Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/136

130 should alone be responsible for the support of the teaching force. This idea was an error. The population was weak and scattered; the local wealth was small; the property holders were not accustomed to taxes for local school purposes; and as the Territory as such did nothing, the laws of 1867 and 1868 accomplished little; not more than one or two schools were organized, and these did little or nothing in serving as centers from which the light of education might penetrate primeval darkness. The law of 1868 recognized, however, the necessity of local supervision, also a certain necessary uniformity in the textbooks and the certification of teachers, but this law likewise failed to accomplish its purpose; schools remained a purely local matter, and the subject of education slept till the coming of a new governor.

The new governor appeared in 1869. He was Anson P. K. Safford, and from California came this new Moses, destined to lead Arizona from darkness to educational light. To him it was given to win for himself the title of Father of the Public Schools. Well does he deserve the title. He found them a pleasing theory; he left them a thriving reality. Since his day the question of their final triumph over all obstacles has not been an article of faith but one of fact, demonstrated by tangible evidence. It is a long story, this long, stern fight against the indifference of ignorance and the opposition of a small body of men who sought to weaken school progress by dividing school funds.

In 1871 a new school bill, based on the California school law, was introduced and passed and has been the basis of practically all school legislation since that time. But the school act of 1871 was not obtained without effort. The earlier school laws had failed to accomplish their purpose, while the Apaches had been far too successful in their efforts to destroy the settlements. They had waged almost ceaseless warfare since the organization of the Territory. Many citizens had been slain, many ranches and settlements broken up. The legislators were more or less demoralized, and to the governor’s urging that the bill be passed they asked “What’s the use?” But the governor was insistent; he called to his aid Estevan Ochoa, the leading Mexican in the Territory, and to the objection that the Apaches were overrunning the country pointed out that they would in time be subdued and without schools the settlers would themselves soon be as unfit for self-government as the Apaches.

The bill did not become a law till the last day of the session, and then with most of the revenue stricken out. But the new law had features which redeemed it from the weakness of the earlier acts and made it a basis of future activity. It provided for a Territorial superintendent of schools, but as money was scarce and the enthusiasm of the governor great, the duties of the new office were