1664

112

judices had to be met and healed, and proper plans for the
superstructure had to be devised. Had his life been spared,
to-day we should have seen more than the firm foundation
stone.

School, HOUSES.

The Report of last year notes the fact that our Board had
resolved to build ten new school houses the present year,
out of the County school levies for 1864 and 1865. It is re-

f retted that the Board have been unable to build a single
ouse.

Although the levy of 1864, was due six months before the
new system went into operation, the old Board of School
Commissioners had collected but $192, and now we can re-
port but $1,283,96, collected by our Board, leaving $2,524,06
yet uncollected. We can collect only through the County
Treasurer, to whom the collectors pay all County funds.
We have so urged the payment of this money as well aa the
levy of 1865, that the County Treasurer has instituted, sent
and obtained judgment for the levy of 1864.

It would be useless to commence the building of ten hou-
ses with such an amount, and until it and the levy of 1865
are collected we must "learn to labor and to wait."

To be without school houses, needed as they are in this
County, and to continue without them, at the will of our
tardy collectors,'is equivalent to an effectual clog to the sys-
tem.

At the suggestiou of the State Superintendent, the Board,
at its last meeting, adopted a new policy for building school
houses, i. e., when the proper location, title and plan shall
have been secured, three hundred dollars will be paid at the

completion of the house, and a mortgage of the property,
for the balance of the cost given to the school district or par-
ties building said house, payable when funds shall accrue to
meet these liabilities.

We have made diligent search and inquiry, for the titles
to our school houses and sites. Our information is so mea-
gre we cannot vouch for the authenticity of our statistics.
They are as accurate as they will ever be made. No one

can say when or by whom deeds were given. Without these
facts it would have been useless to ask the Clerk of the Coun-
ty to make a search. There prevails a general assent that
the houses are public property, nearly all have been built by
contributions and afterwards supported by the County Sehool
Board. The lots are held on still more obscure tenure. Many
of the house have been built upon church lots; these can
never be deeded to the Board of School Commissioners.
Others have been built upon sites, given verbally to those
contributors who built the houses. I doubt, if there be over