State v. Hoyt

• Decision Date: 07 May 1929
• Citation: 146 A. 170
• Parties: STATE v. HOYT. SAME v. DANIELS. SAME v. COVEY (two cases).
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

146 A. 170

STATE

v. HOYT.

SAME

v. DANIELS.

SAME

v. COVEY (two cases).

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Belknap.

May 7, 1929.

Transferred from Superior Court, Belknap County; Young, Judge.

Complaints by the State against Oscar Hoyt, against Richard Daniels, against Lucius Covey, and against Truman Covey, charging in each case failure to cause child of defendant to attend public school. Case transferred on agreement of parties. Defendants fined $10 each.

Appeals from the Laconia municipal court. The charge in each case is a failure to cause a child of the defendant to attend the public school. Each defendant filed a statement of defense alleging "that on said day said child was instructed and taught by a private tutor in his own home in the studies required to be taught in the public schools to one of his years," and praying that the complaint be dismissed.

The court (Young, J.) denied the motion, and thereupon it was agreed by the parties that if the above statement is a defense as matter of law the complaints shall be dismissed, otherwise each defendant is to be fined $10 and costs; and the case was transferred.

Theo. S. Jewett, of Laconia, solicitor for the State.

Henry D. Yeaton, of Rochester, for defendants.

PEASLEE, C. J. The constitutionality of the compulsory school attendance statute (P. L. c. 118, §§ 1, 2) has not been considered to be an open question in this state. State v. Jackson, 71 N. H. 552, 53 A. 1021, 60 L. R. A. 739. "Free schooling furnished by the state is not so much a right granted to pupils as a duty imposed upon them for the public good. If they do not voluntarily attend the schools provided for them, they may be compelled to do so." Fogg v. Board of Education, 76 N. H. 296, 299, 82 A. 173, 175 (37 L. R. A. [N. S.] 1110, Ann. Cas. 1912C, 758).

Education in public schools is considered by many to furnish desirable and even essential training for citizenship, apart from that gained by the study of books. The association with those of all classes of society, at an early age and upon a common level, is not unreasonably urged as a preparation for discharging the duties of a citizen. The object of our school laws is not only to protect the state from the consequences of ignorance, but also to guard against the dangers of "incompetent citizenship." Fogg v. Board of Education, supra.

This locally adopted theory of the power of the state over this subject has been somewhat limited by recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prohibition of teaching the German language to children under 14, unless they have completed eighth grade work, was declared to be an infringement of the guaranty of liberty found in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 43 S. Ct. 625, 67 L. Ed. 1042, 29 A. L. B. 1446; Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U. S. 404, 43 S. Ct. 628, 67 E. Ed. 1047, Holmes and Sutherland, JJ., dissenting.

A statute requiring all children to attend the public school was declared invalid for a like reason. Pierce v. Society, 268 U. S. 510, 45 S. Ct. 571, 69 L. Ed. 1070, 39 A. L. B. 468. But it was also said in this case that no question was raised as to "the power of the state reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare." 268 U. S. 534 (45 S. Ct. 573).

While these decisions declare the existence of important restrictions upon state power to compel education, there is nothing in them to indicate that the provisions of our statute offend against the federal guaranty of liberty. Under the interpretation of the guaranty, so far as it has been declared, it appears that attendance at some school may still be required, and that the state may supervise the school attended. The power to supervise necessarily involves the power to reject the unfit, and to make it obligatory to submit to supervision. The local statute does not go beyond these requirements.

The state being entitled to supervise education, it is not an answer to a charge of failure to furnish supervised instruction to show that equivalent unsupervised instruction is given. Unless the idea of personal liberty in the matter of educating children, recently developed in the federal decisions, is to be carried to the extreme of saying that the sole obligation that can be imposed upon the parent is to educate, a provision that approval of the parents' method must be obtained by him is not invalid. As those authorities are understood, they do not deny the power of the state to insist upon an approval of the proposed substitute for public school attendance. They do not limit that power to a mere right to inspect what is being done and to prosecute for deficiencies. Beasonable preventive measures may be taken, as well as curative ones. And in this connection a reasonable requirement for submitting the proposed substitute for approval, in advance of putting it into use, may be imposed.

The defendants' claim that the...