In 1875 each district supported its own school[48] for white children, while the whole township in which a Negro school was situated was taxed for its support. No district in the State could be compelled by the law to maintain a school for its white children, but if there were more than fifteen Negro children in the district, the law compelled the local authorities to establish a school for them. If they failed to do so, the law directed the State Superintendent to establish and to levy taxes for the support of Negro schools in such communities. In those districts in which there were too few Negro children to form a separate school, union schools were to be established. The last mentioned law, however, was passed too late to have much effect upon the period under discussion. School officials who refused to perform the duties of their office could be fined[49] not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars. In the larger centers of the State where there was a large Negro population the necessity of establishing schools[50] for the Negroes seems to have been better realized. Thirty-nine out of seventy-three towns and villages incorporated under the special Act for Towns and Villages, reported[51] a sufficient population for a Negro school. There were 19,879 white and 3,609 Negro pupils enrolled in the public schools of these thirty-nine towns and villages. The length of the school term was the same in the white and the Negro schools in a number of cases; but the average length was lower in the Negro schools than in the white schools. The average length of the white school was thirty-four weeks and the average length of the Negro school term was twenty-eight weeks. The average expense a pupil in these schools was 8.1 cents a day for each white pupil and 7.8 cents a day for each Negro pupil. The average attendance in the Negro schools was below that in the white schools. The average attendance of the white schools was 61.89 per cent and that of the Negro schools was 51.86 per cent of the enrollment. The lower attendance of the Negro children may be accounted for as Asa Martin accounts for a similar condition in Kansas City.[52] In this city from 1885 to 1913 a larger per cent of the Negro than of the white children of school age attended the public schools, but the average attendance of the white children enrolled was above that of the Negro children. This he accounted for by the poverty of the Negro population. Since the Negroes were poorer as a whole than the whites, they were more poorly housed and clothed. Consequently the Negro children were more susceptible to sickness and to the disagreeable effects of inclement weather. On this account they were oftener absent from school than the white children.