months must make an examination of the sanitary conditions of every public school, and he may prohibit the resumption of work by withholding his certificate of approval. Limitations of power to order corrections.-Power to order repairs is limited in several of the States. The Massachusetts inspector of buildings and the State superintendent of North Dakota are forbidden to make an order entailing unreasonable expense. In New York the district superintendent, an official corresponding closely to the county superintendent in other sections, may condemn entire buildings, but he can not direct repairs that will cost a school over $200 per year. His jurisdiction covers only districts of less than 5,000 inhabitants. In Vermont the State board of health is limit by the law of 1915 to 20 per cent of the grand list (1 per cent of valuation). The county superintendent in South Dakota is held to an expenditure of $50 per year, and the county superintendent in Wisconsin, as previously noted, may not expend more than $25. In Michigan the authority of the county truant officer reaches only the inspection and correction of defects in outbuildings, and a rule of the State board of health applies merely to the school surroundings; but the factory inspectors may condemn all school buildings that they consider liable to collapse or that endanger life. The latter statute is, of course, insufficient so far as ordinary sanitation is concerned. Penalties.-Penalties vary widely in their severity and nature. In Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin the district is made to suffer by losing its share in the apportionment of State or county school funds. In North Dakota a fine of $100 to $1,000 may be imposed, and two other States place a lower figure. In Ohio the penalty is definitely personal; the official may be fined or imprisoned, or both. Comprehensiveness of the Kentucky statute. The Kentucky law is noteworthy in that it provides that the county superintendent— shall condemn any schoolhouse which is dilapidated, unhealthy, or otherwise unfit to be occupied for the purpose of a common school, and any fence or other inclosure of a schoolhouse, when such inclosure is for any reason insufficient for the protection of the house or ground. He shall condemn all school furniture or apparatus, insufficient in quantity, or not of the required character, order the same replaced with the proper furniture or apparatus and notify the trustees of his decision. These large powers are backed by authority to suspend or remove any trustee for neglect of duty. III. THE SCHOOL SITE. Factors affecting the school site and its surroundings are set forth in Table 2. Provision for playgrounds is included also, together with facts that affect the accessibility of the school to its pupils. Accessi bility is governed mainly by provision for transportation and by size of district. The former has been included only often enough to show the trend in opinion as to how far a child ought to walk; the latter has not been regarded, since many of the boards have the right to establish as many schools in the district as they deem proper. In general it may be said that all directions in this section are mandatory, except that a few States allow option with regard to transportation. Furthermore, some latitude is allowed district boards between the maximum and minimum requirements as to size of school site. Nearly all the provisions are State wide in their application, and there is a tendency to make the provisions of the act apply also to private and parochial schools. The term "private" or "parochial" is found in the statutes of Florida, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The Massachusetts law defines a schoolhouse as "any building or part thereof in which public or private instruction is afforded to more than 10 pupils at one time." Other States use the word "school" in a general way and do not specify its character. The names of 36 States appear in the table, 8 in the regulation of miscellaneous matters with reference to school site, 18 with reference to the proximity of various nuisances, 18 with reference to availability of site through transportation or other devices, and at least 25 with reference to size of school site. School Laws, p. 193.. Connecticut.. XX XX Florida.. Illinois. Delaware.. Laws of 1907, ch. 200 (81 Conn., 276); acts of 1911, ch. 173; Gen. Stat., sec. 4070, 4114; Sixteenth Bien. Rep. State Bd. of Health School Law, pp. 134, 150, 188, 201. U. S. Acts of 1913.. X XX ments to same, 1904-1908, p. 146; School XX X: X Maine.. Minnesota.... Laws of 1909, ch. 148; School Laws, pp. 4-5... 1 So great a diversity exists in the provisions of this table that it has been deemed unwise to attempt to show by it anything as to the character of the regulation itself. "X" signifies some sort of regulation and the column headed "References" gives all sources of information for this section. X X Laws of 1911, Senate bill 403; Laws of 1913, Senate bill 241. Mississippi. Laws of 1910, ch. 124. . Missouri. Montana. Nebraska. Nevada.. Laws of 1913.. School Laws, pp. 87, 88. School Code, p. 66; Rev. Laws, 1912, sec. New Hampshire.. School Laws, pp. 30, 34-35; Fogg v. Bd. of New York.. North Carolina.. North Dakota... Oklahoma. Pennsylvania. Tennessee... Ed. of Littleton (not yet in printed court Liquor Tax Law, sec. 23, subd. 2.. School Law, p. 59.. Laws of 1913, chs. 265, 267. Laws of 1910; House bills 264, 482; School Laws of 1914; Senate bill 9. Law of Mar. 20, 1911.. Lord's Oregon Laws, sec. 2133. Law of Apr. 13, 1911; School Code, p. 39. Annotated Code, 1896, secs. 6795-96; acts of XX X XX Proximity of nuisances. The desire to protect schools against nuisances in the neighborhood has most often expressed itself in laws removing liquor-selling to a distance. The creation of a "dry" zone around schools has become linked with a consideration of other nuisances in only two States. In Iowa no bills, posters, or other advertising matter of liquor and tobacco shall be distributed, posted, or circulated within 400 feet of premises used for school purposes. In Louisiana many special laws have been passed removing gambling and liquor-selling from 3 to 8 miles from schools, but the schools affected are chiefly high schools and higher institutions. The breadth of the dry zone depends principally upon whether urban or rural territory is involved. Three States-Minnesota, Tennessee, and Florida-deal with this matter only outside incorporated towns and cities. Minnesota fixes a zone of only 1,500 feet, but Tennessee practically wipes out the traffic in all except very sparsely settled districts by giving to all schools a dry zone of 4 miles radius.1 Florida has the same provision as Tennessee, but largely nullifies it by a remarkable list of exceptions-hotels of over 25 rooms selling to guests only; incorporated social clubs selling to members only; places retailing liquors within 500 feet of incorporated towns; and saloons in towns of over 200 inhabitants where there is no other saloon 1 Tennessee has since passed a State-wide prohibition law. within 50 miles. Arkansas gives the right to the majority of adult inhabitants residing within 3 miles of any school to secure from the county court, by petition, a dry-zone decree covering their territory. The legislature, however, has supplemented local option by passing acts creating dry zones of 3 to 6 miles radius around nine different schools in the State. Nine other States have set limits upon the proximity of saloons to schools, but since the law applies to city as well as country, the distances set are much less. The distance is 200 feet in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont; 300 feet in Oregon1 and Wisconsin, and formerly in Utah;2 400 feet in Massachusetts. South Dakota prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquor in the same block with any school or in any block adjacent to it. Exceptions to the operation of these statutes are rather frequent and apply chiefly to hotels and renewals of license. In Connecticut the renewals are, however, subject to the discretion of the county commissioners. As a result of this law the supreme court of the State was called upon in October, 1908, to pass on the appeal of John Schusler from the decision of the county commissioners of Hartford County in refusing to renew a license for a location at which he had been retailing liquor for the past 10 years. The refusal of the commissioners was based upon the fact that a parochial school had been opened about a year previous on a site only 75 feet from the appellant's place of business. That the said commissioners had granted a renewal in another case within 200 feet of a school was held not to affect the present case. The following dictum of the court seems especially important: "It was of no legal consequence that the site for the school was bought years after the establishment of the appellant's saloon, in close proximity to it, and after his becoming the owner of the saloon property." In New Hampshire hotels and drug stores occupied as such on January 1, prior to the passage of the "dry-zone" law, are not affected. New York exempts from the statute hotels and saloons established prior to March 23, 1896, or established prior to the occupation of any premises within 200 feet for church or school purposes. Rhode Island exempts taverns; Vermont, drug stores and inns. In Wisconsin the use of retail liquor licenses is prohibited except in buildings where such a license was in effect on June 30, 1905. Even then, after two and a half years had passed from the time the law went into effect, a remonstrance signed by a majority of the parents or guardians of children enrolled in any public or parochial school was sufficient to prevent any license from being issued to permit business within 300 feet of said school. This 1 Oregon has since passed a prohibition law, and the entire State will be dry after Jan. 1, 1917. *Repealed by ch. 106, Laws of 1911. remonstrance can not affect drug stores, hotels, and restaurants established and maintained as such prior to February 1, 1905. Turning from what is perhaps dominantly moral hygiene, there is noted less solicitude over the purely physical hygiene of the school site. A regulation of the Delaware State Board of Health forbids that any stable, pigpen, or other building liable to become a nuisance be placed within 200 feet of any schoolhouse or within 100 feet of the school yard. The Indiana law says there must be no steam railroads, livery stables, barns used for breeding purposes, noisy industries, or unhealthful conditions within 500 feet of schools;1 the Rhode Island law states that no swine shall be kept or any other nuisance permitted within 100 feet of any schoolhouse or of any fence inclosing the yard of a schoolhouse; the Vermont Board of Health protects schoolhouses, if in a village, from noises and unsavory odors. The Minnesota Department of Education directs that no part of a school site shall be within 500 feet of steam railroads or manufacturing plants which may be sources of noise or smoke, swampy places, livery stables or other buildings which may be sources of unhealthful conditions. The New Hampshire statute runs: If any person shall use a building or place near a dwelling house or schoolhouse ** * for a slaughterhouse, a place of deposit of green pelts or skins, or for trying tallow, currying leather, or carrying on any other business that is offensive to the public, without the written permission of the health officers of the town, he shall forfeit $10 for each month such building or place shall be so used. In Wisconsin no lockup or place of temporary confinement for insane persons or other persons under arrest shall be erected within 300 feet of a building used regularly or principally for school purposes. Nevada prohibits all resorts maintained for the purpose of prostitution within 800 yards of a school, on pain of a fine of $25 to $300 or imprisonment for 5 to 60 days, or both. The constitutionality of this law was attacked on several grounds in the case ex parte Ah Pah, but the supreme court of the State on December 30, 1911, upheld the enactment, with one qualification: That the S00-yard limit fixed by the school law should be reduced to 400 yards after January 1, 1912, by virtue of a clause in the crimes and punishments act. Accessibility of school site. The distance that a child may be expected to walk to school is different in different States. Most of the laws governing transportation have come with consolidation, but so many of these laws are permissive that differences in school sentiment have shown themselves plainly through this avenue. Transporting pupils to high schools is optional with Maine districts. The State board of health has defined "unhealthful conditions" specifically by demanding a zone of 500 feet radius about the school site to be free from "swampy ground, body of stagnant water, cemetery, slaughterhouse, fertilizer-reduction plant, any business or manufacturing establishment which engenders noxious odors or vapors or that pollutes the surrounding atmosphere by smoke or dust." |