Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/137

Rh attached to that of the governor without extra pay further than an allowance for traveling expenses. It thus provided for Territorial supervision, levied a compulsory Territorial tax of 10 cents on the hundred for school purposes, and also ordered a county tax of 50 cents on the hundred. In these taxes the legislature recognized the public-school system as one of the necessary parts of a modern State and provided for its support in the same manner and by the same methods as other State activities. Then and there the question of public support for public schools was settled for all time. Only once in the history of the Territory was this theory challenged and then in vain.

From the time that the bill of 1871 became a law Gov. Safford was its most persistent advocate. Up and down the length and breadth of the Territory, into every county, in the most out-of-the-way places he went, seeking to arouse and encourage the scattered settlements to provide for and organize schools. Advice, direction, suggestion, help, correction, enthusiasm, and courage were poured out like water in a thirsty land; everywhere and always did this devoted missionary preach the new gospel. Not only did he visit the older and more secure sections but also the new settlements where the blood of Apache victims was still fresh on the ground. Up and down through this sun-kissed land, across swollen streams or up their dry beds, over sandy deserts, through naked and forbidding mountains, risking encounters with wild animals and wilder men, passed this modern representative of the spirit of the age, this apostle of modern democracy, preaching always in season and out of season the new doctrine of educational salvation. Always abounding in the work which he had set himself to do, Gov. Safford won over suspicion and overcame opposition. He brought a principal to Prescott from Vermont; he brought teachers to Tucson from California. He came, he saw, he conquered. Only once did the opposition seriously threaten his plans; this was in 1875 when it was proposed to give to religious organizations their share of the public funds for parochial schools. But the sober sense of the people asserted itself; the proposed plan was rejected, and the public schools went on secure in their new freedom.

The result of the enthusiastic work of the governor was that the public schools began to take a firm hold on public consciousness. They took deep root in the soil of public confidence which he had so carefully prepared. They grew and developed. They prospered and increased year by year. The years 1874–75 and 1875–76 seem to represent the high-water mark for the period of Gov. Safford’s activities. In 1876–77 a decline set in, for in April of the latter year he resigned the governorship because of impaired health.