The revenues of the state are classified into four funds; the general revenue fund, the sinking fund, the state common school fund and the university fund.
About one-half of the annual common school fund is derived from local taxes; the state levy for this fund in 1909 was one mill, and the total receipts were $2,382,353.
As early as 1831 an unsuccessful attempt was made to form an adequate public school fund; the first real effort to establish a common school system for the territory was made after 1835; in 1840 there were altogether 18 academies and 51 common schools, and in 1849 the state legislature made an appropriation in the interest of the public instruction of white pupils, and this was supplemented by the proceeds of land granted by the United States government for the same purpose.
He received only a common school education and at an early age began work as a bobbinboy in a cotton factory of which his father was superintendent.
He held this position till 1848, and worked with a remarkable intensity - holding teachers' conventions, delivering numerous lectures and addresses, carrying on an extensive correspondence, introducing numerous reforms, planning and inaugurating the Massachusetts normal school system, founding and editing The Common School Journal (1838), and preparing a series of Annual Reports, which had a wide circulation and are still considered as being "among the best expositions, if, indeed, they are not the very best ones, of the practical benefits of a common school education both to the individual and to the state" (Hinsdale).
