red that "the State constitution says, 'Every male
citizen, etc., shall be entitled to vote for all officers that are now
or may be hereafter elective by the people' (!) and school trustees
are elective officers within this provision, therefore the Act
allowing women to vote for them is unconstitutional."

Women had been voting for these officers seven years under this Act,
and always for the benefit of the schools, according to the almost
universal testimony of educational authorities. It now became
necessary, in order to continue this privilege, to obtain an amendment
to the constitution. The story of the three years' effort made by the
State Suffrage Association for this purpose is related earlier in the
chapter. Since this had to be made they begged that the amendment
might include School Suffrage for the women in towns and cities also,
but this was refused. And yet even a proposition to restore School
Suffrage to those of villages and rural districts, when submitted to
the voters, was defeated at the election on Sept. 28, 1897, by 65,029
yeas, 75,170 nays, over 10,000 majority.

While the Supreme Court decision took away the vote for trustees it
did not interfere with the right of women in villages and country
districts to vote on questions of bonds and appropriations for the
building of schoolhouses and other school purposes, and that is the
amount of suffrage now possessed by women in New Jersey. When the
school laws were revised in 1900 this fragment was carefully guarded
and provision made for furnishing two boxes, one in which the men
might put their vote on all school matters, and the other where women
might put theirs on the ones above specified.

OFFICE HOLDING: In 1873 a law was passed that "no person hereafter
shall be eligible to the office of school trustee unless he or she can
read and write," and women were authorized to serve when duly elected.
In 1894, when the School Suffrage was taken away by the Supreme Court,
thirty-two were holding the office and the decision did not abrogate
this right. They have continued to be elected and twenty-seven are
serving at the present time. At Englewood, in 1899, Miss Adaline
Sterling was president of the board. Women are not eligible as State
or county superintendents.

Four of the nine trustees of the State Industrial School for Girls are
women, and a woman physician is employed when one is needed.

Dr. Mary J. Dunlop has been superintendent and medical dire