No. 194 | Pa. | May 29, 1885
The Supreme Court reversed the decree of the Quarter Sessions on May 29, 1885, in the following opinion per:
This case is brought here upon a certiorari, and in the consideration of it we are necessarily confined to such questions as are
Independent common school districts can now be created only under the Act of 8th of May, 1855, and the amendment thereto of 20th May, 1857. It is conceded that if the proceedings were conducted under the provisions of the Act of 8th May, 1855, alone, the record is full and complete. The contention turns therefore upon the effect of the Act of 20th May, 1857.
The sections of the Acts of Assembly referred to, so far as they have any relevance to the question involved, are as follows:
Act 5th May, 1855, Sec.-5: “Upon petition of not less than twenty taxable inhabitants of any township or townships desiring the formation of the territory upon which they reside' into a separate and independent common school district, the Court of Quarter Sessions of the proper County shall appoint commissioners to view the premises,-and report to the Court at its next term the lines of the proposed new district, either according 'to the bounds set forth in the petition or to such other bounds as they shall think more advisable, together with their opinion on the expediency of establishing or not establishing the same ; the proceedings upon which petition, commissioners’ report, and the final disposition thereof, shall in all other respects be according to the Act of Assembly now in force, relative to the erection of new townships.”
Act 20th May, 1857, Sec. 1: “The true intent and meaning of the provisions of the supplement to the general school law, approved the 8th day of May, 1855, for the creation of independent school districts, was and is to provide in a guarded manner for
In the case at bar, the commissioners in their report find that “after due consideration and full inquiry on the expediency of establishing or not establishing an independent school district,
The facts which will justify a Court in an interference with the general organization of the schools are particular and specific, and they should so appear. The record should exhibit the nature of the obstacle alleged, which, whether natural or artificial, •cannot be of any other than a physical character. No difference in race or religion, no supposed social or political incompatibility, ¡no consideration of wealth or poverty, of intelligence or ignorance, can be recognized as furnishing any adequate obstacle to the-general organization under the discretion of the boaid of ¡school directors. It is one of the most beneficent purposes of our general system of popular education that all classes and conditions of society, irrespective of the considerations referred to, shall be taught in the same schools. The tendency and effect of such a system is to obliterate, or at least to solidify and strengthen, the seams which must otherwise permeate our civil and social affairs, to assimilate our varied population, and to cultivate that tolerance and equality which is the distinguishing characteristic of the government under which we live.
The.general regulation of our common schools has been wisely given to the various boards of school directors and controllers throughout the State. The- establishment of independent, districts often operates as a serious derangement of that general ■organization, affects the location of school houses, and creates serious local disputes, to the'great disparagement of the system. They are therefore not encouraged; under the general Act of 1854, all laws relating to or creating them wore repealed, and the plain policy of the law since that repeal is to provide in' a
In Conley v. School Directors of West Deer Township, 8 Cas. 196 this Court said: “The policy of the Legislature has always been to establish a uniform system of common schools. Independent school districts and sub-districts have indeed been allowed as exceptions — as excrescences upon a system which would otherwise have been uniform ; they have, not been encouraged. This is emphatically declared by the Act of May 20, 1857.”
In Independent School District Sewiekley Township, 9 Casey 300, 301, it was said of the Act just referred to : “It declares such districts to be against the general policy of the law, and it was designed to impose new obstacles in the way of their continuance rather than to facilitate their creation.”
We are of the opinion that the decree in this case was wrongly entered.
The proceedings and decree of the Quarter Sessions are therefore reversed, and the record remitted.