The decisions of the courts have uniformly, in the several States, sustained the cardinal principle that education is a matter of general concern to the State and subject to the State's general control and direction.
An examination of the leading cases decided by the courts of the several States in relation to the control and supervision of public educa tion will show that the following fundamental principles of school administration_ have been clearly established.
1. Public education is a State function or a subject under the control and supervision of the State. Systems of education which have been established in the several States but ad ministered by local officers in the several locali ties of the State are State systems.
2. The officers chosen to administer laws enacted to operate and maintain a school system in various localities throughout the State are not local officers, neither are they town, village or city officers but public or State officers per forming duties for the public at large.
3. When the officers of a city are authorized to perform some duty in connection with the operation or maintenance of public schools, as the appointment of members of a board of edu cation by the mayor or the collection of taxes for school purposes by a city treasurer, such city officers do not act, in the discharge of such duties, as municipal officers but as special offi cers exercising a power devolved upon them to administer a function of government for the benefit of all the citizens of the State.
4. The laws relating to the schools of a city which are written in the charter of such city are a part of the school laws of the State and not a part of the charter or law of the city.
In support of these fundamental principles the following excerpts are taken from leading court decisions: " The power of the States to establish and maintain systems of common schools, to raise money for that purpose by taxation, and to govern, control and regulate such schools when established is one of ' the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the States; and consequently it is reserved to the States respectively or to their people." (Marshall v. Donovan, 10 Bush [Ky.] 690).
" It is apparent from the general drift of the argument that the learned counsel for, the defendant is of the opinion that the employment of the teachers in the public schools and the general conduct and management of the schools is a city function in the same sense as it is in the case of the care of the streets or the employment of police and the payment of their salaries and compensation• but that view of the relations of the city to public education, if entertained, is an obvious mistake. The city can not rent, build or buy a
schoolhouse; it can not employ or discharge a teacher, and has no power to contract with teachers with respect to their compensation. There is no contract or official relation. express or implied, between the teachers and the city. All this results from the settled policy of the State from an early date to divorce the business of public education from all other municipal interests or business, and to take charge of it as a peculiar and separate function through agents of its own selection, and immediately subject and responsive to its own control. To this end it is enacted in the general laws of the State that all school trustees and boards of education shall be corporations with corporate powers, which, of course, includes the power to sue and be sued in all matters relating to the control and management of the schools." (Gunnison v. Board of Education, 176 N. Y. 11).
" If only elected or appointed in accordance with the mandates of the law to perform a duty which is neither local or corporate, and if they are independent of the corporation in the tenure of their office, and the mode of discharging its duties, they are not servants or agents of the corporation, but public or State officers, with such powers and duties as the statute prescribes, and no action lies against the cor poration for their acts or negligence." (Ham v. Mayor, 70 N. Y. 459).
'1He is an employee of the board of education. It is not a part of the corporation of the city of Brooklyn, but is itself a local school corporation, like every board of school district trustees throughout the State (general corporation law. sec. 3). and is litre every such board an integral part of the general school system of the State. It is a State and not a city agency, doing State and not city work and functions. Edu cation is not city, village, county or town business. It is a matter belonging to the State government. From the com prehensive foundation by chapter 75 of the Laws of 1795, down to the recent codification of our school laws (' Consoli dated School Law,' Laws of 1894, ch. 556), our State system of education has remained consistent whole." (Ridenour v. Board. of. Education, 15 Misc. 418).