Dog Tax for School Fund

     It was in the Board of Supervisors of 1865 that Erving Taintor, the "Bard of Harford," offered a resolution providing, in substance, for application to the Legislature for such alteration of the laws as would allow the dog tax to be applied to the school fund.
     Appended to the resolution in the old record book appears the following poetical argument in favor of the resolution: ---

            Now, in the Scriptures it is said

            You shall not take the children's bread

                  And give it to the dogs;

            Neither shall men, or boys, or girls, 

            Or lovely women take their pearls

                  And cast them to the hogs.

            But e'er intent on doing good,

            Give hogs and dogs their proper food,

                  And knowledge to the fools;

            So, 'tis the fashion now to raise

            By various means and various ways, 

                  Money for our schools.

            Now, if a thieving dog you keep,

            Or one that never killed a sheep,

                  Or dog of any kind,

            Let him be taxed to raise a store

            Of several hundreds, if no more,

                  To cultivate the mind.

            Then, every dog of every breed

            Will teach the children how to read,

                  Or help their education;

            And thus a useless race be made,

                  To benefit the nation.

H.P. Smith's History of Cortland 1885.