This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ...apportioned among the towns, cities, and plantations according to the number of pupils of school age. Any portion of the fund not distributed or expended during the year is added to the permanent school fund. The money granted by the State to academies and free high schools is provided for by special appropriation, while that for normal schools is a charge on the common school fund. Appropriations for the office of State superintendent, teachers' institutes, printing and distribution of educational literature, etc., call for no special mention, the purpose in each case being sufficiently indicated by the name. History of academies.54. Academ1es Previous to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts there had been incorporated in the district twenty-five academies, with endowments aggregating more than two hundred and fifty thousand acres of wild land. Between 1820 and 1851, forty-four academies were chartered, and since 1851, twenty.2 Most 1 Freeman, Supplement, 96, Sec. 3. a For the list, see Report of the State Superintendent, 1900, 138-140. of these institutions, though poorly endowed, did good work, and formed, in the absence of high schools, the only connecting link between the common schools and the college. But the establishment of free high schools, in 1873, was a death blow to all but the stronger of the old academies. Many of them transferred their buildings and funds to the towns in which they were located and became free high schools. 1 Others, while retaining their corporate existence, did the work of high schools for the towns in which they were situated, deriving their support mainly from special appropriations made by the legislature, in addition to what was received under the free high school law. It was...