The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 6, July 1902 - April, 1903 Page: 40
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40 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
teachers and inspect their work, assist the indigent and collect
from the well-to-do, and in general to do everything to make the
school system efficient. If the members did not perform their
duties in a proper manner, any citizen might lodge a complaint
against them.'
The above decree seems a step in the proper direction-that of
allowing each community to attend to the matter of education with-
in its own limits, and to provide funds for this purpose by allowing
it the proceeds of the sales of the public land in its midst. It was
with these two principles as the foundation that the present school
system of our city has grown to such splendid proportions. A later
decree2 provided that the proceeds of the sale of the "commons"
belonging to the city of San Fernando de Bexar should be reserved
as a perpetual fund to be used exclusively for the payment of teach-
ers of primary schools. Lest all here stated may seem ancient his-
tory, it may be well to note that this law was recently cited in the
suit brought by the school board of San Antonio for the recovery
of some land claimed by the Galveston, Harrisburg, & San Antonio
Railroad. Yet, notwithstanding these new measures, the governor
had to report, at the beginning of 1834, as he had done the previous
year, that public instruction remained in the same condition as
before. In his message of that year he expresses the wish that the
parents of the State be aroused to the importance of educating their
children, "in order to banish the chaos of ignorance in which the
greater part of the communities lie."3
From the above references we may gain a pretty fair idea of the
ambitious plans and tardy measures of execution adopted by the
State authorities of Coahuila and Texas-plans soon to come to
naught, so far as the greater part of the State was concerned, by
the success of the Texas Revolution. Thus all of the projects of
the central authorities were of no effect. It remains to be seen if
those of the municipality of San Fernando, in a more restricted
field of operations were doomed to a like failure. We have the
copy of a letter, dated January 31, 1826, from Jose Antonio Sau-
cedo, the political chief of the Department of Texas, to Rafael Gon-
'Decree No. 229, April 27, 1833. Gammel, Laws of Temas, I 323-327.
2No. 244, May 8, 1833. Gammel, Laws of Texas, I 336.
8Messages of governor to congress, 1833 and 1834. Bexar Archives.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 6, July 1902 - April, 1903, periodical, 1903; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101028/m1/44/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.