noting that the term “uniform” qualifies the word “system” and requires only that provision be made “for establishment of schools of like kind throughout all sections of the State and available to all of the school population of the territories contributing to their support” (citations omitted)
How later courts described this case
- noting that the term “uniform” qualifies the word “system” and requires only that provision be made “for establishment of schools of like kind throughout all sections of the State and available to all of the school population of the territories contributing to their support” (citations omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*475 Clark, C. J.,
concurring: Wben the Legislature authorized the establishment of four high schools in each county, it enacted a uniform system. At first, probably, but few counties could comply to the full extent. The enactment has been in force many years, and now all but four counties out of 100 have, each, prescribed four high schools. Certainly, the system cannot be overthrown and destroyed because one or more counties have not complied with the statute. That is not a defect or invalidity in the statute, but the fault of the counties which have not complied with the law.
As the counsel for the plaintiff well said, "The public high schools are the poor man’s university.”- They afford an opportunity for education to those who have passed through the lower grades of the public schools, but who are without means to attend the State University or other institutions of higher learning. To strike them-out would be to deny the benefit of a common-school education to most of the children after the age of 15 or • 16 years', when they have ordinarily completed the common-school course, and would destroy a most important part of our common-school system.
If it were possible to hold the high schools of this State invalid because four counties have not yet complied with the requirement in regard to them, it would strike a paralyzing blow at the prosperity of the State, which depends upon nothing that the State can do so much as upon our public school system.
We know by the reports of the Superintendent of Public Schools, of which this Court takes judicial notice, that the State has already invested nearly $2,000,000 in high-school buildings and property, and that more than 10,000 students, among them numbers of the brightest youths of the State, of both sexes, to whom our people look forward with hope and pride, are annually attending these institutions. What would become of this great investment, and of the opportunities now afforded more than 10,000 intelligent, ambitious, hopeful youths, if the high schools should now be struck down? The suggestion that it be done should receive but one answer- — the injunction given by the Senate at Rome on more than one memorable occasion, “Ut respublica ne quid det-rimenti caperei” — “See to it that the republic shall receive no harm.”