LEGALITY OF SCHOOL ABANDONING RAISED

Courts at Indianapolis Are Called Upon.

INTEREST TO THE STATE.

Must a school wagon, official carrier of children to and from schools in a country district, go nearer than one-half mile to a patron's home in order to take that patron's child to school? This is the question Judge Lawson Harvey, Indianapolis, has been called on to settle. The decision involves in a way the legality of the act passed by the last legislature, which provides that all schools in which the attendance on the opening day was less than twelve should be abandoned and the children sent to other school buildings.

John C. Smith, of Lawrence township, Marion county, obtained an alternative writ of mandate against Charles C. Lyle, trustee of that township, ordering Lyle to show cause why the school wagon in his township should not pass nearer than one-half mile to the Smith home in its rounds. Smith's little daughter attended school last year at a building near the Smith home. This year that school was abandoned, and the child attends school near Oaklandon, three and one-half miles away. Smith says she has to walk one-half mile down the road and wait for the school wagon every morning, and has to walk the half mile every afternoon after school. The question will be raised at the final hearing, September 2 as to whether abandonment of schools because of small enrollment is legal.