Any consolidated district in Mississippi, any special or village districts in Ohio, may arrange for transportation. Any district in New Hampshire may purchase vehicles for the purpose. Where the law is mandatory, it is often too indefinite. For instance, every Connecticut town in which a school has been discontinued, or in which a consolidation of districts has occurred, "shall furnish, whenever necessary, by transportation or otherwise, school accommodations so that every child over 7 and under 16 years of age can attend school." In Iowa, outside of consolidated districts, transportation is optional with the district for pupils living "at an unreasonable distance." The decisions of State Superintendents Riggs and Deyoe in the cases of Arnold et al. v. School Township of Richland, and Paine v. School Township of Amsterdam, have defined 14 miles as the approximate limit of a reasonable distance. Consolidated districts in Colorado may transport pupils who live over 1 mile from school, and in Missouri any district may carry pupils who have over one-half mile to go. In Ohio no district is under obligation to haul a pupil living less than 1 mile from school. In New York the matter of transportation is within the discretionary control of the commissioner of education in the exercise of his appellate jurisdiction. A half dozen of the States, however, have gone on record in a definite manner and with sufficient uniformity to suggest a conclusion. In consolidated districts in Kansas and Minnesota transportation is compulsory for children 2 miles from school. Missouri compels transportation of all children over 24 miles from school in a consolidated district. Independent consolidated districts or central schools of townships in Iowa must transport every child living outside a city, town, or village. Parents or guardians may be compelled to carry children 2 miles to the line of school transportation and receive a reasonable compensation therefor. Where the township system has been adopted in South Dakota no child may be allowed to walk over 24 miles, but the transportation must be furnished by the guardian at an amount graduated from 10 cents to 45 cents per day, according to distance traveled. Indiana has made a discrimination on the basis of the age of the pupil. When a school is discontinued, township trustees must arrange comfortable and safe transportation for all pupils living over 2 miles from school, but those between 6 and 12 years of age must be carried when they live over 1 mile away. An interesting decision recently came from the supreme court of New Hampshire in the case of Fogg v. Board of Education of Littleton, wherein it was decided that "it is unreasonable to expect or require" a boy 9 years of age to walk over 4 miles to school. The action of the board in refusing to maintain a conveyance solely for the benefit of this boy was declared to be "unauthorized and illegal."1 A summary of the laws on consolidation of schools is given in Bull. of the Bureau of Educ., 1914, No. 30. The provision of Montana is that the site shall be "accessible"; Vermont says that it shall be as near the center of population as possible. The attitude of Florida is that schools shall not be closer to each other than 3 miles "unless for some local reason or necessity"a phrase defined in the regulations of the State board of education to mean "unless made necessary by local geographical features." On the other hand Kentucky declares that no point on the boundary of a graded common-school district shall be over 2 miles from the site of the proposed building. In Pennsylvania no pupil of an abandoned. school shall be compelled to walk over 1 miles. This implies liability of the district for transportation. In North Dakota the matter is settled by waiving the compulsory attendance requirement if it involves making a child walk over 2 miles to school. The distance of a child from school seems generally to be calculated by way of the nearest public highway. Of course it is taken for granted in such cases that the school property abuts on an open road; but this has not always been true. South Dakota has found it necessary to pass a law demanding that schools be situated upon a regularly laid out highway or upon a section line. In the latter case the presumption is that a road will soon be opened leading to the school. The Indiana board of health holds that "all schoolhouse sites shall be convenient of approach, either from a public road or street." Under the Wisconsin law the supervisors may be compelled to lay a highway to the schoolhouse; any trouble in the future has been guarded against by requiring that every schoolhouse siteobtained by purchase or grant shall be located and established abutting on a public highway or street, and no schoolhouse shall hereafter be erected on any site unless at the time of erection of such the site shall abut on a public highway or street. Size of the school site.-The size of the school site is subject to two general classes of limitations, maxima and minima. Some States have not invested their school boards with the power of eminent domain. Most have hedged it about with careful restrictions; a few have been very generous in bestowing it. For example, Connecticut boards may condemn as much land as is needed; Louisiana boards may condemn "space sufficiently extensive to answer the purpose of a schoolhouse and ground"; in Pennsylvania "no new school building shall hereafter be erected without a proper playground being provided therefor." The only trouble with these laws is that local boards are inclined to be too easily satisfied. That maxima have been established so much oftener than minima possibly reflects a fear that through condemnation a citizen may be made to suffer too much in the interest of the State. In at least three States the maximum size of site is less in case of condemnation than otherwise it would be. Thus, in Nebraska a district may purchase 4 acres of the school lands of the State for a site, but it can not condemn over 1 acre. In Washington the corresponding figures are 10 and 5 acres, respectively. In Wisconsin "no schoolhouse site shall contain more than 4 acres unless with the consent of the owner of the land taken therefor." The absolute maxima in certain other States, with or without the exercise of eminent domain, is as follows: Delaware, one-half acre; Kentucky and New Hampshire, 1 acre; Kansas, 1 acres; Massachusetts and South Dakota, 2 acres;1 Maine, 3 acres; Maryland and North Dakota, 5 acres. Sliding scales exist in some States. In North Carolina only 2 acres may be condemned to establish a new site, but if resorted to in order to add to an existing site the total site shall not ultimately exceed 3 acres. In Iowa 1 acre is the maximum except in city, town, or village, where one block may be used, and except in certain consolidated districts and townships that possess not more than two sites, where it may run to 4 acres, or even more under certain conditions. This last larger site must be on a public road and not within 30 rods of a residence, if the owner objects. In Virginia any school board may condemn not to exceed 1 acre in a town, or 5 elsewhere, "provided that no dwelling, yard, garden, or orchard shall be invaded, nor in an unincorporated town any space within 100 feet of a dwelling, nor in the country any space within 400 yards of a mansion house." Oklahoma boards can not condemn, but may purchase as high as 4 acres of the public-school lands of the State. In Illinois no tract of land condemned outside an incorporated city or village shall be within 40 rods of the dwelling of the owner of the land without his consent. The minima for the different States run as follows: Delaware and Florida (outside villages and cities), one-half acre; Indiana, 1 acre; Alabama (for State aid on building), North Dakota, and South Dakota, 2 acres. In Montana rural schools shall have sites of not less than 1 acre; all others, not less than half an average city block. In Nebraska and Washington minima apply only to the purchase of State school lands for sites. In Nebraska 1 acre is the minimum; in Washington, 3 acres. In New York the commissioner of education may control the suitability of a site as to size by the exercise of his appellate jurisdiction. One decision is of interest, that of the Supreme Court of Washington, ruling that the condemnation of land adjacent to a school building for an athletic and play ground is a taking for “public use," and hence within the statutes of the State providing for the exercise of eminent domain. In Ohio a law provides State aid for elementary rural schools of three classes, the amount varying from 1 In South Dakota schools giving courses in agriculture may purchase 10 acres for site and demonstration purposes. 80042°-15-4 $25 to $100 per annum. One of several conditions for each class of schools is the size of site, which ranges from 1 to 3 acres for organized play, school garden, and agriculture. Public playgrounds. Some of the States are partially discharging their responsibility through other bodies than school boards. In Indiana the board of health and charities in cities of the first class may establish, maintain, and equip public playgrounds and public baths, and may exercise the right of eminent domain; but all school playgrounds in the State must furnish 30 square feet for each pupil and be equipped with some apparatus. In New York school districts may acquire lands for public playgrounds and recreational purposes by vote of a district meetiog, and may levy a tax and issue bonds therefor. Massachusetts has thrown this matter by permissive legislation into the hands of towns and cities. Virginia cities with over 10,000 population may, as municipalities, acquire a playground for each race. Many similar laws indicate that most of our leading cities will soon meet the playground problem aside from the schools. In Minnesota the State Department of Education has made a rule that no elementary school shall be built upon a plot of ground that affords less than fifty square feet of playground per pupil. One hundred square feet per pupil will be required when conditions make it possible to secure this amount of land. Miscellaneous regulations.-The barbed-wire fence is illegal in Connecticut and New Hampshire on or around a school site, and even within 10 feet of the site in Iowa. Drainage also is subject to regulation. Good drainage is required in Indiana, Louisiana, Texas, and Vermont. The Minnesota State Department of Education directs that all schools be situated "on high ground affording natural drainage;" made land or land impregnated with organic matter must not be selected. In New York sites not properly drained or insanitary because of proximity to swamps and lowlands or other unhealthful conditions may be discepted by the commissioner of education and the district be directed to acquire another site. The Texas and Louisiana State boards of health require that all schools be supplied with a sufficient number of garbage cans, kept covered and emptied daily. The State Board of Health of Vermont will not approve a site for a rural school unless it is protected from violent winds. The rules of the Minnesota Department of Education contain a suggestion well worthy of consideration. It reads: "To secure the best use of a site, it is recommended that not more than twenty per cent of the entire site should be used for the building, and that the building be so located that the entire frontage be at least twenty per cent of the site," IV. THE WATER SUPPLY. The common cup.-The most interesting point connected with safeguarding the water supply of schools is the spread in the last five years of the revolt against the common drinking cup. For a number of years boards of health waged a campaign in this direction, but it was not until March, 1909, that any State took official action. Kansas was the pioneer, but other States followed rapidly, so that now over half of the entire number have either a law or a regulation regarding drinking cups. Schools may not be provided with common drinking cups without transgressing the law in Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota,2 West Virginia,3 and Wisconsin. The State health authorities have forbidden the public drinking cup in Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. In New York the common drinking cup in "public places or public institutions" is prohibited by regulation 3, Chapter VII, of the sanitary code. Jealous supervision of the powers of the State board of health has resulted in statutes delegating to the board the power to promulgate an order against common cups in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Colorado has a law that should practically put it in one of the above lists, the statute forbidding common cups unless sterilized after each use. 4 7 Several provisions that do not abolish the common cup regulate or limit its use. If public drinking cups are used in Texas, they, together with the water buckets or coolers, shall be scoured and sunned daily, or treated with a 2 per cent formaldehyde solution." The Ohio law draws the line against tin cups or tumblers.10 The Indiana 11 and Louisiana State boards of health require that sanitary fountains shall be installed in towns and cities where there is a public water supply; the same is required of Ohio schools hereafter constructed, without any specification as to water supply. 11 The common pail.—If, however, children were at liberty to dip their individual cups into the common pail, danger still would lurk in the water supply. Hence some attention has been given to the 1 For full text of most laws and regulations in this field up to July 1, 1912, see Common Drinking Cups and Roller Towels, Pub. Health Bull. No. 57, issued by U. S. Pub. Health Service. 2 Laws of 1913, ch. 228. 3 Laws of 1913. Minnesota State Health Laws and Regulations, May 1, 1912, p. 54. Ch. 61, acts 1913. |