Lanterna Rally

Author: John Swett

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-26

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 9781330234242

Excerpt from The Elementary Schools of California: A Monograph California was admitted as a State (1850) without the usual preliminary stage of a territorial government. The State Constitution, framed and adopted by the people in 1849, provided for the election of a State Superintendent of public instruction by direct popular vote, for a term of three years; made it the duty of the legislature to "provide for a system of common schools by which a school should be kept up in each school district at least three months in every year"; and that the proceeds of all land grants made by the general government in aid of schools should be "inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools throughout the State." Thus was laid the legal foundation of common schools in California. From the record of proceedings it appears that the opinion prevailed in the Constitutional Convention that these land grants would prove to be of immense value; that the lands would be located in mineral regions, and sold for fabulous sums; that the school fund derived from such sales would be the most munificent in the world; that it would be more than sufficient to educate all the children in the State and would eventually prove a source of corruption and speculation. The land grant section of the Constitution, adopted in committee of the whole, was carried by a majority of only one vote. As a matter of plain fact the total amount of school money derived from the much debated land grant of five hundred thousand (500,000) acres was only about a quarter of a million dollars. The Beginnings of Schools. But before the adoption of the Constitution, before the assembling of a State legislature, the people of American descent took matters into their own hands and began to establish schools of various kinds after the manner of their forefathers in colonial times. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.