PROTECTION OF SCHOOL PROPERTY.

SEC. 101. Every person who shall willfully injure or destroy any building used as a school-house, or for other educational purposes, or any furniture, fixtures or apparatus thereto belonging, or who shall deface, mar or disfigure any such building, furniture or fixture, by writing, painting, cutting or pasting thereon any likeness, figures, words or device, shall be fined in a sum double the value of any such buildings, furniture or apparatus so destroyed, and shall be fined in a sum not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars for each offense, for writing, painting, cutting or pasting in any such building, furniture or fixtures, any such words, figures, likeness, or device, to be recovered by civil proceeding in any court of competent jurisdiction; and the punishment provided in this section to be in addition to, and not in lieu of, the punishment provided by the statute regulating crimes and punishments for such offenses. Any subdistrict, township or county clerk, county superintendent or county treasurer, or other officer, who shall persistently neglect or refuse to perform any duty or duties pertaining to his office under this act, shall be regarded as guilty of a misdemeanor, and subject to a fine not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars, in any court of law in this State having competent jurisdiction.

APPORTIONMENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDS.
Basis and Time of Apportionment.

SEC. 94. The State Superintendent of Public Schools shall, annually, in the month of March, apportion the public school fund applied for the benefit of public schools among the different counties, upon the enumeration and returns made to his office, and shall certify the amount so apportioned to the State Auditor, also to the county clerk of each county, stating from what source the same is derived, which said sum the several county treasurers shall retain in their respective county treasuries from the State funds; and the county clerks shall, annually, and immediately after their annual settlement with the county

treasurers of their respective counties, according to the enumeration and returns in their offices, proceed to apportion the school funds for their respective counties; and no township or other district, city, or town which shall have failed to make and return such enumeration, shall be entitled to receive any portion of the public school funds; and in making such distribution, each county clerk shall apportion all moneys collected on the tax duplicate of any townships, for the use of schools, to such townships; all moneys received from the State Treasurer, and all moneys on account of interest of the funds accruing from the sale of section sixteen, or other lands in lieu thereof, to the congressional townships and parts of congressional townships to which such land belonged; and all other moneys for the use of schools in the county, and not otherwise appropriated by law, to the proper township; and he shall, immediately after making such apportionment, enter the same in a book to be kept for that purpose, and shall furnish the township clerks, and those of cities or villages, as the case may be, each with a copy of said apportionment, and order the county treasurer to place such amount to the credit of the township, city, or town entitled to receive the same: Provided, further, That no subdistrict, city, or town that shall have failed to afford the children thereof the privilege of a free school for at least three months during the year for which distribution is made, shall be entitled to any portion of the public school fund for that year.

SECTION 94:

EXPLANATION BY STATE SUPERINTENDENT.

(a) The apportionment in each year is based on the enumeration filed in the State Superintendent's office in November in the previous year. (b) No part of the State, county, or township school fund can be used to make up deficits in the estimates of any former year.

(c) These funds can be used only to pay teachers' wages. (d) No part of these funds can be legally distributed to any county, township, city, town, or village which has not supported a school for at least three months during the year for which the distribution is made, unless such city, town, village, etc., is newly organized.

(e) By the last clause of this section. it is apparent that the three months' school required must have been supported during the year in which the enumeration was taken, on which the apportionment is made. SEC. 95:

These fines and penalties are to become a part of the permanent school fund, and must not be used to meet the current expenses of the year. [See Sec. 74.]

Duties of County Clerk.

SEC. 95. The said county clerk shall collect, or cause to be collected, the fines and penalties and all other moneys for school purposes in his county, and pay the same over to the county treasurer, on account of the public school fund; and he shall inspect all accounts of interest for section sixteen and other school lands, whether the interest is paid by the State or by the debtors, and take all the proper measures to secure to each township its full amount of school funds.

COLORED SCHOOLS.

SECTION 1. The Township Boards of Education of this State, in their respective townships, and the several other Boards of Education, and the trustees and directors of schools, or other officers having authority in the premises, in each city or incorporated village, shall be and they are hereby authorized and required to establish, within their respectve jurisdiction, one or more separate schools for colored children, when the whole number, by enumeration, exceeds fifteen, so as to afford them the advantages and privileges of a common school education; and all such schools so established for colored children shall be under the control and management of the Board of Education, or other school officers, who have in charge the educational interests of the other schools; but in case the average number of colored children in attendance shall be less than ten for any one month, it shall be the duty of said Board of Education or other school officers to discontinue said school or schools for any period not exceeding six months at any one time; and if the number of colored children shall be less than ten, the Board of Education shall reserve the money raised on the number of said colored children, and the money so reserved shall be appropriated as they may deem proper for the education of such colored children: Provided, That whenever, in the opinion of any Board of Education of any township or townships, or incorporated towns, the educational interests of the colored children will be promoted thereby, then such board or boards shall be and they are hereby authorized to form one

school district by the union of two or more school districts or subdistricts, or one of each, for the purpose of establishing a separate school for colored children. Any district so formed shall be under the control and management of a Board of Education to be composed of the presidents of the Boards of Education residing in such districts: Provided, There shall be three or more; but if the number be less than three, then the deficiency shall be made up by an election at the time other school officers shall be elected in such districts, as provided by law. It shall be the duty of the Board of Education for any district so formed to keep up a school in such district the same number of months that other schools are required by law to be kept up in the territory included in such district, and for this purpose to rent or cause to be erected a school building in such place within such district as shall best subserve the interest of the colored children therein, and to this end such board is hereby invested with the same authority to raise the necessary funds as is by law conferred on the Boards of Education in incorporated towns. In all other respects the terms and advantages of said schools shall be equal to others of the same grade in their respective townships, cities and villages, and the township boards may, in their respective townships, admit into the schools provided for in this section, persons over twenty-one years of age. [March 1, 1869.]

PUBLIC SAFETY.

SECTION 1. All the doors for ingress and egress to and from all public school-houses and other public buildings, and also of all theatres, assembly rooms, halls, churches, factories with more than twenty employees, and all other buildings or places of public resort whatever, where people are wont to assemble, excepting school-houses or churches of one room on the ground floor, which shall hereafter be erected, together with all those heretofore erected, and which are still in use as such public buildings or places of resort, shall be so hung as to open outwardly from the audience rooms, halls or workshops of such buildings or places, Provided, That said doors may be hung on double-jointed hinges, so as to open with equal ease outwardly and inwardly.

SEC. 2. Any architect, superintendent, or other person or persons, or body corporate, who may have charge of the erection, or may have the control or custody of any of the said buildings or places of resort mentioned in section one of this act, who shall refuse or fail to comply with the provisions of said first section within six months from the passage of this act, in cases of said buildings or places aforesaid, which have been heretofore erected, and before the completion or occupation for said purposes of any of said buildings or places now in process of erection, shall, on proof of such refusal or failure before any court of competent jurisdiction, be adjudged to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, which said fine shall be collected as is now provided by law for the collection of fines in such cases, and when collected shall be paid into and become a part of the public school fund of the county or city or incorporated town in which said misdemeanor was committed. [March 9, 1872.]

AN ACT

In relation to the qualifications of the Directors of the St. Louis Public

Schools.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows:

SECTION 1. No Director of the St. Louis Public Schools shall be directly or indirectly interested in contracts for building or repairing school-houses, nor in furnishing supplies to the schools, and any Director becoming so interested shall be immediately suspended by the President of the Board, who shall notify the Board of Directors of such fact, whereupon the Board of Directors shall, as soon as practicable, convene to hear and determine the same, and if by a two-third vote of the Board of Directors he be found so interested, he shall be immediately dismissed from the Board, and the President shall issue a proclamation for an election to fill the vacancy.

SEC. 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Approved March 24, 1870.