Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/246

 224 Charles Abner Howard find themselves entirely unprepared to keep up with the high school classes to which they had been promoted. So far as it applied to district high schools, the Kuy- kendall law was worded the same as the "grades above the eighth'' section of the 1901 code, with the following additions : 1. The district high schools should be under the con- trol of the district school board the same as the element- ary grades ; 2. The district board might use any part of the county, state or district school funds for high school pur- poses ; 3. The district was required to maintain at least eight months of school for the elementary grades if it was to use money for high school purposes ; 4. The high school was to be free to all pupils of school age in the district, who passed the eighth grade examination. 40 It was the purpose of the framers of this law to pro- vide a legal foundation for city and town high school and thus to encourage their organization. It went further than the provision for grades above the eighth in that it defined the high school as a part of the public school sys- tem by placing it under the control of the district board in the same manner as the elementary grades. It also made clear the sources from which money might be used for high school purposes. The section setting graduation from the eighth grade as a standard of admission to high school provided a basis for stardardizing the high schools themselves. They could at least have a common starting point since the eighth grade examination had been made uniform throughout the state. In 1901 there were great sections of the state so sparsely settled that communities with sufficient wealth and population to maintain a high school were very far apart. It was proposed that high school opportunities in 40 Oregon School Law. 1921. p. 142.