Roach v. Bd. of President & Directors of the St. Louis Pub. Sch.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1883
• Citation: 77 Mo. 484
• Parties: ROACH, Appellant, v. THE BOARD OF PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

77 Mo. 484

ROACH, Appellant,

v.THE BOARD OF PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1883.

Appeal from St. Louis Court of Appeals.

REVERSED.

Charles Gibson, E. P. Johnson and H. S. & T. M. Lipscomb for appellant.Everett W. Pattison and Leo Rassieur for respondent.

RAY, J.

This is a petition in the nature of a bill of injunction against the Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools, the object of which is to restrain the defendant from expending its revenues and resources in teaching in the schools the languages, arts, sciences and various enumerated branches of education therein specified, and also from admitting into said schools and teaching therein children under six years of age, on the ground that expenditures for said purposes are illegal and unauthorized and the damage thereby done irreparable. The plaintiff in the cause is a resident and a tax-payer in said city, and the defendant a corporation duly created and established in said city for the purposes of public education. To this petition a demurrer was successfully interposed in the circuit court, and the plaintiff appealed to the St. Louis court of appeals, where the judgment of the circuit court was affirmed, from which affirmance the plaintiff appeals to this court. The court by sustaining the demurrer held that it was not illegal for the defendant to expend its means for either of the purposes indicated in the petition, and this is assigned for error.

It is contended for plaintiff, first, that the schools in charge and control of defendant are common schools, where only the rudiments of an English education can lawfully be taught, and that it is not competent for the defendant to expend its revenues in teaching the branches of learning mentioned in the petition; second, that children under six years of age cannot rightfully be admitted or instructed in said schools. On the other hand, it is insisted by defendant, first, that no such restriction is imposed on the power of its school board, and that its schools are public schools, for the education and instruction of its pupils in such knowledge and intelligence as may be necessary to render them good and useful citizens; second, that the provision for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in the State between the ages of six and twenty years, is a requirement only, and not a prohibition.

The petition states that congress, in 1831, granted certain lots, town lots and common field lots, to the inhabitants of the city of St. Louis (then a village) for the support of schools therein, to be disposed of for their use, according to the laws of the State, in such manner as the legislature thereof might direct; that by various other acts of congress and the general assembly of the State, passed from time to time, there were granted to said inhabitants for said purpose large and valuable tracts of land, and the proceeds of the sale thereof, and that large sums of the public revenue and other resources of the State were also granted to said inhabitants and to said defendant for the support of schools, as aforesaid; that in pursuance of said acts of congress, the general assembly of the State of Missouri, by an act approved February 13th, 1833, entitled “An act to establish a corporation in the city of St. Louis for the purposes of public education,” and by other acts, amended and supplemented the same, by which all free white persons residing within the limits of said city, as the same then existed, or might thereafter be established by law, should be, and were thereby, constituted a body politic and corporate by the name and style of “The Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools,” etc., whereby the custody, disposition, application and expenditure of all said funds, as well as the charge, control and conduct of said schools were...