_Education._--The school-district system was established in 1800 while Maine was still a part of Massachusetts and was maintained by the first school law passed, in 1821, by the state legislature; but, beginning in the next year, one town after another received the privilege of abolishing its districts, and in 1893 the system was abolished by act of the legislature. A state board of education, composed of one member from each county, was established in 1846, but for this was substituted, in 1852, a commissioner of schools for each county, appointed by the governor, and two years later a state superintendent of schools was substituted for the county commissioners. County supervision by county supervisors was tried in 1869-1872. Since these several changes the common school system has been administered by towns and cities subject to an increasing amount of control through enactments of the state legislature and the general supervision of the state superintendent. The town officers are a superintending school committee of three members and a superintendent. The members of the committee are elected for a term of three years, one retiring every year, and women as well as men are eligible for the office. The superintendent may be elected by the town or appointed by the committee, or towns having not less than twenty or more than fifty schools may unite in employing a superintendent. In cities the committee is usually larger than in towns and is commonly elected by wards. Since 1889 each town and city has been required to furnish textbooks, apparatus and supplies, without cost to the pupils. The minimum length of the school year is fixed by a statute of 1893 at twenty weeks; the average length is about twenty-eight weeks. A compulsory education law, enacted in 1901, requires the attendance at some public or approved private school of each child between the ages of seven and fifteen during all the time that school is in session, except that necessary absences may be excused. For the maintenance of the common schools each town is required (since 1905) to raise annually at least fifty-five cents _per capita_, exclusive of what may be received from other sources, and to this is added the proceeds of a state tax of one and a half mills on a dollar, one-half the proceeds of the tax on savings banks, a 6% income from the permanent school fund (derived mainly from the sale of school lands), and state appropriations for the payment in part of the superintendence in towns that have united for that purpose. Any section of a town may establish and maintain a high school provided there be not more than two such schools in one town, and the state makes appropriations for the support of such schools equal to one-half the cost of instruction, but the maximum grant to any one such school is $250.