Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/529

 than 5000 inhabitants may be incorporated as a town, with its government vested in a mayor and council. Any township or part thereof with less than 4 sq. m. of territory, and less than 5000 inhabitants, may be incorporated as a borough, with its government vested in a mayor and council.

Education.—During the colonial period there were schools maintained by churches, a few town schools of the New England type, and, in the latter part of the era, a number of private schools. But the schools of colonial New Jersey, especially the private schools, were usually taught by incompetent masters, and many children were permitted to grow up without any schooling whatever. Public interest in education, however, began to awaken soon after the close of the War of Independence. Under the encouragement of an act of the legislature passed in 1794 several academies were established. A public school fund was established in 1817. Three years later townships were authorized to levy taxes for maintaining schools for poor children. The division of townships into school districts and the election of three trustees were provided for in 1829. In 1846 each township was required to raise as much money for school purposes as the state contributed. In 1855 a normal school for training teachers was established at Trenton. And in 1867 a school law was passed which established the main features of the present school system, although it was four years later before a state school tax was imposed and schools were made free to all children in the state. The public school system is administered under the direction of a superintendent of public instruction and a state board of education. The former decides all controversies arising under the school law, and exercises a general supervision over the public schools; the latter has the control of a number of special state educational institutions, appoints the county superintendents and supervises the execution of the school laws of the state. In general each city, town and township in the state constitutes a separate school district, although two or more of these may unite to form a single district. Each district is required to furnish free textbooks. All children between the ages of 7 and 15 are required to attend school for the full school year, and those who at 15 years of age have not completed the grammar school course must continue to attend until they either complete it or arrive at the age of 17. Furthermore, children past 15 years of age who have completed the grammar school course but are not regularly and lawfully employed at some useful occupation must attend a high school or a manual training school until 17 years of age.

Funds for the support of the public schools are derived from various sources: (1) the interest on the “surplus revenue” ($760,670), deposited with New Jersey by the Federal government in 1836; (2) the income from the state school fund, consisting largely of receipts from the sale and rental of riparian lands ; (3) a state school tax; (4) a direct appropriation by the legislature to supplement the school tax, so that the two combined will form a sum equal to a tax of two and three-fourths mills on each dollar of taxable property; and (5) local taxes. At the close of the fiscal year 1908 the school fund of the state was $4,850,602·41; the income for the year was $224,233·56 and the disbursements were $373,095·76. The income from the state school fund is divided among the counties on the basis of the total number of days of attendance of the public school pupils; the legislative appropriation, however, is apportioned among the counties according to their assessed property values. Each county also received 90% of the state school tax it has paid, the remainder forming a reserve fund to be distributed among the counties at the discretion of the state board. The state will duplicate any yearly sum between $250 and $5000 which a school district may raise to maintain a school or courses of manual training. In like manner, any school that raises $20 for a library will receive the same amount from the state, which will also contribute $10 each year thereafter for maintenance, if the school raises a similar sum. The total number of teachers in the public schools in 1908 was 10,279; the total school enrollment was 402,866, with an average daily attendance of 289,167; and the average length of the school term was nine months and two days. For the benefit of veteran and invalid public school teachers there is a “retirement fund,” which owes its origin to voluntary contributions by teachers in active service. The state has taken official recognition of this fund and administers it on behalf of the contributors through a board of trustees appointed by the governor.

In addition to the regular public schools, the state maintains a normal and a model school at Trenton, a normal school at Montclair (opened 1908), the Farnum Preparatory School at Beverly, a Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown, and an agricultural college and experiment station, maintained in connexion with Rutgers College, at New Brunswick. There are industrial schools in Newark, Hoboken and Trenton, for which the state made an appropriation of $20,000 in 1908. Among the prominent institutions not receiving state aid are Princeton University, at Princeton; Rutgers College (excluding its agricultural school), at New Brunswick; and the Stevens Institute of Technology, at Hoboken. Among the denominational institutions are the Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) at Princeton; the Drew Theological Seminary (Methodist Episcopal) at Madison; Seton Hall College (Roman Catholic), at South Orange; St Peter’s College (Roman Catholic) at Jersey City; St Benedict’s College (Roman Catholic) at Newark; the German Theological School of Newark