State Department ofEducauon/233

The idea that the new republic needed educated citizens had some impact in Maryland. In 1798, a
prominent educator exhorted the General Assembly to establish a State board of education and a uniform
system of public schools. In 1812, the State began to raise money for a Free School Fund by taxing the
renewal of bank charters (Chapter 79, Acts of 1812). Legislation followed in 1816 providing for nine
Commissioners of the School Fund in each county to distribute the Free School Fund (Chapter 256, Acts
of 1816). Realizing that Fund monies would not be sufficient, five counties requested the first property
tax assessment to pay for the education of poor children (Chapter 244, Acts of 1816). Caroline County
voters were given the option of deciding whether their public school would be supported by voluntary
contributions or property taxes (Chapter 250, Acts of 1816).

Some public schools were founded; a pattern of local diversity also was established with no statewide
uniformity or accountability. The legislature kept passing local laws relating to public education for each
county, and sometimes for the districts within a county Legislative appropriations were continued to
favored private academies, while the Free School Fund dribbled monies to the county boards which could
divert funds to academies, invest the funds, or actually expend them on local schools.

A uniform system of primary school education for Maryland was attempted in 1825 (Chapter 162,
Acts of 1825). Subject to referendum, the law was ratified only by a few counties and then amended
repeatedly by local legislation until little uniformity remained. The act called for a Superintendent of Public
Instruction to prepare a statewide plan for education and oversee its execution. The levy court in each
county was to appoint nine commissioners of primary schools who would divide the county into school
districts, call a meeting of the taxpayers of each district, and receive the county's share of the Free School
Fund, accruing under the act of 1812. Taxpayers in each school district were to elect a clerk and three
trustees, select a site for a schoolhouse, and vote on a rate of tax to support the district school. The trustees
were in charge of building, repairing, and furnishing their district school, as well as hiring the teacher and
submitting an annual report. Appointed by the levy court, school inspectors nor only were to visit each
school in the county, but also to certify teachers. This requirement may have reflected dissatisfaction with
unqualified teachers; however, since no education was required to be a school inspector, the standards for
teacher certification potentially could be very disparate.

Baltimore City was excepted from the provisions of the 1825 act if it established its own system of
public education by 1830. This precedent caused problems later, as the vigorous resistance of Baltimore
City to each successive attempt at a statewide system certainly caused several efforts to fail. Baltimore City
opened its first public school in 1829, charged tuition of one dollar per term, and had an impressive
percentage of its children, girls and boys, enrolled in schools.

In 1837, the General Assembly again considered public education. The interest on Maryland's share
of surplus federal revenue (roughly one million dollars invested at 5%) was set aside to support free schools
(Chapter 285, Acts of 1837). Half was to be distributed according to the proportion of white population;

the other half was to be divided into twenty-one equal parts and a part allotted to each county and
Baltimore City. In anticipation of these funds, the House Committee on Education had looked into the
expediency of establishing a uniform system of public education and the propriety of using the State's
share of surplus federal revenue for education. The Committee's report in 1836 favored a general system
of public instruction supported by a combination of Stare funds and district taxation, such as that set up
by the 1825 law, which since its passage had "slumbered on the statute book" (Maryland Public Documents,
1836, 0). The report then cited Anne Arundel County as an example of the successful implementation
of the act, even though it had been amended to meet local needs. Also, the Committee had been unable
to obtain any statistical information about the Anne Arundel County schools and went by hearsay The
Committee could not agree on whether to continue support to academies and colleges or use those funds
to establish a university. The majority thought that a university would benefit only the wealthy

Despite the Committee's belief that the 1825 act made the best provision for schools in Maryland, the
legislature in 1842 directed the Secretary of State, the Treasurer of the Western Shore, and the State
Librarian to draft new legislation in the form of a code for the government of common schools and for
the promotion of general education. They studied the organization of schools in New England and New
York and concluded that Maryland's great deficiency was the lack of an administrative head. (Under the
1825 act, Maryland's Governor had appointed a Superintendent of Public Instruction, but after 1827 no
one seems to have served in that capacity) Northern states required annual reports from each school district
which were then compiled for legislative review. In Maryland, the Committee in 1836 could not get
statistics from just one county; for the 1843 report, statistics were requested from all twenty-one counties.
Only fourteen responded, and the information submitted was incomplete. The proposed Code for the
Support of Common Schools presented to the legislature in 1843 retained much of the local structure
found in the act of 1825. It followed New York and Pennsylvania practice by designating the Secretary of