law. If the office of any of said officers shall be vacated by death, resignation, or otherwise, it shall be the duty of the governor to appoint another until the disability be removed or his successor be elected and qualified. Every such vacancy shall be filled by election at the first general election that occurs more than 30 days after the vacancy has taken place, and the person chosen shall hold the office for the remainder of the unexpired term fixed in the first section of this article.

SEC. 14. The secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction shall constitute, ex officio, the council of State, who shall advise the governor in the execution of his office.

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ART. V, SEC. 2. The proceeds of the State and county capitation tax shall be applied to the purposes of education and the support of the poor, but in no one year shall more than 25 per cent thereof be appropriated to the latter purpose. SEC. 5. Property belonging to the State or to municipal corporations shall be exempt from taxation. The general assembly may exempt cemeteries and property held for educational, scientific, literary, charitable, or religious purposes.

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SEC. 6. The taxes levied by the commissioners of the several counties for county purposes shall be levied in like manner with the State taxes and shall never exceed the double of the State tax, except for a special purpose, and with the special approval of the general assembly.

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ART. VII, SEC. 5. * In every township there shall also be biennially elected a school committee, consisting of three persons, whose duties shall be prescribed by law.

ART. IX, SEC. 1. Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

SEC. 2. The general assembly, at its first session under this constitution, shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of public schools, wherein tuition shall be free of charge to all the children of the State between the ages of 6 and 21 years. And the children of the white race and the children of the colored race shall be taught in separate public schools; but there shall be no discrimination in favor of or to the prejudice of either

race.

SEC. 3. Each county of the State shall be divided into a convenient number of districts, in which one or more public schools shall be maintained at least four months in every year; and if the commissioners of any county shall fail to comply with the aforesaid requirements of this section they shall be liable to indictment.

SEC. 4. The proceeds of all lands that have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State and not otherwise appropriated by this State or the United States, also all moneys, stocks, bonds, and other property now belonging to any State fund for purposes of education, also the net proceeds of all sales of the swamp lands belonging to the State, and all other grants, gifts, or devises that have been or hereafter may be made to the State and not otherwise appropriated by the State or by the terms of the grant, gift, or devise, shall be paid into the State treasury, and, together with so much of the ordinary revenue of the State as may be by law set apart for that purpose, shall be faithfully appropriated for establishing and maintaining in this State a system of free public schools and for no other uses or purposes whatsoever.

SEC. 5. All moneys, stocks, bonds, and other property belonging to a county school fund, also the net proceeds from the sale of estrays, also the clear proceeds of all penalties and forfeitures and of all fines collected in the several counties for any breach of the penal or military laws of the State, and all moneys which shall be paid by persons as an equivalent for exemption from military duty, shall belong to and remain in the several counties, and shall be faithfully appropriated for establishing and maintaining free public schools in the several counties in this State: Provided, That the amount collected in each county shall be annually reported to the superintendent of public instruction. SEC. 6. The general assembly shall have power to provide for the election of trustees of the University of North Carolina, in whom, when chosen, shall be vested all the privileges, rights, franchises, and endowments thereof in any wise granted to or conferred upon the trustees of said university; and the general assembly may make such provisions, laws, and regulations from time to time as may be necessary and expedient for the maintenance and management of said university.

SEC. 7. The general assembly shall provide that the benefits of the university, as far as practicable, be extended to the youth of the State free of expense for tuition; also that all the property which has heretofore accrued to the State or shall hereafter accrue from escheats, unclaimed dividends, or distributive shares of the estates of deceased persons, shall be appropriated to the use of the university.

SEC. 8. The governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, superintendent of public instruction, and attorney general shall constitute a State board of education.

SEC. 9. The governor shall be president and the superintendent of public instruction shall be secretary of the board of education.

SEC. 10. The board of education shall succeed to all the powers and trusts of the president and directors of the literary fund of North Carolina, and shall have full power to legislate and make all needful rules and regulations in relation to free public schools and the educational fund of the State; but all acts, rules, and regulations of said board may be altered, amended, or repealed by the general assembly, and when so altered, amended, or repealed they shall not be reenacted by the board.

SEC. 11. The first session of the board of education shall be held at the capital of the State within 15 days after the organization of the State government under this constitution; the time of future meetings may be determined by the board.

SEC. 12. A majority of the board shall constitute a quorum for the transac tion of business.

SEC. 13. The contingent expenses of the board shall be provided by the general assembly.

SEC. 14. As soon as practicable after the adoption of this constitution the general assembly shall establish and maintain in connection with the university a department of agriculture, of mechanics, of mining, and of normal instruction. SEC. 15. The general assembly is hereby empowered to enact that every child of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend the public schools during the period between the ages of 6 and 18 years for a term of not less than 16 months, unless educated by other means.

ART. XI, SEC. 8. There shall also, as soon as practicable, be measures devised by the State for the establishment of one or more orphan houses, where desti tute orphans may be cared for, educated, and taught some business or trade.

NORTH DAKOTA.

ART. II. SEC. 62. The general appropriation bill shall embrace nothing but appropriations for the expenses of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the State, interest on the public debt, and for public schools. All other appropriations shall be made by separate bills, each embracing but one subject.

SEC. 69. The legislative assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say:

12. Providing for the management of common schools.

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ART. III. SEC. 82. There shall be chosen by the qualified electors of the State at the times and places of choosing members of the legislative assembly, a secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction * * who shall have attained the age of 25 years, shall be citizens of the United States, and shall have the qualifications of State electors. They shall severally hold their offices at the seat of government, for the term of two years and until their successors are elected and duly qualified.

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SEC. 83. The powers and duties of the secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction shall be as prescribed by law.

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ART. V. SEC. 128. Any woman having the qualifications enumerated in section 121 of this article as to age, residence, and citizenship, and including those now qualified by the laws of the Territory, may vote for all school officers, and upon all questions pertaining solely to school matters, and be eligible to any school office.

ART. VII. SEC. 131. No charter of incorporation shall be granted, changed, or amended by special law, except in the case of such municipal, charitable, educational, penal, or reformatory corporations as may be under the control of the State * *

ART. VIII. SEC. 147. A high degree of intelligence, patriotism, integrity, and morality on the part of every voter in a government by the people being necessary in order to insure the continuance of that government and the prosperity and happiness of the people, the legislative assembly shall make provision for the establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools which shall be open to all children of the State of North Dakota and free from sectarian control. This legislative requirement shall be irrevocable without the consent of the United States and the people of North Dakota.

SEC. 148. The legislative assembly shall provide, at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, for a uniform system for free public schools throughout the State, beginning with the primary and extending through all grades up to and including the normal and collegiate course.

SEC. 149. In all schools instruction shall be given as far as practicable in those branches of knowledge that tend to impress upon the mind the vital importance of truthfulness, temperance, purity, public spirit, and respect for honest labor of every kind.

SEC. 150. A superintendent of schools for each county shall be elected every two years, whose qualifications, duties, powers, and compensation shall be fixed by law.

SEC. 151. The legislative assembly shall take such other steps as may be necessary to prevent illiteracy, secure a reasonable degree of uniformity in course of study, and to promote industrial, scientific, and agricultural improvements.

SEC. 152. All colleges, universities, and other educational institutions, for the support of which lands have been granted to this State, or which are supported by a public tax, shall remain under the absolute and exclusive control of the State. No money raised for the support of the public schools of the State shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.

ART. IX. SEC. 153. All proceeds of the public lands that have heretofore been, or may hereafter be granted by the United States for the support of the common schools in this State; all such per centum as may be granted by the United States on the sale of public lands; the proceeds of property that shall fall to the State by escheat; the proceeds of all gifts and donations to the State for common schools, or not otherwise appropriated by the terms of the gift, and all other property otherwise acquired for common schools, shall be and remain a perpetual fund for the maintenance of the common schools of the State. It shall be deemed a trust fund, the principal of which shall forever remain inviolate and may be increased but never diminished. The State shall make good all losses thereof.

SEC. 154. The interest and income of this fund, together with the net proceeds of all fines for violation of State laws, and all other sums which may be added thereto by law, shall be faithfully used and applied each year for the benefit of the common schools of the State, and shall be for this purpose apportioned among and between all the several common-school corporations of the State in proportion to the number of children in each of school age, as may be fixed by law, and no part of the fund shall ever be diverted even temporarily from this purpose or used for any other purpose whatever than the maintenance of common schools for the equal benefit of all the people of the State: Provided, however, That if any portion of the interest or income aforesaid be not expended during any year, said portion shall be added to and become a part of the school fund.

SEC. 155. After one year from the assembling of the first legislative assembly the lands granted to the State from the United States for the support of the common schools may be sold upon the following conditions and no other: No more than one-fourth of all such lands shall be sold within the first 5 years after the same become salable by virtue of this section. No more than onehalf of the remainder within 10 years after the same become salable as aforesaid. The residue may be sold at any time after the expiration of said 10 years. The legislative assembly shall provide for the sale of all school lands subject to the provisions of this article. The coal lands of the State shall never be sold, but the legislative assembly may by general laws provide for leasing the same. The words "coal lands" shall include lands bearing lignite coal.

SEC. 156. The superintendent of public instruction, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and State auditor shall constitute a board of commissioners, which shall be denominated the Board of University and School Lands, and subject to the provisions of this article and any law that may be passed by the legislative assembly; said board shall have control of the appraisement, sale, rental, and disposal of all school and university lands, and shall direct the investment of the funds arising therefrom in the hands of the State treasurer, under the limitations in section 160 of this article.

SEC. 157. The county superintendent of common schools, the chairman of the county board, and the county auditor shall constitute boards of appraisal, and under the authority of the State Board of University and School Lands shall appraise all school lands within their respective counties which they may from time to time recommend for sale at their actual value under the prescribed terms, and shall first select and designate for sale the most valuable lands.

SEC. 158. No lands shall be sold for less than the appraised value, and in no case for less than $10 per acre. The purchaser shall pay one-fifth of the price in cash and the remaining four-fifths as follows: One-fifth in 5 years, onefifth on or before the expiration of 10 years, one-fifth on or before the expiration of 15 years, and one-fifth on or before the expiration of 20 years, with interest at the rate of not less than 5 per cent per annum, payable annually in advance: Provided, That when payments are made before due they shall be made at an interest-paying date, and one year's interest in advance shall be paid on all money so paid. All sales shall be held at the county seat of the county in which the land to be sold is situated, and shall be at public auction and to the highest bidder, after 60 days' advertisement of the same in a newspaper of general circulation in the vicinity of the land to be sold, and one at the seat of government. Such lands as shall not have been especially subdivided shall be offered in tracts of one-quarter section, and those subdivided in the smallest subdivision. All lands designated for sale and not sold within two years after appraisal shall be reappraised before they are sold. No grant or patent for such lands shall issue until payment is made for the same: Provided, That the land contracted to be sold by the State shall be subject to taxation from the date of such contract. In case the taxes assessed against any of said lands for any year remain unpaid until the first Monday in October of the following year, then and thereupon the contract of sale for such lands shall, if the Board of University and School Lands so determine, become null and void. Any lands under the provision of section 158 of the constitution of the State of North Dakota that have heretofore been sold may be paid for, except as to interest, as provided herein: Provided further, That any school or institution lands that may be required for town-site purposes, schoolhouse sites, church sites, cemetery sites, sites for other educational or charitable institutions, public parks, fair grounds, public highways, railroad right of way or for other railroad uses and purposes, reservoirs for the storage of water for irrigation, drain ditches or irrigation ditches, and lands that may be required for any of the purposes over which the right of eminent domain may be exercised under the constitution and the laws of the State of North Dakota, may be sold under the provisions of this section, and shall be paid for, principal and interest, in full, in advance, at the time of sale, or at any time thereafter, and patent issued therefor when principal and interest are paid.

SEC. 159. All land, money, or other property donated, granted, or received from the United States or any other source for a university, school of mines, reform school, agricultural college, deaf and dumb asylum, normal school, or other educational or charitable institution or purpose, and the proceeds of all such lands and other property so received from any source, shall be and remain perpetual funds, the interest and income of which, together with the rents of all such lands as may remain unsold, shall be inviolably appropriated and applied to the specific objects of the original grants or gifts. The principal of every such fund may be increased, but shall never be diminished, and the interest and income only shall be used. Every such fund shall be deemed a trust fund held by the State, and the State shall make good all losses thereof. SEC. 160. All lands mentioned in the preceding section shall be appraised and sold in the same manner and under the same limitations and subject to all the conditions as to price and sale as provided above for the appraisal and sale of lands for the benefit of common schools; but a distinct and separate account shall be kept by the proper officers of each of said funds: Provided, That the limitations as to the time in which school land may be sold shall apply only to lands granted for the support of common schools.

SEC. 161. The legislative assembly shall have authority to provide by law for the leasing of lands granted to the State for educational and charitable purposes, but no such law shall authorize the leasing of said lands for a longer period than five years. Said lands shall only be leased for pasturage and meadow purposes and at a public auction after notice as heretofore provided in case of sale: Provided, That all of said school lands now under cultivation may be leased, at the discretion and under the control of the Board of University and School Lands, for other than pasturage and meadow purposes until sold. All rents shall be paid in advance.

SEC. 162. The moneys of the permanent school fund and other educational funds shall be invested only in bonds of school corporations or of counties, or of townships, or of municipalities within the State, bonds issued for the construction of drains under authority of law within the State, bonds of the United States, bonds of the State of North Dakota, bonds of other States provided such States have never repudiated any of their indebtedness, or on first mortgages on farm lands in this State, not exceeding in amount one-third of the actual value of any subdivision on which the same may be loaned, such value to be determined by the board of appraisal of school lands.

SEC. 163. No law shall ever be passed by the legislative assembly granting to any person, corporation, or association any privileges by reason of the occupation, cultivation, or improvement of any public lands by said person, corporation, or association subsequent to the survey thereof by the General Government. No claim for the occupation, cultivation, or improvement of any public lands shall ever be recognized, nor shall such occupation, cultivation, or improvement of any public lands ever be used to diminish, either directly or indirectly, the purchase price of said lands.

SEC. 164. The legislative assembly shall have authority to provide by law for the sale or disposal of all public lands that have been heretofore or may hereafter be granted by the United States to the State for purposes other than set forth and named in sections 153 and 159 of this article. And the legislative assembly, in providing for the appraisement, sale, rental, and disposal of the same, shall not be subject to the provisions and limitations of this article.

SEC. 165. The legislative assambly shall pass suitable laws for the safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement of the State school funds; and shall require all officers charged with the same or the safe-keeping thereof to give ample bonds for all moneys and funds received by them, and if any of said officers shall convert to his own use in any manner or form, or shall loan with or without interest or shall deposit in his own name, or otherwise than in the name of the State of North Dakota, or shall deposit in any banks or with any person or persons, or exchange for other funds or property any portion of the school funds aforesaid, or purposely allow any portion of the same to remain in his own hands uninvested, except in the manner prescribed by law, every such act shall constitute an embezzlement of so much of the aforesaid school funds as shall be thus taken or loaned, or deposited, or exchanged, or withheld, and shall be a felony; and any failure to pay over, produce, or account for the State school funds or any part of the same intrusted to any such officer, as by law required or demanded, shall be held and be taken to be prima facie evidence of such embezzlement.

ART. XI, SEC. 176. *

The legislative assembly shall by a general law exempt from taxation property used exclusively for school, religious, fraternal, cemetery, or charitable purposes.

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ART. XII, SEC. 183. The debt of any county, township, city, town, school district, or any other political subdivision, shall never exceed 5 per cent upon the assessed value of the taxable property therein: Provided, That any incorporated city may, by a two-thirds vote, increase such indebtedness 3 per cent on such assessed value beyond said 5 per cent limit. In estimating the indebtedness which a city, county, township, school district, or any other political subdivision may incur, the entire amount of existing indebtedness, whether contracted prior or subsequent to the adoption of this constitution shall be included.

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SEC. 184. Any city, county, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision incurring indebtedness shall at or before the time of so doing provide for the collection of an annual tax sufficient to pay the interest and also the principal thereof when due, and all laws or ordinances providing for the payment of the interest or principal of any debt shall be irrepealable until such debt be paid.