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UNION HALL ACADEMY (Jamaica).

Value of lot and building, $2,000. Academy 56 by 32 feet, two stories, of wood and shingled, with four rooms below and an entry through the middle. Second story divided into two rooms, and a cellar under the whole building; walls lathed and plastered. Tuition per annum: $20 for the Languages, Book-keeping and Mathematics; $15 for Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and English Grammar; $12 for Reading, Writing and English Grammar, and $10 for Reading and Writing, or Reading only. Apparatus: a telescope, pair of globes, set of maps, a case of surveying instruments, and a compass and chain. Library, 420 volumes. Average price of board, $100 per annum, including washing and mending. (1805.)

UNION HALL ACADEMY (Catskill).

Value of lot and building, $1,125; of other real estate, $900; yielding $60 a year; of personal estate, $800, consisting of forty shares in the Susquehanna Turnpike Road, upon which no dividends had been paid the last year, the principal bridges on the road having been carried off by an extraordinary spring flood. Prices of tuition per quarter: $2 for Reading; $2.50 for Reading, Writing and Arithmetic; $3 for Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Grammar; $3.50 for Dead Languages; $4 for French Language. Volumes in Library, 55. Average price of board, $1.50 per week. (1805.)

WASHINGTON ACADEMY' (Salem).

Value of lot, $200, yielding $13.50; personal estate, yielding $50. Building burned, and attempts being made to rebuild, about $300 being subscribed. (1805.)

Statistical Returns made from Academies in 1804-5-6-7 and reported by the Regents in the years following.

These statistics, which were continued but four years, present a summary of the condition of the Academies then existing in the State, of which detailed descriptions are above given.. The Academies reporting were:

Catskill in 1804-7.

Canandaigua in 1804 and 6.
Cayuga in 1804-7.

Cherry Valley in 1804, 6 and 7.

Clinton in 1804, 6 and 7.
Columbia in 1804-5 and 7.
Dutchess in 1804-7.

Erasmus Hall in 1804-7.

1 1In a report, dated November 14, 1795, the building of this Academy was mentioned as completely finished, except painting. It consisted of two school-rooms and a library-room in the first story, and six rooms for study in the second, sufficient to lodge three students each.

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*In Farmers' Hall, Union Hall, Clinton and Columbia Academies the amount is not reported, the teachers receiving Tuition money for pay.

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CHAPTER XII.

UNION FREE SCHOOLS.

The germ of the idea of an association of incorporated academies with the local common schools may be found in two similar acts passed in 1822 and 1823, the former relating to Farmers' Hall Acad. emy in the village of Goshen, Orange county,' and the latter to Oyster Bay Academy, in the village of Oyster Bay, Queens county." These acts authorized the Trustees of the Academy to exercise the powers of the Trustees of the school districts of their respective villages, but not unless authorized by the consent of a majority of the taxable inhabitants of the district, nor longer than the period of six years, unless this consent was renewed from time to time, as these periods elapsed.

The first Academy organized in connection with the common schools, that became subject to visitation by the Regents, was the Rochester High School, incorporated by special act in 1827,' and admitted by the Regents, April 19, 1831. It was established upon the Lancasterian plan, but in 1835 was reorganized under a stock subscription, and has, with successive changes, continued to the present time. This was followed by the New York Free Academy in 1847,' and after this several others by special acts. On the 18th of June, 1853,' a general act was passed providing for their organization anywhere, and for the election of Boards of Education for their management. Academic departments might be formed whenever they might be thought necessary, and when admitted under the visitation of the Regents, in accordance with their rules in matters pertaining to education (but not with reference to buildings unless separate), they were to enjoy the full advantages of Academies."

The first application that came before the Regents, for the incorporation of Academic Departments in Union Schools, under the act of June 18, 1853, was from the Board of Education of Union Free Schools in District No. 1 of Warsaw, in which it was requested that the department should be called the "Warsaw Academy."

Upon an examination of the law it was decided that the Regents

1 Chap. 197, Laws of 1822, p. 196; passed April 12, 1822.

2 Chap. 150, Laws of 1823, p. 170; passed April 12, 1823.

3 Chap. 70, Laws of 1827, p. 55; passed March 15, 1827.

4 Chap. 206, Laws of 1847.

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This privilege was reaffirmed in chapter 450, Laws of 1862.

had no power to call the Academical Department of such schools an "Academy;" they were only authorized to establish an Academical Department.

This ruling has since been followed in cases of this kind where the name was not otherwise given by special acts. In the case above cited, the decision was not willingly accepted, and the Board of Education of Warsaw petitioned the Legislature for a change, representing that the name given was "unnecessarily clumsy and inconvenient," and asking that the name first asked for be allowed. This was referred, by the Senate, to the Regents, who replied that under the act they could not change the name, and added: "But if they had such power they would not exercise it, considering, as they do, that the name provided by law, that of Academical Department of a Union School, is descriptive of the real character of the Department, and of its relation to such a school, and that it is better than any other name not descriptive of such character and relation."

These Union Schools with Academic Departments, sharing in the dividends both of the Common School and of the Literature Funds, and supported by public tax, under our Free School system, soon became powerful rivals of the old Academies in every part of the State. The feebler ones have been obliged to unite with the Common Schools in a large number of cases, sometimes under special acts, retaining a qualified existence under their separate Trustees, and in others being placed entirely in charge of a Board of Education having full control of both.

In some of these Union Schools, where Academies formerly existed, with facilities for preparing young men for College, the course of instruction does not now meet this want. There appears to be a need of institutions where this preparation can be made a special object of attention, and this cannot well be done except at endowed Academies, with means sufficient to enable them, with what funds they receive from the Regents, to fully meet this requirement.

The Powers of a Board of Education in Abolishing an Academic Department, and of Restoring it again after it had been Abol ished.

The question having been repeatedly raised, as to the power of a Board of Education to abolish and to restore an Academic Department in a Union School, the subject was referred to the AttorneyGeneral for his opinion in December, 1879, and on the 20th of December of that year he replied as follows:

** * "The section referred to (§ 24, Title IX of the Code of Public Instruction) delegates to Boards of Education of Union Free Schools the power, in case they shall be authorized thereto by a vote of the voters of the district, to do a specific act. That is, when an Academy shall exist within their district, they may adopt such Academy as the Academical Department of the district, with the consent of the Trustees of the Academy; and the Trustees of the Academy are thereupon required by resolution, to be attested by the signatures of the officers of the Board, to file in the office of the clerk of the county, a declaration that their offices are vacant. The Academy then becomes an Academical Department of such Union Free School. "The whole scope of this section is the power to establish an Academical Department in the manner provided, which, it was evidently contemplated, should be permanent, and no provision exists for reconsidering or annulling the action taken in the premises.

"I am of opinion, therefore, that the power of Boards of Education under this section is exhausted when they have adopted an Academy as the Academical Department of their district, and that their action is final.

"In case a clrange to the original condition as an independent Academy should be deemed desirable, the only manner in which it can be done is by an enabling act, for that purpose, from. the Legislature.

Very respectfully yours,

A. SCHOONMAKER, JR.,
Attorney-General."

CHAPTER XIII.

STATE TAX FOR ACADEMIES AND UNION DEPARTMENTS OF DISTRICT SCHOOLS - THE QUESTION OF APPROPRIATIONS TO DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.

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A clause in chapter 736, passed May 15, 1872, imposed a general tax of one-sixteenth of a mill on each dollar of valuation, to meet an appropriation of $125,000, which had been made in chapter 541 of the Laws of that year. This act contained a clause directing "the sum thus arising to be divided as the Literature Fund is now divided, which is hereby ordered to be levied for each and every year." An act passed May 29, 1873,' directed the above sum to be distributed in the following manner:

The sum of $3,000, or so much as might be required in addition to the annual appropriation of $3,000, usually granted from the Literature Fund, for the purchase of books and apparatus. The sum

Chap. 642, Laws of 1873.

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