Key Code VII and Summary Chart VII indicate the special day instruction required by various states.

KEY CODE VII

SPECIAL DAYS REQUIRED TO BE OBSERVED BY APPROPRIATE EXERCISES BY CONSTITUTIONS OR STATUTES

fore Decoration Day (7)*

1201 Memorial Day or Day be

1202 Mother's Day (1)*

1203 October, 31st of (1)*
1204 Patrons' Day (1)*

1205 Pilgrims, Landing of (1)*
1206 Pioneer Day (1)*
1207 Remus (Uncle) Day (1)*
1208 Roads (Good) Day (1)*
1209 Roosevelt Day (1)*
1210 State Day (9)*
1211 Tem Temperance and Good Cit-
izenship Day (1)*

1212 Temperance and Good
Health Day (5)*
1213 Thanksgiving Day (1)*
1214 Thanksgiving, Day before

1195 Jackson Day (1)* 1196 Labor Day (1)*

1197 Law and Order Day (1)* 1198 Lee, Robert E., Day (3)* 1199 Lincoln Day (10)*

(1)*

1215 Washington Day (11)*

1216 Willard (Frances) Day

1200 Lincoln, Death of (1)*

(10)*

✓ The courts have uniformly sustained the authority of legislatures to prescribe courses of instruction for public schools. Parents must submit their children to instruction in the required courses unless legally exempted. Justice Batman of the Indiana Appellate Court clearly states this in a 1922 decision.

"The course of study to be pursued in the public schools
of our state is prescribed either by statute or by the school
authorities in pursuance thereof. These schools include
not only elementary schools, but high schools as well. A
parent, therefore, is not at liberty to exercise a choice in
that regard, but, where not exempt for some lawful reason,
must send his child to the school where instruction is pro-
vided suitable to its attainments as the school authorities
may determine, which under the facts found in the instant
case is the township high school." "4

Indiana's statutory requirement that the "common schools of the state shall be taught in the English language"; and that trustees "shall provide to have taught

arithmetic, geography, English grammar, physiology, history of the United States, and good behaviour" has been sustained by the Indiana Appellate Court.2 The Supreme Court of the state rendered a similar opinion in sustaining the authority of the school trustees to prescribe the teaching of music. These cases apply specifically to seventh and eighth grade work such as given in junior high schools.

State legislatures of forty-six states have given to the state departments of education power to prescribe or approve courses of study in public secondary schools. This has been held to be a valid legislative act. The authority of the state department of education is limited by the wording of the statutes, however. Thus, where the statutes of Kansas in 1915 read: "All districts receiving aid under the provisions of this act shall follow the course of study as prescribed by the state board of education", the Kansas Supreme Court ruled:

"The aid referred to is that given to those districts which are
not able to raise funds sufficient to carry on a school for
seven months. This direction to those districts implies
that districts which are able to raise funds with which to
maintain their schools are not compelled to follow the
course of study prescribed by the state board of education."s

The above case turns upon the point that the statute as it is worded does not include districts that do not receive state aid. The decision does not therefore contravene the right of the legislature to make more comprehensive regulations regarding curricula of public schools. Neither does the United States Supreme Court deny that regulation of public school curricula is a proper exercise of legislative powers.

The State Supreme Courts of Iowa, Ohio, & and Ne✓ braska in the years 1919, 1920 and 1921 held that the state legislatures had constitutional power to prohibit the teaching of foreign languages in the private or parochial schools. These cases were later appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The case of Meyer v State of Nebraska, 10 a similar case, was likewise appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court reversed all four of the decisions. The following extracts summarize the case of Meyer v State of Nebraska in the language of the court in the majority opinion:

"The problem for our determination is whether the statute
as construed and applied unreasonably infringes the liberty
guaranteed to the plaintiff in error by the Fourteenth
Amendment. 'No State shall.

deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property without due process of law....'
The protection of the constitution extends to all, to those
who speak other languages as well as those born with
English on the tongue
No emergency has arisen
which renders knowledge by a child of some language other
than English so clearly harmful as to justify its inhibition
with the consequent infringement of rights long freely
enjoyed. We are constrained to conclude that the statute
as applied is arbitrary and without reasonable relation to
any end within the competency of the state."

The United States Supreme Court rendered a decision the same day in which the other three cases were included. Justice McReynolds, in rendering the opinion, 18 said:

"The several judgments entered in these causes by the
Supreme Court of Iowa, Ohio and Nebraska, respectively,
must be reversed upon authority of Meyer v Nebraska,
decided today, ante 290. As the statute undertakes to
interfere only with teaching which involves a modern lan-
guage, leaving complete freedom as to other matters, there
seems no adequate foundation for the suggestion that the
purpose was to protect the child's health by limiting his
mental activities. It is well known that proficiency in a
foreign language seldom comes to one not instructed at an
early age, and experience shows that this is not injurious

to the health, morals or understanding of the ordinary

child."

The foregoing decisions were not agreed upon unanimously by the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, however. Justice Holmes states, in a dissenting opinion, a brief but able exposition of his reasons for believing that the State has the power to prohibit the teaching of foreign languages in all grades in all schools of the state. He balances the weight of the argument for the liberty of the teacher, as guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, against the welfare interests of the state as furthered by the teaching of a common language exclusively in the grades below the ninth, and comes to the conclusion that the statutes of Iowa and Nebraska were "not arbitrary fiats", but were reasonable regulations.

It should be noted that these cases involved the teaching of foreign languages in private and parochial schools. If the cases had arisen in public schools, the decisions might have been different.

Reference to Key Number 1118 of Summary Chart VI shows that eleven states require that the secondary school subjects above the eighth grade be taught in the English language. A like reference to Key Number 1119 on the same chart indicates that the laws of twenty-six states require that the curricular subjects in the seventh and eighth grades must be taught in the English language. The decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Myer v State of Nebraska and three similar cases decided June 4, 1923, did not deny the validity of such legislation. The court in rendering the opinion in Meyer v State of Nebraska clearly stated this fact, as follows:

"The power of the State to attendance at some school
and to make reasonable regulations for all schools, in-
cluding a requirement that they shall give instruction in
English, is not questioned. Nor has challenge been made
of the State's power to prescribe a curriculum for insti-
tutions which it supports." 13

When a student has completed the curriculum prescribed by the local school board and approved by the state education department the Supreme Court of Iowa has ruled that the issuance of a diploma of graduation by the local board of education or school trustees is mandatory. Non-compliance with instructions of a principal on the occasion of commencement exercises, after the prescribed curriculum has been satisfactorily completed, was held as invalid grounds for refusing diplomas, for, in the language of Justice De Graff:

"The board having prescribed a curriculum of high school
study, which, being approved by the department of public
instruction, the school became under the law an approved
or accredited high school giving to its graduates certain priv-
ileges in our higher state educational institutions. The
issuance of a diploma by the school board to a pupil who
satisfactorily completed the prescribed course of study and
who is otherwise qualified is mandatory, and although such
duty is not expressly enjoined upon the board by statute,
it does arise by necessary and reasonable implication." 14

SYNOPSIS

Both tradition of past practice and precedent of court decisions support the power of the state to prescribe the curricula of public secondary schools. This power rests upon state constitutional provisions which direct and empower the legislatures to establish and maintain public school systems.

Two methods have been employed in state control of the curricula of public secondary schools. The direct method of prescribing that certain subjects must be