educational situation.. This can be done most easily by presenting tabularly certain significant data. Table II, which follows, endeavors to show: (1) conditions with which the school system has to deal (in the year 1920); (2) the financial support given to the efforts of the schools; (3) the results of the interaction of 1 and 2, as seen in enrollment, attendance, length of school year, and teachers' average wage.

From Table II we see that more than two thirds of Illinois' population is urban. Only five states in the Union surpass Illinois in this respect. Some of the educational difficulties which must be met are suggested by the fact that nearly nineteen persons out of every hundred of her population are foreign born white. Nearly 3 per cent of the population is negro. Only three northern states, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, have a larger percentage.

Among the various measures commonly employed to determine a state's ability to provide school revenues are the following: wealth per teacher and wealth per school child enumerated, enrolled, or in average daily attendance. For reasons unnecessary to explain at this point, it has seemed best in attempting to compare our 48 states to take estimated true wealth per child enrolled as the measure of ability. Adopting this standard we discover that Illinois ranks fourth in the Union as to the ability to provide funds for schools. We note further that among the 30 states for which the Bureau of Census reports net per capita debt, Illinois has one of the smallest, ranking approximately fifth (5.5) among the thirty. Moreover, there are 36 states in the Union in which the ratio of net state debt to assessed valuation is higher. Contrast with these high rankings in ability to provide public revenue, the fact that Illinois is outranked by 22 states in expenditure per school child enrolled and by 35 states in expenditure for public schools on each $1000 of estimated taxable wealth.

As to results, Table II shows us that with respect to the per cent of children enrolled in school who are in daily attendance, and with respect to the number of days attended by each pupil enrolled, Illinois ranks high. Only one state outranks her in the former matter, and only three in the latter (see items 23 and 27). How far are such data from proofs of a satisfactory school situation a further consideration of the facts presented in Table II will immediately disclose. Thus, although Illinois ranks second in the per cent of children enrolled who are in daily attendance, she ranks fortieth in the per cent of children 5 to 18 years of age who are enrolled in school, and forty-first as to the per cent of children 16 and 17 years of age who are attending school. Considerable doubt is cast upon the data presented here for the attendance of children 16 and 17 years of age by those presented for the year 1918 by Bonner. According to Bonner, Illinois ranks twenty-second in the Union as to the number of persons out of each one

of total population who are students in high school.3 The situation in respect to high school enrollment and attendance has undoubtpersons

educational situation. This can be done most easily by presenting tabularly certain significant data.

Table II

300

IA DEBL VID IVXVIION

33

who are attending school. Considerable doubt is cast upon the data pre

sented here for the attendance of children 16 and 17 years of age by those presented for the year 1918 by Bonner. According to Bonner, Illinois ranks twenty-second in the Union as to the number of persons out of each one

thousand persons of total population who are students in high school. The situation in respect to high school enrollment and attendance has undoubtedly improved since 1920 as the result of certain recent laws which have resulted in making available for taxation for high school purposes practically all property within the state. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Francis G. Blair, in his Report for the biennium 1918-20 writes as follows:

The rapid extension of community high schools has brought the greatest immediate help in a revenue way. In four years under this law, over 230 of these districts have been formed. There were at the close of this biennium about 480 township and community high school districts. These districts by providing a method for raising revenues for maintaining the high schools, made it possible for the boards of education in charge of the elementary school districts to maintain their standards. Moreover, the establishment of the non-high school district over all territory not included in a township, a community, or a recognized high school district, relieved the elementary school districts in such territory of the financial burden of paying the tuition of the eighth grade graduates. About 99 per cent of the entire territory of Illinois, at the end of this biennium, was under an organization whereby the cost of maintaining the high schools or paying high school tuition was paid out of a tax levied in addition to the tax necessary for elementary school education. Without this double taxing arrangement the schools of Illinois would have suffered during this post-war biennium a more serious breakdown.*

It is impossible to state at the present time whether the progress which Illinois has made with respect to the establishment of high schools and increase in high school attendance will affect her national standing in this matter, in view of similar progress which many other states have made. In the light of the data thus far presented, it is evident that in the year 1920 Illinois had little to be proud of either from the standpoint of the effort she was making in the light of her ability to maintain schools, or from the standpoint of results. Large numbers of states of far less financial ability were making greater sacrifices, and still larger numbers were getting better results.

From this preliminary consideration of the present situation, we may now turn to the questions in which the interest of the present study more immediately lies: (1) from what sources does Illinois derive her moneys for public schools; (2) how are these moneys disbursed; (3) to what uses are they put; (4) what are the chief merits and defects of the present system of school support. School moneys in Illinois are derived from five classes of sources: federal, state, county, township, and district, each of which will be considered in turn.

3 Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1920, No. 19, p. 49.

Illinois School Report, 1919-20, pp. 11-12.

CHAPTER II

FEDERAL AND STATE SCHOOL FUNDS

The federal vocational education fund.-The Smith-Hughes bill offering the states federal aid for vocational education became a law February 23, 1917.1 An act of the governor of Illinois, dated November 14, 1917, in keeping with a special power conferred in the federal act, accepted the provisions of the Smith-Hughes Act, created a board of vocational education, vested in this board all necessary power to co-operate with the federal board of vocational education, designated the state treasurer as custodian of the funds, and authorized the state board to determine which federal appropriation or appropriations should be accepted. Subsequently by an act of the legislature approved and in force March 6, 1919, the state accepted all the provisions of the Smith-Hughes law. Smith-Hughes subventions are paid out only as reimbursements and upon condition that the state shall have matched out of its own funds, dollar for dollar, the federal subvention. The legislature of 1919 made the following appropriations to the board for vocational education for the biennium, 1919-21:*

For distribution to local school authorities for approved
courses in vocational subjects and to teacher-training
institutions for approved teacher-training courses
Total

....

369,389.97 $400,439.97

The Illinois act of 1919 provides that the state treasurer shall act as the custodian of all moneys allotted to the state under the Smith-Hughes law, and that such moneys shall be kept as a separate fund to be known as "the federal vocational education fund."

Of interest in connection with this act is "An Act for the Establishment and Maintenance of Continuation Schools and Classes," approved June 21, 1919.5 This act requires each city and each school district in which there are twenty or more minors between fourteen and sixteen years

1 Public Act No. 347, Sixty-fourth Congress.

2 Illinois Board for Vocational Education Bulletin, 1919, No. 9, pp. 5-6. The School Law of Illinois, 1921, pp. 161-63.

Laws of Illinois, 1919, p. 206.

The School Law of Illinois, 1919, pp. 15-18.