125 Ky. 445 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1907
Opinion op the Court by
Affirming.
This action involves the constitutionality of an act of the General Assembly of the commonwealth of Kentucky, approved March 21,1906, which establishes a system of normal schools in the State, and creates a board of regents to manage and control them, and makes an appropriation-of $50,000 for the benefit of the schools to be established. See Sess. Acts, 1906, p. 393, c. 102. The action was commenced by the appellant, E. A. Marsee, a citizen and taxpayer of Bell county, Ky., filing in the Franklin circuit court his petition seeking an injunction against the Auditor of the State, S. W. Hager, prohibiting him from paying over to the board of regents the sum of $50,000 appropriated for the establishment of the normal schools. It is not necessary to set out the allegations of the petition further than to say that they aptly raise the question of the constitutionality of the act, and that this is the sole question presented for adjudication.
In order to bring before the mind more clearly the object and purposes of the act in question, we will here insert the title, and the first and second sections of the body of the act. They are as follows:
“Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the commonwealth of Kentucky:
“Section 1. There shall be established and maintained, as hereinafter provided, two State normal schools in this State, as follows The ‘Eastern Kentucky State Normal School,’ to be located in normal school district No. 1, and the ‘Western Kentucky Normal School,’ to be located in normal school district No. 2, the boundary of which normal school districts shall be fixed by a commission appointed by the Governor, for the location of normal schools, as hereinafter provided, and which districts shall, as near as may be, be equal in population.
“Sec. 2. The object of said State normal schools shall be to more fully carry into effect the provisions of section 183 of the Constitution of Kentucky, by giving to the teachers of the commonwealth such training in the common school branches, science and art of teaching, and in such other branches as may he deemed necessary by the normal executive council, hereinafter created, as will enable them to make the schools throughout the State efficient. ’ ’
Appellant bases his claim of the invalidity of the act upon the proposition that it is in contravention of the provisions of section 184 of the Constitution, which is as follows: “The bond of the commonwealth issued
The question we have here was decided in the case of the Agricultural and Mechanical College v. Hager, 121 Ky. 1, 87 S. W. 1125, 27 Ky. Law Rep. 1178. That case involved the constitutionality of an appropriation by the legislature of the sum of $15,000 annually to the support and maintenance of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, this being in addition to the tax of one-half of 1 per cent, on each $100 worth of taxable property in the State authorized by the Constitution for the support of the college. The argument was made there, as here, that the appropriation was illegal because it was prohibited by section 184 of the Constitution. In the opinion in that case section 184 was analyzed and shown to consist of three distinct con
At the time the present Constitution was framed the normal school for white persons was carried on as a part of the Agricultural and Mieckanical' College, where it still, in part, is conducted. What the act in question does in practical effect is to separate this school into three parts, leaving one as a department of the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Lexington, Ky., and establishing two others at different points in the State, one at Richmond, and the other at Bowling Green, ICy. There is nothing in- section 184, or any other part of the Constitution to which our attention has been directed, that'militates against the power of the legislature to separate the normal school for white persons into as many parts as may be deemed appropriate and to divide the appropriation between the different schools, as may be thought proper. Certainly it will not be contended that the legislature lacks the power of making any appropriation it sees fit for the benefit of the normal school as conducted under the auspices of the Agricultural and Mechanical College. After setting forth the history and some of the misfortunes that had befallen the common school fund prior to the adoption of'the Constitution, and the reasons which caused the members of the convention to safeguard the fund from any danger of future diversion or loss, it was said in the
. The judgment of the trial court, sustaining the general demurrer to the petition, and dismissing it upon the failure of the appellant to amend, is affirmed.