Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/251

 High School Legislation In Oregon 229 school districts may unite for high school purposes only. 50 It is the presumption of such a law that a number of rural districts will unite with a city, town or village dis- trict to form a unit of taxation with sufficient wealth to support a well conducted high school. Property previous- ly exempt from high school taxation would thus be brought in and children previously without high school privileges would have the high school doors opened to them. In this law, but not a part of the general plan, was a clause to the effect that any district or union high school in the state should admit, whenever the facilities of the school would warrant, a resident of any non-high school district prepared to enter such a school. A tuition fee might be charged, but this fee could not exceed "the amount apportioned on account of said pupil from the common and irreducible school funds during the preced- ing year." This tuition was to be paid by the school dis- trict in which the pupil held his legal residence. This law had the effect of opening the high schools to every child in the state who was prepared to enter. To this extent it was a good law. However, it was defective in that the amount of the tuition was very small as compared with the per capita cost of operating the high schools. In none of the counties did the apportionment referred to amount to more than ten dollars per census child, while the per capita cost of operating the average high school of that day was between fifty and sixty dollars. This was a losing game for the districts maintaining high schools and they saw to it that this section of the law was re- pealed in 1911. Even if the provision had been made for an adequate tuition to be paid by the home districts of non-resident high school students, the law would still have been de- 50 Oregon School Laws. 1921. pp. 147-154. As it appears in the 1921 compilation, this law includes revisions. However, these revisions are as to details. The general plan of the law has not been changed.