The available school fund has had an enormous growth since 1880. In 1880 the receipts to the fund from taxes were only $497,166.40 and from interest on the permanent school fund, $198,317.79; and the combined receipts from these two principal sources of revenue were $695,484.19. The receipts from the permanent fund were $18,672.45 from interest on land sales and $179,645.34 from interest on state and railroad bonds. On August 31, 1915, the receipts to the available fund from taxes were $5,851,761.82, and from the permanent fund $2,147,297.35, a total of $7,999,059.17. Interest on land sales provided after taxes the largest revenue, amounting to $1,319,401.20 in 1915; interest on county and common school district bonds came next with $385,767.20; then, in order, interest on city and independent school district bonds, $323,922.67; interest on state bonds, $87,-605; interest on railroad bonds, $16,052.40; interest on state penitentiary railroad bonds, $5,000; interest on deposits, $1,751.16; land leases, $669.53, and unclassified, $7,127.69.1

The receipts from taxes during the thirty-two years 1880-1912 were $64,549,279.31 and from interest on the permanent fund and lease of lands, $38,996,079.38. The constituents of the receipts from the permanent fund were $18,785,708.73 from interest on land sales; $7,465,427.75 from interest on county, city and school district bonds; $6,910,707.97 from lease of lands; $3,868,581.63 from interest on state bonds; $1,546,193.91 from interest on railroad bonds; $371,018.24 from state and railroad bonds not separated in amounts; $31,376.55 from interest on state penitentiary railroad bonds; and $17,064 from interest on deposits.

Owing to the reduction of the available school fund's share of the general revenue in 1880 and 1881 to one-sixth, the years 1880 and 1881 make the poorest showing as to the amount of the available fund and per capita apportionment for any years since 1877. The amount apportioned in 1880 was $679,317, the per capita apportionment was $3.00, and the scholastic ages were from eight to fourteen. One-sixth of the general revenue rate was equivalent to a school tax rate of six and two-thirds cents in 1880 and five cents in 1881. The school tax rate in 1915 was 20 cents, the amount apportioned was $8,772,109, the per capital apportionment was $8.00, and the scholastic ages were from seven to sixteen.1 But between 1880 and 1915 a number of changes were made which related to the available fund.

1 Report of the Comptroller, 1915, p. 6.

The share of the general revenue going to the available school fund was restored to one-fourth for 1882 and 1883, and this was equivalent to an ad valorem rate of 7 1/2 cents each year.

The early eighties were critical years in the history of the available school fund. There was then a considerable number of people in the state who were hostile to public education and opposed to any system better than the one that was then in operation.2 There were also those people who looked forward to a marvelous growth of the permanent school fund which would provide such an income to the available fund as would render unnecessary any taxation for educational purposes.3 But the educational situation in the early eighties in Texas was lamentable. The average school term in 1880 was seventy-two days, though the constitution contemplated one hundred and twenty days.4 The average salary of white male teachers was $34, that of female teachers, $28. There were no local school taxes levied in the state in 1880, except in two or three independent city districts,5 so that the support of the schools was solely the meager dole of the state out of the available school fund.

Friends of public education realized that to rely upon the income from the permanent fund to provide an adequate system of public common schools was a delusion and that the only way to secure such a system was by state and local taxation.6 The state platform of the Democratic party in 1882 called for the submission of a constitutional amendment providing for a special school tax,1 and in 1883 an amendment was adopted which authorized a special state school tax not to exceed twenty cents on the one hundred dollars' valuation.2 At the same time the opportunity for local taxation was enlarged by the authority granted to form school districts within the counties and to levy a district tax not to exceed twenty cents on the one hundred dollars' valuation.3

1 Owing to failure to collect all of the revenues, the school board was unable to apportion the full amount agreed upon, $8,772,109. About $7 was paid out in 1915, and the remaining $1 was paid in 1916.

2 See the Galveston News, April 7, 1881.

3 See the Galveston News, July 2 and 8, 1882.

4 Biennial Report of the State Board of Education, 1879-1880, p. 3.

5 Ibid., p. 6. Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1897-1898, p. V.

6 Galveston News, July 2, 1882. Biennial Report of the State Board of Education, 1879-1880, p. 6.

A state school tax of 12% cents was adopted for 1884 and that rate was unchanged until 1895.4 But reliance upon the income from the permanent fund rather than upon taxation and also the defective or inefficient administrative handling of the available fund resulted in numerous temporary deficiencies in the fund. Teachers already poorly paid had their salaries diminished by having to sell their salary warrants at a heavy discount.

One cause of the deficiencies which commonly made their appearance during the late summer and early fall months was the exhaustion of the balance carried over from the previous fiscal year and the practical absence of any tax payments during these months.5 Another cause was the fluctuation in the receipts from interest on land sales and from lease of lands.6 For example, the receipts from interest on land sales fell from $455,379 in 1885 to $340,166 in 1886, and from $616,284 in 1893 to $282,823 in 1894. A drought would parch the western part of the state, as was the case in 1888, and the legislature would very justly grant to delinquent purchasers several months extension for the payment of interest, but this would cause a deficiency in the available school fund. There were deficiencies in 1887, 1888 and 1889, and in 1888 the available school fund was loaned $504,000 out of the general revenue in order that the outstanding warrants against the fund could be paid.7 $254,000 of this amount was a loan without interest and was to be returned not later than January 1, 1895, if the condition of the available fund at that date should warrant it. It was not returned. The other $250,000 was the loan of a sinking fund for the state bonds maturing in 1890 and 1891. It, too, was never repaid. But in spite of this loan there was a deficit in the following year, 1889.1

1 Galveston News, September 12, 1882. See also issues of February 22 and March 3, 1883.

2 Laws of 1884, pp. IV and 38.

3 Laws of 1884, p. 38.

4 Laws of 1884, p. 67.

5 Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1887-1888, p. 19.

6 Reports of the comptroller, 1887, 1888. Galveston News, April 24, 1888. Message of Governor Culberson, January 16, 1895; House Journal, 24th Leg., p. 52.

7 Laws of 1888, p. 7.

The vicissitudes of the school fund during the latter eighties explain the adoption of the "Jester Amendment" by which one per cent of the permanent school fund was transferred. The first transfer was made in 1892, the last in 1898, and a total of $1,336,461.68 was transferred. But this law was ineffective to prevent deficiencies, and on August 31, 1894, the amount of the deficiency was $659,468.50.2 During the preceding years of financial depression and of inefficient administration, there accumulated arrears of interest on land sales and of lease payments estimated to amount to $1,000,000 on January 1, 1895.3 To meet the bad conditions the state school tax rate was fixed at 20 cents for 1895 and at 18 cents thereafter. The rate remained at 18 cents until 1907 when it was again fixed at 20 cents, but from 1907 through 1912 it was 16% cents. In 1913 the rate was 17 cents and in 1914 and 1915 it was 20 cents. The increase in the rate for 1907 was to compensate for the loss to the fund from the expected repeal of the license taxes upon the so-called useful occupations.4

The school tax rate has been fixed since 1907 by the automatic tax rate board.5 The board fixes a rate which will produce $4 per capita of the children within the scholastic ages, provided the rate does not exceed the constitutional limit of twenty cents. In 1908 the constitutional maximum of the independent school district tax was raised to 20 cents.6 Local taxes for public schools increased from $469,392 in 1891 to $5,642,482 in 1911.7

1 Galveston News, April 4, 1889.

2 Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1893-1894, p. IX.

3 Message of Governor Culberson, January 16, 1895. 4Laws of 1907, p. 141. 5Laws of 1907, p. 465.

6 Laws of 1909, p. 18. *

7 The statistics for 1911 are taken from the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1912, vol. 2, p. 14.

The system of distribution of the available school fund among the counties of the state has been frequently criticized.1 Apportionment on the basis of scholastic population operates to cause a certain inequality between the counties which have a large margin between school attendance and scholastic population and the counties which have a small margin. The compulsory education law will be one remedy for this inequality, while another remedy would be to base apportionment on the number in attendance on the schools the previous year. Another inequality charged against the present system of distribution is that some of the wealthier counties take out of the fund more than they contribute in taxes. This is rank injustice, but it is due rather to the weakness in the state's system of assessing property for state purposes than to the method of apportionment of the school funds.

Though Texas has the largest permanent school fund of any state in the Union and though the available school fund bulks large in absolute amount, the state ranks low in educational standards. Progress is being made, however, as is shown by the increase in the expenditures per capita of population and in the growth in the per cent of the scholastic population enrolled in the public schools.2 In 1915 a compulsory education law was adopted, and an appropriation of $500,000 a year for two years in aid of the country public schools was made.3 These were epochal measures and will promote greatly the educational progress of the state.

1 Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1885-1886, p. 14; 1897-1898, p. XV.

2 Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1912, vol. 2, pp. 8 and 15.

3 Laws of 1915, Reg. Sess., p. 92. Laws of 1915, Spec. Sess., p. 22.