XIV REPORT OF THE

ing precarious and uncertain the provision for the payment
of teachers which, is now provided for quarterly, oa or near
the days of payment to such, teachers, by the quarterly dis-
tributions from the State Treasury.

The Act of 1872, Chapter 377, Sub-Chapter 4, Section
5, which is the law now in force on the subject, enacts and
declares that "the State School Tax and Free School Fund
are primarily intended under this Act to pay the salaries of
the teachers of the several counties, and to provide school
books and stationery for the children of the State." The
amount distributed by the State to the several Counties and
City of Baltimore during the school year 1876, was, from
School Tax, $537,244.75, and from the income of the school
funds, $21,270.87; total $558,515.62. By an examination
of the report of the State Board of Education made to the
Governor for the year ending 30th September 1876, page 8,
it will be seen that the total amount paid for teachers' salaries
during the year, in the counties, was $598,741.97. In view
of the large amount thus necessary for the payment of
teachers' salaries, it is important that the means provided by
the State, should be available to the County School Boards,
on the several days on which the quarterly payments
become due, and as there are no banks and public places of
safe deposit in a large majority of the counties, the money
thus to be distributed cannot be in a more safe condition to
await such quarterly payments, than in the State Treasury:
where, according to the construction put upon the meaning of
the law by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction,
and by every incumbent of the Comptroller's Office from the
passage of the original Act, in 1865, to the present time, it
was the design of the Legislature it should remain, to await
the quarterly apportionments, directed by law. The clause in
the Act directing the quarterly apportionments, it is believed,
has been construed correctly, but to obviate any possible
doubt on the subject, it should be amended at the present
session so as positively, and with certainty, to provide for
four quarterly payments of the school tax in same as nearly
equal as possible. The total amount paid by the State from
school tax and income of the school funds, and levied by the