USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 58
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school two boys or two girls are employed on the same job, and alternate at work and in school. In practice a boy enrolled at the Trade School and working half time may shorten the usual period of apprenticeship in his trade, and be graduated for immediate employment as a journeyman. Printing, carpentry, electricity, painting and decorating, automobile mechanics and repairs, and machine shop trades are taught, along with clothing, foods, and millinery for girls, not on the home economics but upon an industrial basis. Another trade school is being developed at Central Falls. Until 1929 a factory continuation class at Bristol was conducted in a rubber factory under a plan for release of employes in relays to attend instruction.
Evening vocational classes for adults engaged during the day time in occupations to which the evening instruction is supplementary is offered in a variety of trades and occupations in Central Falls, Cranston, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence, and Woonsocket. The regulations prescribe rigid adherence to strictly vocational instruction and practice, and the work of the evening schools is highly practical and attracts a fine type of citizen, intent upon improvement. In home economics the program, except in an all-day school at South Kingstown maintained for practice teaching, is in evening classes, which are conducted in Bristol, Central Falls, Cranston, Pawtucket, Warren, West Warwick and Woonsocket. Teacher-training for teach- ers of agriculture and home economics is conducted principally at Rhode Island State College, with practice teaching in the high schools at South Kingstown, Pawtucket and Providence. In trades and industries the principal teacher-training courses are conducted in afternoon and evening hours at Rhode Island College of Education. The state appropriation for vocational education is $18,000 annually ; from the federal government $10,000 for agriculture, $32,- 811.48 for trades and industries and home economics, and $10,000 for teacher-training and supervision are received. The total expenditure of federal, state and town money annually for vocational education averages $150,000.
Evening schools have been a care of the State Board of Education since 1873, with annual appropriations for promotion. The courses, additional to Americanization and vocational instruction, parallel day courses, and afford opportunities for youth and adults to round out education not completed in years of regular attendance. Pre-primary schools, including kin- dergartens and American modifications of the Montessori type of school are maintained in large towns and cities. The Montessori school particularly has had a marked influence upon elementary school procedure. Professor Clara E. Craig of Rhode Island College of Educa- tion, visited Italy in 1913 by direction of the Trustees of Rhode Island Normal School to study with Madame Montessori. Professor Craig returned to introduce Montessori methods in an experimental class in the Henry Barnard School, of which, as Director of Train- ing, she is principal. Out of Professor Craig's painstaking and patient work in directing the experiment and in training teachers to carry forward the work came a revelation of processes of child learning. Her success warranted publication of a pamphlet on methods of instruction in reading and writing, and the gradual extension of the Montessori-Craig princi- ples through the Barnard School. Recent group tests of children in the Barnard School indi- cate achievements beyond those normal for both mental and chronological ages. The Barnard School attracts visitors from every continent in large numbers, the registration of professional teachers and superintendents who come to see and learn reaching almost 1000 annually. Mon- tessori-Craig methods are a marvel to conservative old-time educators, many of whom arrive as skeptics and are as reluctant to return home as the lotus eaters after they have expe- rienced a revelation of the unbelievable-until one has seen.
A NEW COMMISSIONER-Commissioner Stockwell resigned in 1905 after completing thirty years of faithful service-a period equal to the aggregate terms of all his predecessors. In grateful remembrance of Commissioner Stockwell the public school teachers of Rhode Island, through their state association, the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, erected a bronze tablet, which has been placed near the door of the Commissioner's office in the State
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House. During Commissioner Stockwell's term the Barnard program had been carried for- ward to perfection in completion ; Rhode Island was ready in 1905 for a new program. Wal- ter E. Ranger, then chief educational executive in Vermont, was invited to come to Rhode Island as Commissioner, and accepted. One year later, 1906, after a year spent in visiting Rhode Island schools and becoming acquainted with the system, Dr. Ranger announced ten projects for progressive development of the public education system, which were enacted into law in the years indicated, thus : (1) Pensions for teachers, 1907; (2) state aid for travelling libraries, 1907; (3) a state school and home for the feeble-minded, 1907; (4) state certifica- tion of superintendents, as of teachers, 1908; (5) a minimum salary law for teachers, 1909; (6) a more practical equalization of educational opportunities, to be secured by extension of high school education for all the youth of the state, 1910; (7) industrial and trade schools, 1912: (8) improved school sanitation, and sanitary standards, 19II; (9) reasonable tenure for teachers and superintendents, 1913; (10) a state summer school for teachers, 1917. Other advances during the same period were: Instruction of adult blind at home, 1908; mandatory provision for high school education, 1909; medical inspection in schools, 19II ; post-graduate department of education at Brown University with provision for free state scholarships, 1912; state-supported textile school at Rhode Island School of Design, 1913; deficient school act, providing aid for rural schools, 1913; minimum school year established, thirty-six weeks, 1914; state inspector of high schools appointed, 1914; age and employment certificate law perfected, 1916; free state scholarships at College of Pharmacy, 1916; physi- cal education mandatory, 1917; dental inspection, 1917; cooperation of state and federal government to promote vocational education, 1917 ; definition of certain powers entrusted to superintendent of schools as an administrative and executive agent, 1918; provision for finan- cial support of town schools in the instance of delayed town appropriations, 1919; Americani- zation law, 1919; civilian rehabilitation, 1919; reorganization of Rhode Island Normal School as Rhode Island College of Education, 1920; state aid for service of librarians in free public libraries, 1921 ; instruction in the principles of popular and representative government in all schools ordered, 1922.
A SURVEY-A commission, consisting of William C. Bliss, as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission; Zenas W. Bliss, as chairman of the Tax Commission; Howard Far- num, as chairman of the Senate finance committee; Frederick S. Peck, as chairman of the House finance committee, and Walter E. Ranger as Commissioner of Education, previously appointed to make a survey of school finance and administration, reported in 1922 to the General Assembly a draft of legislation proposed to carry recommendations into effect. Referred in the House of Representatives to the committee on education, hearings were con- ducted, inasmuch as significant changes in the law had been proposed. Aside from measures to increase state support of town schools financially and to strengthen the State Board of Education in the exercise of functions related to the enforcement of law, the commission proposed transfer from town school committees to the State Board of Education of the power to approve or disapprove private schools for attendance in lieu of attendance on public instruc- tion. The purpose announced on behalf of the commission was the setting up of a single agency for approval throughout the state, and of a single minimum standard, and the simpli- fication of the process of obtaining approval. Objection was voiced immediately by many, who interpreted the proposed unification of authority as arbitrary and in conflict with the Rhode Island tradition of local approval by school committees. The bill was reported from committee, after having been amended, and after a series of conferences and hearings in which, it was believed by the committee, objectors had been reconciled. The bill was reached on the calendar in the afternoon of the last day of the session of the General Assem- bly, and precipitated one of the most vigorous debates on a question not purely political in its
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nature that has ever been heard in the new State House in the thirty years since it was dedicated.
The bill was attacked principally on the ground that it aimed to establish state interfer- ence with private schools, particularly those maintained by French Catholics for the education of their children. The outstanding exponent of the French view was Felix A. Toupin, who became the candidate of the Democratic party in the fall election and was elected as Lieutenant Governor. William S. Flynn, Democratic House leader, supported Representative Toupin, and in the fall was elected as Governor on the Democratic ticket. The debate was continued through afternoon and evening hours, and the bill was passed by the House close to midnight, and sent to the Senate. After an unsuccessful effort to persuade the Senate committee on education not to report the bill, it reached the calendar, and was passed by the Senate late in the morning of Saturday, April 22, actually, although the day of concurrence was the legisla- tive day of Friday, April 21, continued, there having been no adjournment. Thus the issue, on enactment, was carried squarely to Governor Emery J. San Souci, Republican, who had power under the Constitution to veto the bill finally, inasmuch as the General Assembly had adjourned sine die. The Constitution, Article XV of amendments, besides providing for veto and reconsideration, with the machinery for overriding the veto, establishes a time limit on action by the Governor, thus: "If the measure shall not be returned by the Governor within six days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall become operative unless the General Assembly, by adjournment, prevents its return, in which case it shall become operative unless transmitted by the Governor to the Secretary of State, with his disapproval in writing, within ten days after such adjournment." The Rhode Island Con- stitution does not permit the "pocket veto" exercised by the President of the United States ; the Governor may permit an act of the General Assembly to become law by his own inaction ; to prevent law he must act. Governor San Souci was besieged immediately by friends, as well as opponents of the measure, urging him to sign or to veto, each according to interest. The Governor faced a most perplexing problem; the measure had become practically a Republican party project as the debate had developed in the General Assembly, and failure to pass it might have been construed as a victory for the Democrats, led by Representatives Flynn and Toupin. On the other hand, strong pressure on the Governor was exercised by many of his most intimate personal and political friends, particularly because he, though a native-born citizen of the United States and son of a father who had fought in the Union army to defend the national flag, was ultimately of French extraction. The Governor post- poned action, while the discussion of the "Peck bill," so named because the measure had been introduced by Frederick S. Peck, continued unabated.
The Governor returned the bill to the Secretary of State with a veto message on May 3, 1922. Immediately another question arose: "Had the Governor acted within ten, eleven, twelve, or thirteen days of adjournment?" The Governor's first position was that he had acted within ten days, Sundays excluded, two Sundays having intervened between April 21 or 22 and May 3. Proponents of the law asserted that the Constitution did not exclude Sun- days from the count of ten days permitted for the veto if and when the General Assembly adjourned. The Governor, with the purpose of removing doubt, requested the Supreme Court to rule upon the matter in the form of an advisory opinion. In a letter to the court under date of May 9 the Governor asserted that the bill had been presented to him on the legislative day of April 21 and that he had transmitted his veto message on May 3, adding : "Two Sundays occurred between the twenty-first day of April, 1922, and May 3, 1922, and the Governor returned the bill on said May 3, understanding that Sundays were to be excepted from said ten-day period." In a second communication, dated May 13, the Governor declared that although the records of the General Assembly showed adjournment on the legislative day of April 21, as a matter of fact, the Assembly adjourned on the calendar day of April 22,
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and the next day, April 23, was Sunday. The Governor asked the court to answer two addi- tional questions : (1) "Is the day of adjournment .... to be computed as the legislative day of adjournment or the calendar or natural day; (2) if the calendar or natural day . . . . is held to be the day of adjournment . ... is Sunday, the next day after the day of said adjournment, to be computed in said period of ten days?" In view of the importance of the question presented, the Supreme Court invited arguments and briefs by counsel, although the request was for an advisory opinion rather than a decision. The Governor was represented by Michael J. Lynch as counsel, who was supported by the city solicitors from Pawtucket and Woonsocket. Herbert S. Rice, Attorney General, and Oscar L. Heltzen, Assistant Attorney General, argued against the veto. Dr. Charles Carroll appeared as counsel for the State Board of Education with brief and argument. The city solicitor of Cranston argued against the veto. The court delivered an opinion in which it declared that the Governor had not acted within the period prescribed by the Constitution, and that the veto was ineffective. The court held that in computing periods of time intervening Sundays, unless Sunday be the last day, are counted unless expressly excepted, including the first day, even if that be Sunday. Holding this view, it was not necessary for the court to decide whether the ten-day period began on April 21, the legislative day, or on April 22, the calendar day, of adjournment. Thus the matter rested, with the law in effect, and an issue created for the fall election.
The act of 1922 provided for (I) investment of the permanent school fund exclusively in bonds of the United States or bonds issued by Rhode Island towns or cities; (2) use of the income of the fund for emergencies and application of unexpended income to increase of the fund; (3) enforcement of school legislation by the State Board of Education, with power to withhold state money due a town unless and until the board's orders were complied with ; (4) surveys of school systems under the authority of the board; (5) approval of private schools by the board, essentially upon the same conditions and subject to the same restric- tions prescribed theretofore for approval by school committees; (6) prescription by the Commissioner of a uniform system of school records to be kept on blanks, cards and books provided by him, and a uniform system of bookkeeping for officers entrusted with public school money, with permission for the Commissioner to examine and audit records at discre- tion ; (7) an increase of 150 per cent., $120,000 to $300,000, in the largest appropriation from the general treasury for the support of town public schools; (8) a mandatory minimum town tax and expenditure for public schools amounting annually to three mills; (9) administration by the State Board of Education, on request of the school committee, of the schools of any town, provided the school committee cannot support good schools from current legal school revenues ; (10) the keeping by the superintendent of schools in every town of a correlated individual card record of census and attendance, cards to be furnished by the Commissioner ; (II) the presentation by every school committee annually to the town and to the Commis- sioner of a budget of proposed school expenditures, the budget to be made on standard forms prescribed and furnished by the Commissioner; (12) the keeping by teachers in public and private schools of uniform records of attendance, with reports to the superintendent of the information essential for the card record prescribed to be kept by him; (13) the forbidding of (a) collections or receipts of gifts by teachers in school, (b) sales in school, (c) soliciting or receiving subscriptions to periodicals, (d) tutoring by a teacher of members of his own classes, and (e) distribution of tickets, articles or advertising matter in school or to pupils on their way to and from school; (14) the elimination and exclusion of secret or other fraterni- ties or school societies to which less than the whole school are eligible for membership.
It was and is a most significant piece of school legislation because (1) of the increased financial support provided for town schools; (2) of the effective measures for enforcing compliance with school legislation ; (3) of the uniform system of accounts and records; (4) of the provision for budgeting school accounts, and (5) the regulation of internal relations of
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schools with the inhibition of abuses. Yet the measure was discussed through the summer of 1922 and in the fall political campaign exclusively with reference to its alleged effect upon private schools, when as a matter of fact and law the only change affecting private schools lay in the designation of the State Board of Education, rather than the town school commit- tee, as the agency for approval or disapproval. There were other issues in the election of 1922, including at the outset a three-cornered contest for the Republican nomination for Gov- ernor, the election of a United States Senator, and, close to election, the exposure of an alleged attempt at bribery, all of which played their part in effecting a shifting of 25,000 votes, and election by the Democrats of their candidates for United States Senator, one Congressman, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, General Treasurer, and a substantial increase of party mem- bers in both houses of the General Assembly.
Bills were presented in the General Assembly in 1923 proposing (1) repeal of the act of 1922, and (2) repeal of the provisions relating to private schools. With respect to the latter the issue was more clearly defined as principally related to the intense love which people of French descent retain for their language, and fear lest the legislation of 1922 be enforced in such manner as to inhibit teaching of French in the schools maintained by the French for their children. Hearings were conducted, and discussion was heated, but no action was taken dur- ing the session. What might have happened in 1924 may not be told; the famous filibuster in the Senate effectively prevented legislation, and the issue on the statute of 1922 remained unsettled, in spite of the attempt made to reach an adjustment that would satisfy objectors without sacrificing the state's educational policy of insisting upon the teaching of English to all children of school age. The function of approving private schools was restored to school committees in 1925 in an act that prescribed as conditions for approval (I) attendance periods substantially equal to those prescribed for public schools; (2) satisfactory records of attend- ance and reports of attendance similar to those required of public schools; (3) the teaching of "reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, the history of the United States and history of Rhode Island, and the principles of American government . . . . in the English language substantially to the same extent as such subjects are required to be taught in the public schools"; (4) "thorough and efficient teaching of English," with provision for appeal to the State Board of Education from the action of any school committee refusing to approve a private school. The law of 1925 limited the Commissioner to prescribing standard record systems for public schools, although the report requirement imposed by the amending statute would effect substantially the keeping by private schools of records of attendance similar to public school records. On that point there never had been objection; all private schools had used the public school register voluntarily for years, the books being distributed to private schools on request under the statutes.
Following the filibuster of 1924, and to avoid the possibilities of other delays or failures in passing of appropriation bills, the school statutes carrying appropriations were rewritten in 1925 in such manner as to carry stated amounts, under a ruling of the Attorney General in 1924 that a statute that purported to make an appropriation operated without necessity for action by the General Assembly. In the same year, school committees were relieved of an obligation to visit schools every term, a practice of district days that had been continued in the statutes ; instead the law requires the superintendent of schools, if the school committee designates no other agent, to visit schools annually at least, and to report on "schoolhouse and premises, including classrooms, laboratories and other rooms used by the pupils and teachers, with particular reference to cleanliness, heating, lighting, seating, ventilation and other sani- tary arrangements, and to corridors, stairways, doors, windows, fire escapes and other devices for the protection of life in case of fire; and of registers and other school records, of the school library, apparatus and equipment in classrooms and laboratories, of the books, disci- pline, mode of teaching and other matters that affect instruction," with recommendations.
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The law thus effectively requires a survey by the superintendent. Following a survey of the schools of Providence, a special school statute enlarging the powers of the school committee with reference to finance, and providing a new method of selecting the school committee, was enacted in 1925. Curiously a similar statute enacted for Central Falls in 1926 had the effect of curtailing the powers of the school committee in that city. The teachers' pension law was amended to increase both maximum and minimum pensions in 1926; the minimum school year was made 180 days, and school committees were directed to keep a journal of meetings, in 1927, following a wholly gratuitous "dictum" of the Supreme Court that negatived the exist- ence of a statutory or other obligation; in 1929, part of the income of the permanent school fund was made available for apportionment to towns as assistance in building consolidated schools. In 1929, the state department was reorganized, the office of assistant commissioner was abolished, and three assistants were designated each with the title director, as Director of Vocational Education, Director of Adult Education, and Director of Surveys and Accounts.
A STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM ACHIEVED-Until 1882 it might be said, accurately, that the public schools of Rhode Island were town schools. In spite of the facts (I) that towns and cities derived their power to levy taxes for school support from the general laws of the state; (2) that school committees were elected under general laws, derived their powers from the statutes and generally were independent of control by town governments; (3) that schools were aided by state appropriations distributed pro rata, as well as by town taxation; (4) that certain revenues of the towns, derived from poll taxes, dog taxes and fines, could, under the Constitution and the laws, be applied to no other purpose than school support; (5) that the town school administrative organization was prescribed by statute and did not vary radically from town to town; (6) that the town schools were fundamentally uniform in type, though varying somewhat in detail and quality; (7) that town schools were subject to state supervi- sion and inspection; (8) that the state had provided a normal school for the training of teachers ; (9) that courses of study were subject to approval by the Commissioner, and (10) that Commissioner was by statute a judicial officer for the adjustment of disputes arising under the school law-the maintenance of schools and the appropriation of money for school support were permissive rather than mandatory. The Supreme Court, in 1881, declared : "The statutes of the state relating to free public schools do not make it the imperative duty of the several towns and cities to establish and maintain such schools, but create a general school system, under which the several towns and cities voluntarily establish and maintain public schools, receiving from the state certain allotments of money to help defray the cost of instruc- tion."* Conscious of its obligation to education, the state encouraged towns to establish schools, by annual appropriations to aid the towns. In 1882 the word shall replaced the word may in the statutes, and the school law became mandatory. Thereafter the school system might be regarded as a state system, in which towns became agents for the state in establish- ing and maintaining the schools which the state had decreed should be open to all its citizens ; in which town taxation for school support was a device for adjusting a public burden amongst the people of the state; in which the towns became trustees of public school property. Twelve factors that establish the accuracy of the state view are: (I) Mandatory maintenance ; (2) compulsory attendance ; (3) special state assistance; (4) state certification of teachers; (5) state education for teachers; (6) minimum salary for teachers; (7) minimum school year ; (8) mandatory high school education ; (9) prescription of part and direction of the remainder of the course of study; (10) free textbooks; (II) state supervision through the Commis- sioner and the State Board of Education, and (12) the judicial authority of the Commis- sioner. The state school system centres in the state department of education, that is, in the State Board of Education and the Commissioner, who is ex-officio secretary of the State Board of Education and its chief executive agent.
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