Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/224

202 Charles Abner Howard "To maintain at least six months in each year, in all districts where the number of persons between 4 and 20 years of age is 1,000, as shown by the clerk's yearly re- port, a high school, wherein shall be taught, in addition to the common school branches, such other branches as the directors of the district may prescribe." This is the first legislation enacted in Oregon having to do with high schools and no other law was passed dealing with secondary education in the public schools until 1901. The legislature of that year enacted two laws which became the basis of the high school system which has since grown up within the state. Since Portland was the only Oregon city with 1,000 children of school age in 1878 and for many years thereafter, the law of that year had no general effect on public secondary education throughout the state. Effective school legislation may therefore be said to have had its beginning in 1901. How- ever, several high schools were organized before the spe- cific legislation of that year and some discussion of the legal status of these, together with an exposition of the conditions and influences that prevented the more rapid development of the secondary section of the public school system will constitute the first part of this paper. This part of the discussion will be brought down to 1900, by which date opposition to public high schools had ceased to be effective. As has been stated, Portland was the only district in the state with 1,000 children of school age in 1878 when the law was passed requiring such districts to maintain high schools. By 1890 Astoria was the only other city whose school population had reacher this figure, and it was not until 1900 that Baker, Pendleton, and Salem had also reached it. 1 The direct effect of this legislation was iStatistics showing the school census by districts were not available. The school population is here calculated by dividing the total population by four. R. L. Polk and Company are authority for this method of cal- culation.