Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/209

 States that once had separate schools now prohibit them: Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In addition to these, separate schools are not allowed in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. There are other States which have never seen fit to make any mention one way or the other of race distinctions in schools, either in statutes or court reports; so one is warranted in inferring that the schools are open to all. They are Connecticut, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Washington.

As has already been said, public education is distinctly a State function. The Federal government, in the main, has not undertaken to have anything to do with it, but Congress, by its exclusive jurisdiction, has supreme control over the public schools of the District of Columbia, and the provisions that it has made there for the separation of the races show in an interesting way the attitude of the national government upon the subject. A statute[150] of 1864 reads: "That any white resident of said county shall be privileged to place his or her child or ward at any one of the schools provided for the education of white children in said county he or she may think proper to select, with the consent of the trustees of both districts; and any colored resident shall have the same rights with respect to colored schools.

"That it shall be the duty of said commissioners to provide suitable and convenient houses or rooms for holding schools for colored children" The commissioner might impose a tax of fifty cents per capita upon