Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/516

 vided for that purpose the only object of the statute is to point out the particular fund among these three funds out of which the school house shall be built. In the first place no necessity for such a provision existed, if that was designed to be its scope and meaning. The legislature had already in explicit terms provided how each of these three funds should be applied, and the use of any portion of these funds for a purpose not authorized would have been illegal without additional legislation. Neither the teachers’ fund nor the contigent fund, except by virtue of some special provision authorizing such a course, could be used to build a school house. “The district treasurer shall separate the moneys received from the county treasurer by district tax into the different funds in proportion to the rates of taxes levied by the district, and shall keep a separate account with each fund in a suitable and permanent book of record to be provided by the district board. Heshall pay no order which does not specify the fund on which it is drawn, and the use to which the money is applied.” Id. Moreover, the language of § 56 is fatal to this construction. The section does not provide that the district board shall build the school house out of the “fund” provided for that purpose, but out of the “funds” provided for that purpose. If the object of the legislature was to designate the particular fund as contradistinguished from the two other funds, the singular, and not the plural, of the word would have been employed. All through § 5% the singular is employed in designating each fund; and in § 44 the same care in the use of the word is manifested. So long as it is used to distinguish these three funds the singular is employed. But when we reach the provision authorizing the treasurer to make an indorsement upon a warrant because not paid for want of money the statute speaks of “funds.” “Hach order shall specify whether the money is to be paid from the teachers’ fund, the contigent fund, or the school house fund; and in case the treasurer has no money in the fund drawn upon to pay such school warrant, he shall indorse it, ‘Not paid for want of funds.’”

It is apparent that whenever the legislature intended in this act to refer toa particular fund to the exclusion of the other funds they used the word “fund” for that purpose; and on the