in State 
authority, but it is the wrong con¬ 
ception of that authority which this 
new proposed law will correct: a 
larger unit of taxation, better teach¬ 
ers, and above all, the constitutional 
right of education for farm children 
as well as city-born children, and put 
a stop to that system of rural school 
tax amounting to eight per cent, and 
sometimes ten per cent, of the value 
of the farms for school support. 
More rural school support must come 
from the cities where the wealth has 
been flowing with increased rapidity 
for the past few decades. Wealth is 
the basis of taxation. And as long as 
education is a function of the State, 
we should see to it that both the 
educational opportunities and the 
taxes are more evenly distributed. 
The proposed law is the most 
reasonable suggestion yet made for 
correcting those inequalities. The 
Committee of 21 made up of our best 
informed farm representatives did 
well in furnishing the material and 
recommending it. 
Article 9 of the State Constitution 
reads: THE LEGISLATURE 
SHALL PROVIDE FOR THE MAINTE¬ 
NANCE AND SUPPORT OF A SYSTEM OF 
FREE COMMON SCHOOLS, WHEREIN ALL 
THE CHILDREN OF THIS STATE MAY BE 
EDUCATED. That is a clear definite statement 
and the basic law of the State. It is very easy to 
prove to any but us farmers, that the lowest 
slums of the cities have better educational oppor¬ 
tunities than the best farming sections of the 
State, by more than 100%. It is hard for the 
farmers to know that, but a few of us have seen 
it and know it to be true. It is also known in all 
educational circles through the State. 
And further, the tax which make this education 
possible is highest where the least education is 
dispensed. According to the National Industrial 
Conference Board for 1922, the ratio of taxes to 
income with farmers was 16.6%, while with other 
industries the ratio was only 11.9%. The present 
year would show greater difference, for the in¬ 
come was less and the tax greater with us farm¬ 
ers. Land values have gone down and taxes 
gone up. 
It is in this proposed law that I look for relief 
in this inequality in both tax and educational 
opportunity. If it cannot bring it»about we are 
(Continued on -page 181 ) 
