Alvord v. Inhabitants of Town of Chester

• Decision Date: 18 October 1901
• Citation: 180 Mass. 20,61 N.E. 263
• Parties: ALVORD v. INHABITANTS OF TOWN OF CHESTER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

180 Mass. 20

61 N.E. 263

ALVORD v. INHABITANTS OF TOWN OF CHESTER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

October 18, 1901

COUNSEL

C. D. Smith, for plaintiff.

Arthur S. Kneil, for defendant.

OPINION

BARKER, J.

The sole reason for the exclusion of the plaintiff from school was the regulation adopted by the school committee to the effect that children under the age of 7 years could not enter the school except at the beginning of the fall term, or within three or four weeks thereafter, unless qualified to enter classes existing in the school at the time of entry. This was a reasonable rule. Children under 7 years of age, although allowed to attend the public schools, are not required to attend. St. 1898, c. 496, § 12. Grading is a permitted, if not an essential, feature of the public school system. The introduction to a school of a very young scholar, late in the school year, if the scholar is not qualified to enter the existing classes, would tend strongly to impair the efficiency of the school, and so to prevent the other scholars from obtaining from it such advancement in learning and in training as would enable them to proceed with their education in due course. The right given to every child by St. 1898, c. 496, § 7, to attend the public schools, is not unqualified, but is 'subject to such reasonable regulations as to the numbers and qualifications of pupils to be admitted to the respective schools, and as to other school matters, as the school committee shall from time to time prescribe.' Nor was it essential to the validity of the regulation that it should be recorded in the permanent record book of the school committee, required by Pub. St. c. 44, § 27. That section directs the committee to appoint a secretary, and directs the secretary to keep a permanent record book, in which all the votes, orders, and proceedings of the committee shall be recorded. But this does not make invalid all rules and orders of the committee not so recorded. Russell v. Inhabitants of Lynnfield, 116 Mass. 365, 367. See, also, Libby v. Inhabitants of Douglass, 175 Mass. 128, 130, 55 N.E. 808.

Exceptions overruled.