*343.* _Parent, Education, State, Parochial Schools._—The right of the
parent to use judgment as to the proper necessaries of his child,
including board, lodging, and education, is generally conceded. However,
there must be no abuse of these parental rights, as the child also has
rights that even a parent can not infringe. Therefore, the State may
require a reasonable opportunity for the education of every child; and if
the parent can not give it on account of his poverty, it is in the power
of the State to take his child in charge and furnish him an education. The
right of the State to make laws requiring a parent to send his child to
school between certain ages, as from four to twenty-one years, is well
settled. The question of the parent’s being obliged to send his child to
the public schools or being forbidden to send his child to a private or
parochial school, is not settled in some States; but it is being settled
in favor of the parent. The Kentucky constitution contains this provision:
“... nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to
which he may be conscientiously opposed.”(610) The right of the State to
supervise or inspect private and parochial schools under the police power
of the State can not be questioned.(611)
*344.* _Orphan Asylums, School Moneys._—In 1850 the New York Legislature
enacted a law as follows: “The schools of the several incorporated orphan
asylums within the State other than those in the city of New York, shall
participate in the distribution of the school moneys in the same manner
and to the same extent in proportion to the number of children educated
therein, as the common schools in their respective cities and districts.”
The court ruled that moneys devoted by the constitution to the State for
the support of common schools could not be distributed under the act, for
the reason that such asylums are not public schools; but moneys from other
sources might be paid for the education of such orphan children in
proportion to their number to those educated in the common schools of
their respective cities and districts.(612) The schools kept by the Roman
Catholic Orphan Asylum Society of the city of Brooklyn, are not common
schools within the meaning of the constitution, and a provision of law
that such schools should share in the distribution of school moneys raised
by the State was void.(613)
*345.* _Contract, Direct Payment, Lease._—No school of any denomination or
sect is entitled to public moneys for its support, either by contract for
the education of students therein or by direct payment from the
government.(614) A school conducted by the Catholic Church in which
religious instruction is given to Catholic children is a sectarian
institution within the constitutional provision against using public funds
for sectarian purposes; but public school money expended for such a school
conducted by this school district could not be recovered by suit against
the school officers.(615) Also, a school maintained as a charity under
direction of trustees elected by the town where they must be of a certain
religion, is not entitled to public moneys.(616) But the lease of a part
of a parochial school building or the basement of a church for public
school purposed does not violate the law.(617) In the States of Maine,
Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, and Texas, the reading of the
King James Bible and the singing of hymns and saying prayers have been
held not sectarian.(618) But in Wisconsin, the court ruled the other
way.(619)
*346.* _Teacher, Lord’s Prayer, Exercise._—“A public school teacher, who,
for the purpose of quieting the pupils and preparing them for their
regular studies, repeats the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-second Psalm as
a morning exercise, without comment or remark, in which none of the pupils
are required to participate, is not conducting a form of religious worship
or giving sectarian or religious instruction.”(620) Substantially the same
rule applies in Pennsylvania.(621) However, similar religious exercises
conducted by Catholic teachers have generally been held sectarian and not
permissible in public schools.(622)
*347.* _Ohio, Directors, Bible._—The constitution of the State of Ohio
does not enjoin nor require religious instruction or the reading of
religious books in the public schools. The board of directors of a
district has charge of the instruction and books to be used therein, and
their official discretion will not be interfered with. Therefore, they
were authorized to have the Bible read at the opening of the school.(623)
*348.* _Public School, Bible, Prayer._—The committee having control of a
public school may make a rule requiring the school to be opened by reading
from the Bible and prayer every morning, and that each child shall bow the
head during such prayers; that any scholar shall be excused from bowing
the head whose parents request it; and when any scholar refuses to obey
such rule and his parents refuse to request that he shall be excused, the
committee may exclude such scholar from the school.(624)
*349.* _Text-Books, State._—The State has the power to grant authority to
the State Board of Education to select and prescribe text-books to be used
in the public schools of the State.(625)
*350.* _Bible, Conscience, Constitution._—The parent of a child expelled
from the public school can not maintain an action against the school
committee by whose orders it was done. In the same case it was held that a
rule requiring every scholar to read a particular version of the Bible,
though it may be against the conscience of some to do so, does not violate
the letter or spirit of the constitution.(626)
*351.* _Schoolhouse, Sunday-School Purposes._—The inhabitants of a school
district have no right to use the schoolhouse for religious meeting on
Sunday against the objection of any taxpayer in the district,
notwithstanding that the officers of the district granted such right. A
taxpayer may obtain an injunction against such use, although the injury to
him be very slight, as he has no other remedy.(627) A district school
board can not authorize the use of the schoolhouse for any other than
school purposes.(628)
*352.* _Child, Immoral Character._—The school committee in order to
maintain purity and discipline, may exclude therefrom a child whom they
deem to be of licentious or immoral character, although such character is
not manifested in acts of licentiousness or immorality within the
school.(629)
*353.* _Parents, Studies, Teacher._—The requirement of a teacher that a
scholar in grammar shall write English composition is a reasonable one,
and refusal to comply therewith in the absence of a request from his
parents that he be excused therefrom, will justify the expulsion of a
scholar from school.(630) But when a parent selects certain studies that
the law provides to be taught for his child to study, the teacher has no
right to insist that the child shall take some other study and inflict
punishment to enforce obedience.(631)
*354.* _Chastisement, Cruel._—The chastisement of a scholar by the
schoolmaster must not be excessive or cruel, but it should be reasonably
proportioned to the offense and within the bounds of moderation.(632)
*355.* _Schoolmaster, Authority._—Although a schoolmaster has in general
no right to punish a pupil for misconduct after the dismissal of the
school for the day and the return of the pupil to his home, yet he may on
the pupil’s return to school punish him for any misbehavior, though
committed out of school, which has a direct and immediate tendency to
injure the school and to subvert the master’s authority. The fact that the
master acted in good faith will not excuse him from damages for the
punishment of a scholar where the punishment is clearly excessive and
unnecessary. However, where there is a reasonable doubt the master should
have the benefit of it.(633)
*356.* _Force, Assistance._—And where a scholar in school hours places
himself in the desk of the instructor and refuses to leave it on the
request of the master, the master may immediately use such force and call
to his assistance such aid from another person as may be necessary to
remove the scholar. The same rule would apply to any one who is not a
scholar and intrudes upon the school.(634)
*357.* _White, Unmarried._—Before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment
it was necessary in most States that in addition to the child being under
twenty-one years of age, he must be of white blood and unmarried.(635) In
Ohio, negroes, Indians, and children of less than half white blood, were
not entitled to the benefit of the school fund; and even where this would
entirely exclude from school children not sufficient to form a district,
still it was held that such children could not attend the white
school.(636)
*358.* _Facilities, the Constitution._—So long as abundant facilities are
given for the education of all the children of a district, it is not a
violation of the constitution of the United States to keep negro and white
people separated. The same rule applies to courts.(637)
*359.* _Residents, Public Schools._—Children in a German Protestant orphan
asylum are not “children, wards, or apprentices of actual residents” in
the district of the asylum, and therefore are not entitled to enter the
public schools of the district.(638)
*360.* _Board, Majority._—Two of the three members of a school board have
no authority to act by themselves, and their individual agreement to
dismiss a teacher is void. A school board can only act at a duly called
meeting of the board, and then the majority vote duly taken decides.(639)