NEW YORK (sec. I, art. 9).—" The Legislature shall pro vide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated." It must not be inferred that, because the national government has not assumed direction and control of education throughout the coun try, it has not been interested in public educa tion. On the contrary, the government has given aid in various forms to the support of education in the States for nearly a century.
In 1836 the national government distributed several million dollars of surplus funds among the States. In 1862 the National Land Grant Act was passed. This was followed by the Second Morrill Act, the Nelson Law, the Adams Law, the Smith-Lever Law and, in 1917, by the Smith-Hughes Act. The national government has given for public education nearly one hun dred million acres of land. It has also established various agencies which exercise functions in relation to the educational affairs of the country. The Bureau of Education in the Department of the Interior and the Federal Board for Voca tional Education are two important agencies dealing with education. It appears that more than 80 other agencies, which have official rela tions in one way or another with the school sys tems of the several States, have also been estab lished by the national government. There is now pending before Congress a bill creating a national department of education, whose head shall be a member of the President's Cabinet and known as Secretary of Education. Not withstanding this aid to education on the part of the national government, and the activities of the nation in promoting the interests of edu cation throughout the country, education in America remains subject to the control and direction of the several States. Even under the terms of the bill pending in Congress the con trol of education by the several States remains undisturbed.
Under this general plan which has been fol lowed in administering educational affairs, there has grown up in America a fundamental prin ciple of school administration which is becom ing more pronounced and more controlling year by year. That principle is that education is a
State function and that all the schools of a State constitute one system—a State system. In other words, the schools maintained in a city or a school district are not independent, detached systems, but they are a part of the State system and subject to general control and direction by the State. The fact that local officers are selected by popular vote or are ap pointed by a mayor does not make these offi cers local or city officers, or the schools local or city schools. These school officers are offi cers chosen by a method determined by the State and for the performance of State func tions, and the schools are a part of a State system.
There is probably no question related to the administration of public schools which is of greater importance at the present time than the distinction between local control and State con trol. All powers exercised by local school offi cers in the administration of schools are powers delegated by the State through legislative enact ment and may be modified or revoked by the agency which conferred them. Local control of ten means municipal control, and the greatest obstacle that has stood in the way of educa tional progress in the cities of this country has been the control or domination of school af fairs by municipal officers. Where such domi nation has existed the schools have very gen erally been administered upon the same political and partisan bases which have .governed the ad ministration of municipal affairs. In several of the leading cities of the country the mayors and other municipal officers are attempting to override the statutes regulating the administra tion of the schools, to obtain control of the management of such schools and to establish the general policy under which they shall be governed. This interference of municipal offi cers has resulted in legislation in many. States to make more secure the right and the author ity of school officers to administer the schools.