Black v. Cornell

• Decision Date: 24 April 1888
• Parties: JOHN H. BLACK et al., Appellants, v. BENJAMIN F. CORNELL et al., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

30 Mo.App. 641

JOHN H. BLACK et al., Appellants, v. BENJAMIN F. CORNELL et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of Missouri, St. Louis.

April 24, 1888

APPEAL from the Knox Circuit Court, HON. BEN. E. TURNER, Judge.

Reversed and remanded.

BLAIR & MARCHAND, for the appellants: Our school law was first made for white children alone, and in construing it that fact must be kept before the mind-- that the powers indicated have been fully granted to the districts and directors, we cite Revised Statutes, sections 7031, 7032, 7033, 7044, 7045, 7046; Acts 1881, pp. 199, 200, 201, 209; Acts 1883, p. 185; Acts, 1885, pp. 239, 240. Colored schools were established but no provision as to building schoolhouses for them was made. After they were established we find a provision in our school law for paying rent, and not before--the provision for paying rents must, therefore, be construed as applicable to those schools and no others. 2 Wag. Stat., 1872, secs. 45 46; Rev. Stat., 1879, sec. 7067; Acts 1883, p. 1392. The provisions of the school law must be strictly construed or else its objects and purposes will be defeated. Full provisions are made for white schools in regard to sites and schoolhouses, and teaching schools therein, and hence no necessity for implied powers. Smith v. Township Board, 58 Mo. 297; Loomis v. Coleman, 51 Mo 21; Chambers v. Board Ed., 60 Mo. 370; Rice v McClelland, 58 Mo. 116; Dritt v. Snodgrass, 66 Mo. 286; Seibert v. Botts, 57 Mo. 430; Dorton v. Hearn, 67 Mo. 301; Johnson v. School District, 67 Mo. 319; State v. Powell, 67 Mo. 395; King v. School Board, 71 Mo. 628; Arnold v. School District, 78 Mo. 226. A general demurrer for misjoinder was not applicable, but all were necessary parties defendants. Bank v. Young, 35 Mo. 371; Alnut v. Leper, 48 Mo. 319; Ancel v. Cape Girardeau, 48 Mo. 80; Brown v. Woods, 48 Mo. 330; Ashby v. Winston, 26 Mo. 210.

L. F. COTTEY and O. D. JONES, for the respondents: The petition states no cause of action. King v. School Board, 71 Mo. 628, 631; Dritt v. Snodgrass, 66 Mo. 286, 293. The presumption is, that public officers do as the law and their duties require them. Lawson on Presumptive Evidence, rule 14, p. 53; McNair v. Hunt, 5 Mo. 300; Trotter v. St. Louis Schools, 9 Mo. 69; Nalley v. County Court, 11 Mo. 447; Grayson v. Weddle, 63 Mo. 523; Henry v. Dulle, 74 Mo. 443.

OPINION

THOMPSON J.

This was a proceeding by taxpayers to restrain by injunction two of the defendants, who are directors of a school district, and a third defendant, who is treasurer of Knox county, from maintaining a supplementary public school in the town of Hurdland, in that county, in addition to the school which is maintained in the schoolhouse of the district, about half a mile from Hurdland. An injunction was granted by two county court justices, but afterwards in the circuit court a demurrer to the petition was sustained and the injunction dissolved.

The petition shows that a public school, presided over by one teacher, is kept in the old schoolhouse, and that the directors have rented rooms for an additional school of a superior grade in the town of Hurdland and have employed two teachers to keep such school. The petition does not allege that the old schoolhouse is sufficient to accommodate the pupils residing within the district. The plaintiff's case proceeds upon the theory that no power is given by the Revised Statutes, or by subsequent acts of the legislature, to the directors, to rent rooms for school purposes, except for the establishment of colored schools, or to establish separate schools at places other than the school-house site, and to employ teachers in such schools.

The school law, as it stood in the general statutes of 1865 (Gen Stat. 1865, chap. 46, sec. 7), vested in school directors the power of " building or furnishing schoolhouses, purchasing or leasing school-house sites, renting schoolrooms and making all other provisions necessary for the convenience and prosperity of schools within their sub-districts." But this school law was entirely superseded by the act of March 19, 1870 (2 Wag. Stat., [[[[[[3 Ed.] p. 1240, et seq. ), a statute of one hundred and three sections, which established a new system of common schools, differing in many respects from the old, and repealed all acts and parts of acts in conflict with it. In this statute we find no such power conferred on the board of directors as that conferred by the language above quoted. This statute was much amended, so that the revisors of the statutes in 1879 must have had considerable trouble in determining what statutes relating to the subject of public schools were in force and hence to be included in the revision. Looking carefully through the provisions of the statute as embodied in the revision, we find no authority conferred upon the board of directors to rent schoolhouses or schoolrooms. The powers conferred upon them by that instrument are exceedingly limited, confined chiefly to the care of the school property of the district and the purchase of apparatus for carrying on the schools (Rev. Stat., sec. 7044); to the making of needful rules and regulations for the government of the schools and the admission of non-resident pupils (Rev. Stat., sec. 7045); to the employment of teachers (Rev. Stat., sec. 7046); to the visitation of the schools (Rev. Stat., sec. 7047); to the removal of the district clerk for dereliction of duty (Rev. Stat., sec. 7048); to the making of enumeration lists (Rev. Stat., sec. 7049); to the making of estimates of the amount of funds necessary to sustain the schools (Rev. Stat., sec. 7050); to condemning land for school sites (Rev. Stat., sec. 7051); and to the establishing and consolidating of schools for colored children (Rev. Stat., secs. 7052, 7053). On the contrary, the provisions of section 7031, Revised Statutes, which treats of the powers which may be exercised by the qualified voters of the district assembled at the annual meeting, seem to contemplate that this power, if it exists at all, as we may assume it does, because it is mentioned in section 7067, Revised Statutes, as one of the items...