Millard v. Board of Education

Citations

• 121 Ill. 297
• 10 N.E. 669
• 1887 Ill. LEXIS 927

Syllabus

<p>1. Schools—renting building for school purposes, as, a church building. Where it becomes necessary for a board of education to procure a. building in which to conduct a public school, they are authorized by law to-lease a suitable building for that purpose, and it matters not that such building had been used for a church by some religious body.</p> <p>2. Same—procuring a building without a role of the people. Where a. proposition to raise money to build a school house at a site selected, is defeated by a vote of the people, the board of education or directors, being-required to provide a school for at least six months in each year, may lawfully rent any suitable building or room in which such school may be kept, without any vote for that purpose.</p> <p>3. Same—non-sectarian—religious qualifications of teachers. The free-schools of this State are not established to aid any sectarian denomination, or assist in disseminating any sectarian doctrine, and no board of education or school directors have any authority to use the public funds for such a. purpose.</p> <p>4. The statute has not prescribed any religious belief as a qualification of' a teacher in the public schools, and therefore the school authorities may select, a teacher who belongs to any church or to no church, as .they may think best.</p> <p>5. Same—religious exercises in schools—sufficiency of bill to restrain. A bill to enjoin a board of education from the use of school funds for sectarian purposes, alleged that the children of Catholic parents, and the teachers, who were Catholics, were required to attend at a Catholic church, the basement of which was used for the school, at eight o’clock in the morning on. school days, and hear mass read by the priest, and then repair to the school room and engage in the study of the church catechism for half an hour before-the opening of the school, and at the close of the school at noon the “Angelus”' prayer was read by the teachers and pupils, but failed to show