32 Pa. 194 | Pa. | 1858
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This was an application for a mandamus to the defendants, to compel them to appropriate money for a public school in an alleged sub-school-district, in West Deer township, called No. 10. The petition also prays, that the defendants may be required by the writ to support a school, in a school-house erected in the sub-district; to recognise, by a proper entry upon the minute-book, the legal existence of said sub-school-district; and to place forthwith in the school-house a teacher, at a compensation, and for a period similar to the compensation paid, and period allowed, in other districts of the same township. The court below refused the writ, and the inquiry here is, whether the plaintiffs in error have shown a case which entitles them to it.
Though mandamus is a prerogative writ and demandable of common right, yet the applicant must in all eases establish a specific legal right, and the absence of a specific legal remedy. Tried by these tests, there is no warrant shown for the writ in this case. The allegations of the complainants are, that on or about the 10th of September, A. D. 1850, they, with others, presented a petition to the school directors of West Deer township, praying for the erection of a new school-district; that in answer to the prayer of the petition, the board of directors resolved, that the petitioners might have the privilege to build a school-house, provided they should build it at their own expense, and that they should have an equal share of the public moneys. The complainants also aver that these terms were accepted, that the board fixed the boundaries of a new district, that the school-, house was built therein, and that a school was maintained in it until the spring of the year 1857, the directors annually appropriating one hundred and twenty-five dollars for its support.
Nor is their ease better, even if it be admitted that No. 10 was originally constituted a sub-district. The policy of the legislature has always been to establish an uniform system of common schools. Independent school districts and sub-districts have indeed been allowed, but they have been allowed as exceptions; as excrescencies upon a system that would otherwise have been uniform. They have not been encouraged. This is emphatically declared by the Act of May 20th 1857, P. L. 587. Sub-districts existed to a limited extent under laws enacted prior to the Act of 1849, but the 88th section of that act repealed all former acts and parts of acts relative to the common school system which were supplied by, or
It is unnecessary then to inquire what legal remedies the relators may have. A preliminary requisite to the mandamus is wanting. They have no clear legal right.
The judgment of the Court of Common Pleas is affirmed.