SECTION 38. The school year to commence first day of April. 39. Powers and duties of prudential committee. 40. Provision for providing district schools in certain cases.-Offices vacated by neglect.-Such vacancies filled by selectmen.-Duty of prudential committee so appointed to sustain a school. 41, 42. Meetings; how appointed and notified. 43. Districts may raise tax to build school-house, &c. 44. Districts may locate school-house. On application, selectmen may lo cate. 45. Real estate to be taxed where located. 46. Persons unable to pay may be omitted in tax-bill in certain cases. 47. Prudential committee to assess tax. make rate-bill, &c. 48. Tax-bills and public moneys payable to the treasurer.--Orders to be drawn on treasurer. 49. Power and duty of collector. 50. Taxes to be laid on grand list, ex cept for expenses of fuel and teachers' board, which may be apportioned to the scholar. 51. Powers of committee to enforce col lection of taxes. 52. Taxes may be remitted at legal meeting, &c. 53. Districts formed from two or more towns: how dissolved. 54. Powers and duties of justices. 55. Each part, after separation, to be a district.. 56. Districts formed under former laws to retain their powers. 57. Penalty on clerk for neglect in making returns. 58. Penalty for neglect to notify meetings. 59. Penalty on superintendents for paying teachers not having obtained their certificate of qualification. 60. Contracts for teaching invalid, unless teacher obtain certificate. HIGH, OR CENTRAL, OR GRADED SCHOOLS. 61. Prudential committee may call a school-meeting when, in their opinion. more than one teacher is required. schools in each district to be continued.--Union schools entitled to share of public money.--Proviso. 75. Union districts to choose moderator. collector, and treasurer; may raise money, &c. 76. A district may withdraw from such union district in case two thirds of such district vote in favor of it. 77. A contiguous school district may be united to a union district if two thirds of the voters of such districts, present at the meeting, vote in favor of such union. TOWN SCHOOL FUND. 78. Selectmen to have charge of estate for use of schools. 79. Securities and moneys belonging to school fund to be kept in town treasury. 80. Selectmen annually to assess nine per cent. tax for schools. 81. Tax omitted, in whole or in part, in certain cases. 82. Towns may vote other taxes, and nine per cent tax be omitted. 83, 84. Mode of division of public money among school districts. No district to receive any of such SECTION SECTION. money except on certain conditions. 85. Statement of amount divided to each 109. district to be left with town clerk. 86. When district formed from two or more towns; how money divided. 87. Penalty for not assessing state school tax. 88. How penalty to be appropriated. 89. Grand-jury to indict towns for neglect in assessing, collecting, and expending tax. 90. Penalty for embezzling school funds. UNITED STATES DEPOSIT MONEY. 91. Treasurer to receive moneys be longing to the United States to be deposited, and give certificate, &c. 92. Moneys deposited divided among towns according to census of 1860. - Provision for unorganized towns and gores. 93. On a new census; new apportion ment to be made. STATISTICS. Secretary of board of education to prescribe forms for school-register: to furnish them to town clerk ;-town clerk to forward receipt therefor to secretary; and on failure to receive such registers by first of February, to notify secretary thereof.-District clerk to procure register of town clerk. 110. Duties of school-teacher and district clerk relative to school register.No portion of public money to be distributed to any district whose register is not properly filled out and filed. 111. Town clerk to prepare abstract of returns, &c. 112. Returns of the town superintendents to the secretary of board; when to be made, &c. 113. Trustees of academies and gram- 114. School-house, how located.-Land 115. 116. Question of damages may be refer red. 117. Owner of land dissatisfied with lo- 119. Opening of land stayed; court may fix time of opening, and may award execution. 120. If lands are mortaged, damages to be paid mortgagee. THE SCHOOL LAW OF VERMONT, AS REVISED BY THE LEGISLATURE AT THEIR OCTOBER SESSION A. D. 1862. SECTION 1. The Governor shall annually nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint a board of education consisting of three persons, and the governor and lieutenant Governor of this State shall, for the time being, be ex-officio members thereof. SEC. 2. Said Board shall hold an annual meeting in Montpelier, commencing on Tuesday of the second week of the session of the Legislature, and one special meeting during the recess of the Legislature, and in the discretion of the Governor the time and place of holding such special meeting shall be designated by the Governor. SEC. 3. At the annual meeting said Board shall appoint a suitable and competent person to be Secretary of said Board of Education, whose duties shall be: first, to keep a record of all the official doings of said board; second, to exert himself constantly and faithfully to promote the highest interests of Education in the State, by and with the advice of the Board of Education; and to this end he shall hold annually, in connection with the Academies and Seminaries of the State, at least one Teachers' Institute in each county in the State and not more than two in any one county, and said institutes shall be holden at as central a point, in the several counties, as is practicable, during the fall and spring terms, of such schools. He shall during each year visit every part of the State, deliver lectures upon subjects pertaining to the interest of education, confer with Town Superintendents, and visit schools in connection with them, and furnish and distribute to them blank forms for collecting statistics of the various schools in the State. He shall prepare and present to the Board of Education, on the first day of their annual session, a report of his official doings, for the preceding year, and a statement of the condition of the common schools of the State; of the expenditure of the school moneys therein; and such suggestions for improving their organization and modes of instruction, together with such other information in regard to systems of school instruction in other states and countries, as he shall deem proper. SEC. 4. Said Board of Education shall, from time to time, as they shall judge proper, recommend to the Legislature such alterations, revisions or amendments of existing laws, relating to common schools and seminaries of learning, as in their judgment are demanded in order to the perfecting of a system of general education in the State, and they shall annually when required by a resolution of the House of representatives so to do, make a report of their official doings, and of the state and condition of the schools in the state, to the Legislature. SEC. 5. Said Board may at any time fill a vacancy in the board or office of Secretary. SEC. 6. The compensation to the members of said board, and the Secretary thereof, for their services, shall be as follows: To each member of the Board for each day's necessary attendance on the meetings of the same, the sum of three dollars, and the same mileage as is now provided by law for members of the legislature; to the Secretary the sum of one thousand dollars per year, and the expenses of procuring blank forms and postage; all of which allowances shall be paid by the Treasurer of the State, on the certificate of the Governor. SEC. 7. The list of Grammars, Geographies, Arithmetics, Readers and Spellers, which has been caused to be selected by the Board of Education under the act of the Legislature approved Nov. 23, 1858, to be used in the districts schools in this State, with such limitations of text books in each of said branches, as the said Board has seen fit to prescribe under said act; such selection having been made prior to the first day of January, 1859, and having been published in all the newspapers in the state in the month of January, 1859, and also inserted in each School Register; shall be and remain authoritative and binding upon the Board of Education, superintendents and teachers, until January first A. D. 1867, and Teachers and Superintendents shall recommend for use in the district schools, as new books shall become necessary for instruction in the branches named, no other than books included in said list so established. SEC. 8. The Secretary of the Board of Education shall annually prepare and print three thousand five hundred copies of his annual report, and have the same ready for distribution on the assembling of the Legislature in each year, and shall distribute the same as follows: one copy to each Town Superintendent; one copy to each district clerk; and one copy to each principal of a high school, union school or academy in the State; the necessary copies for all except the members of the legislature, to be forwarded by the Secretary to the various town clerks, and be by them distributed in the same manner in which the laws are distributed. TOWN SUPERINTENDENTS. SEC. 9. The several Towns in this State shall, at their annual March meeting, elect one person to be Superintendent of Common Schools within such Town, who shall hold his office during the school year commencing on the first day of April next after his election, and when appointed by the Selectmen, during the remainder of the then current school year; who shall receive for his services one dollar for each day necessarily spent in the discharge of his legal duties, and a reasonable sum for his annual report to the March meeting; and every superintendent of schools shall make out in detail his account for official services, stating the date and time spent, as well as the kind of service rendered, and the number of districts in which a school has been taught the year preceding, and make oath or affirmation to the correctness of the same, before some Justice of the Peace in the town in which he resides, which oath or affirmation shall be certified by said Justice before such superintendent's account shall be presented to the Auditor of Accounts for allowance, who shall audit and allow the same, or so much thereof as is just and reasonable, and the same shall be paid out of the state treasury upon the order of the Auditor of accounts; who is empowered to draw orders for the same ; but no order shall be drawn to any Superintendent until he shall have filed, with the Auditor of Accounts, the receipt of the Secretary of the Board of Education for the statistical returns of the preceding school year, in pursuance of the requirements of law; but no Superintendent shall receive compensation while visiting schools for a number of days greater than twice the number of districts in the town for which he acts as superintendent. SEC. 10. It shall be the duty of the Town Superintendent to visit all such common schools within their respective towns as shall be organized according to law, at least once in each year, and oftener if they shall deem it necessary. At such visitation, the Superintendents shall examine into the state and condition of such schools, as respects the progress of the school in learning and the order and government of the schools; and they may give advice to the Teacher of such schools as to the government thereof, and course of |