149 Ga. 704 | Ga. | 1920
(After stating the foregoing facts.) We are of the opinion that the court properly denied the mandamus. Under the law the common schools of this State are not compelled to receive and teach a child, irrespectively of the advancement of such child in his studies, from the time he is six years of age and until he has attained the age of eighteen years. When the public funds are only sufficient to authorize the teaching of the courses and books provided and selected for common schools, the authorities can not be compelled to give instruction to a child, though he is within school age, where he has completed the common-school courses and the text-books prescribed by the proper authorities. The constitution of 1877 contains the following: “There shall be a thorough system of common schools for the education of children in the elementary branches of an English education only, as nearly uniform as practicable, the expenses of which shall be provided for by taxation, or otherwise. The schools shall be free to all children of the State, but separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored races.” In the year 1903 the legislature passed an act entitled “An act to create a State School-book Commission,” etc. Acts 1903, p. 53, Civil Code, § 1439. Section 2 of that act reads, in part: “A uniform series of text-books shall be used in all the common schools of this State, to be adopted in the manner and for the time hereinafter provided, which uniform series of books shall be in use in all the common schools of this State, and shall include the following elementary branches of an English education only, to wit: orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography,