THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION BILL OF NEW YORK.
On Sunday, November 19, 1893, in The Sunday Democrat, a “Weekly Family Journal devoted to the Propagation and Defense of Catholic Truth, Irish Home Rule, Literature, Politics, &c.,” published in New York City, there appeared the following text of a proposed law:— A REMEDY FOR EDUCATIONAL GRIEVANCES.
The following bill will be proposed by a Republican senator at an early session of the next Legislature: AN ACT FOR THE PROMOTION OF EDUCATION THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
(Drafted by Denis A. Spellissy, of the New York Bar.) The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:— SECTION 1. That whenever any individual, or body, or association of individuals, or any organization of persons, incorporated or unincorporated, shall have established a school for the free education of youth in the primary branches of education, to wit, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and such school shall have been in existence for the term of at least one year, with not less than fifty pupils in regular attendance, and shall have been submitted to a satisfactory inspection and examination thereof by the State or local board of school trustees, or such other persons as may from time to time be designated for the purpose, the person or persons, association or organization conducting or managing such school, shall be entitled to receive from the State (or city, or county, or district) each year a share of all State and other moneys now directed to be apportioned and distributed among the common schools, the same to be apportioned and distributed among them as directed to be apportioned and distributed among the common schools by chapter 555 of the Laws of 1864. SEC. 2. Such sums shall be paid annually from time to time; provided, that such school shall be always open at reasonable times for inspection, as aforesaid, and that the pupils shall have passed a satisfactory examination at such stated times as may be determined by the board of school trustees in accordance with usages and regulations in force for the public schools of the State. SEC. 3. The provisions of this act shall apply only to primary and grammar schools, or schools in which the course of study is substantially equal to that in use in the public schools of the State. The same paper contains a copy of a petition to the Legislature of New York asking that body “that the school fund be distributed in due proportion to every school whose efficiency in secular education shall satisfy the Education Department of the State.”