Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/252

 230 Charles Abner Howard fective. Under such an arrangement, the financial bur- den would have rested upon the districts in proportion to the number of students they sent to high school and not in proportion to their ability to pay. No system of direct taxation for school purposes is entirely satisfac- tory unless it results in a distribution of the burden over a large unit on the basis of wealth and not on the basis of the number of children to be educated. As to the effect of the Union High School Law on the organization of high schools, there are no figures for the first eight years after its adoption. Beginning with 1916, the number of union high schools in the state for each year was as follows : 51 1916, 21 ; 1917, 23 ; 1918, 27 ; 1919, 31; 1920, 34; 1921, 39. Considering the fact that there are over 2500 school districts in Oregon, thirty-nine union high schools seem few to have been organized in the course of fourteen years. However, most sections of Oregon are still thinly populated and the Union High School Plan is most freely adopted in a thickly settled community where the districts are comparatively small, compact and well developed, so that pupils from every section of the union high school district may reach the central school with a fair degree of ease. Where the dis- tricts are large, of small population and with an unde- veloped road system, the union high school does not stand in high favor. With the slight revisions which it has undergone since it was first adopted, the Union High School Law is a good piece of legislation and will no doubt prove to be of increasing value as the state becomes more thickly settled. The last step taken in the progress of high school legislation in Oregon during the period which we have under consideration, was the adoption of the County High School Fund Law by the legislature of 1909. This law was an outgrowth of the County High School Plan as worked out in Lane County. This county had adopted the "Letter of Supt. J. A. Churchill, July 21, 1922.