Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/255

High School Legislation In Oregon 233 counties that had neither County High Schools nor County High School Fund, had a total of only thirty-three high schools of this size.

This discrimination in favor of the small rural high school was probably justifiable at the time the law was adopted. It gave many boys and girls an opportunity to attend a high school near at home at a time when automobiles were few and good roads were uncommon, and when the town high school a few miles away was consequently out of reach. Though these schools were small, many of them did very effective work and all were required to come up to a certain standard as to preparation of teachers, library facilities and general equipment before they could draw money from the County High School Fund. However, as these small schools multiplied and as the high schools in the larger towns increased in enrollment, the discrimination began to be felt. In some of the districts of the first class, the high schools found themselves with an enrollment of 100 or even 200 students from outside the district for whom they were receiving only a very small tuition from the county fund. In consequence of the objections raised by these larger districts, the County High School Fund Law was eventually replaced by the County High School Tuition Fund Law in all those counties in which the former had previously been in operation. This change was made in 1921 and its effect does not come within the scope of this paper.

The chief values of the County High School Fund Law were: First, that it made the high schools free to all the children in the counties in which it was adopted; second, it increased the popularity of the high school as a part of the public school system; third, it served as a stepping-stone for more complete equalization of high school taxation.