History of the public school system of California.

AND SCHOOL REPORTS. 39
that it should be clearly shown that the public good requires it.
The condition of the public schools, as exhibited by the statistical
returns, will be to many minds conclusive evidence of the necessity
of a State school tax; but the importance of the question demands
that argument should be added to the weight of facts and figures.
Our American system of free schools is based upon two fundamental principles or axioms:
First. That it is the duty of a republican or representative government, as an act of self-preservation, to provide for the education
of every child.
Second. That the property of the State should be taxed to pay
for that education.
Simple propositions they seem; yet they have been recognized
and acted upon in no other country but our own. Other nations,
it is true, have their national systems of instruction partially supported by Government, and under Government control; but no nation in the history of the world has ever organized a system of
schools like ours, controlled directly by the people, supported by
taxation; free to all, without distinction of rank, wealth, or class;
and training all children alike, whether foreign or native-born, to
an intelligent comprehension of the duties, rights, privileges, and
honors of American citizens.
In the minds of the hard-fisted, iron-willed settlers of Massachusetts Bay, where, under the wintry sky of suffering, want, and
war, the germs of our American school system struggled into existence, common schools and taxation were as inseparably connected
as were taxation and representation.
A few extracts from the old colonial laws will show how early
our free school system sprang into existence. A section of the
Massachusetts Colony laws of 1642 reads as follows:
"Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular
behoof and benefit to any commonwealth; and whereas, many parents and masters are too indulgent and negligent of their duty in
that kind; it is ordered that the Selectmen of every town shall have
a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see, first: that
none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families
as not to teach, by themselves, or others, their children and apprentices
so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English
tongue, upon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein."
In 1647 this law was followed by another, to the end, in the
words of the statute, " that learning may not be buried in the graves of
our fathers in the Church and the Commonwealth," which required
every town of fifty families to provide a teacher to instruct all the
children of the town in reading and writing, and every town of a
hundred families to set up a grammar school, with a teacher competent to fit young men for the university; the expense of these
schools to be borne by the town, or by the parents, as the town
should determine.
In 1692 the law provided that these schools should be supported
exclusively by tax levied on all the properly of the town.
In 1785, an ordinance respecting the disposition of the public
lands was introduced into the old Congress, referred to a committee,