den, and that it should then be imposed ratably as between those who constitute that public. * * It can therefore

be stated with emphasis that the burden of a tax must be made to rest upon the State at large or upon any particular district of the State, according as the purpose for which it is levied is of general concern to the whole State, or, on the other hand, pertains only to the particular district. A State purpose must be accomplished by State taxation, a county purpose by county taxation, or a public purpose for any inferior district by taxation of such district. This is not only just but it is essential. To any extent that one man is compelled to pay in order to relieve others of a public burden properly resting upon them, his property is taken for private purposes as plainly and as palpably as it would be if appropriated to the payment of the debts or the discharge of obligations which the person thus relieved by his payments might owe to private parties." (1 Cooley on Taxation,-3d ed.-225, et seq.)

Section 1 of article 8 of the constitution is a command to the General Assembly to provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools where all children of the State may receive a good common school education, and the high school is a part of the system of free schools. In the execution of the duty enjoined by the constitution the General Assembly has charged separate districts with the duty of maintaining the schools and raising money by taxation for such maintenance, so that establishing both district schools and high schools has been made a local and corporate purpose. (Cook v. Board of Directors, 266 Ill. 164.) The effect of the act of 1915 is to require the tax-payers in a district maintaining a high school to indirectly contribute to the tuition of persons residing in districts maintaining no such school, and thereby to contribute to the local and corporate purpose of furnishing an education to the children. of such district. The tax-payers of the district maintaining a high school pay to make up the State school fund and

then are deprived of a portion of it for the benefit of districts not maintaining any high school; and the same is true of a district not maintaining a high school which does not send any of its pupils to a high school in another district. The tax-payers of a high school district offering the advantages of a high school education are indirectly forced to assist in the education of pupils living in other districts. The act violates the fundamental principle of uniformity and equality in taxation and contravenes section 1 of article 9 of the constitution.

The effect of the act is to exempt owners of property in districts not providing four years of recognized high school, work from paying taxes proportionate to the value of their taxable property as compared with the taxable property of other districts, to the extent that the State tax is appropriated to a local and corporate purpose. The result is to release the districts from the payment of taxes for such purpose, and that is a violation of section 6 of article 9 of the constitution, which provides that the General Assembly shall have no power to release or discharge any county, city, township, town or district whatever, or the inhabitants thereof or the property therein, of their or its proportionate share of taxes to be levied for State purposes, nor shall commutation for such taxes be authorized in any form whatsoever. The State-wide school tax is a tax for a State purpose, to be apportioned to and distributed by the Auditor among the counties and by the county superintendent of schools among the districts in the county, and by the act in question the school district maintaining no high school is released from taxation for the local and corporate purpose of paying tuition of its pupils residing in the district and attending schools outside of the district. In People v. Barger, 62 Ill. 452, it was held that the act purporting to exempt the inhabitants of Shawneetown from State taxes, which required the levy of a tax equal to the tax released by the

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State to be used exclusively to the constructing of a levee to protect the city from overflow, was in conflict with the constitution. The construction of the levee to protect the city from overflow was a public purpose, but it was local, and the exemption was equivalent to an appropriation of State taxes to such a purpose. In People v. Lippincott, 65 Ill. 548, an act appropriating State taxes, except the school and two mill tax, in certain townships to aid in the improvement of the Kaskaskia river was held to be abrogated by the present constitution because in conflict with section 6 of article 9, although the tax was professedly received and applied for State purposes. It was not so applied, in fact, but was applied to making a local improvement, and the principle of the decision is in no way affected by the fact that the improvement was by a navigation company. The act of 1915, by providing for the payment of tuition from the State tax, amounts to a return to school districts not maintaining a high school a part of their taxes levied for a State purpose, which effects a practical release or commutation of taxes.

It is argued that the act is void because it gives the county superintendent an arbitrary discretion to limit the tuition charge to $40 per annum, but while the act provides that the superintendent may so limit the maximum amount for each pupil, he is required to notify the high schools in the county before the opening of the school year, and the right to attend the school is subject to the approval of the high school board. They must consent to the admission of the pupil at $40 per annum if the superintendent should fix that charge, and power is not vested in the county superintendent to compel any high school board to furnish tuition at that price.

With the greatest consideration for the law-making power, and under the rule that all doubts must be resolved in favor of the constitutionality of the act, it must be held

that the act of 1915 is void because in conflict with constitutional limitations.

The decree is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to overrule the demurrer.

Reversed and remanded, with directions.

OLLIE MOULD, Appellant, vs. ARTHUR W. ROHM et al. Appellees.

Opinion filed October 24, 1916.

1. SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE—what complainant must show. One who seeks specific performance has the burden not only of establishing the execution of the contract and full performance on his part, but also of showing that the agreement is full and complete, certain, fair and just in all its parts and provisions.

2. SAME when a court of equity will scrupulously weigh the evidence. Where the contract sought to be specifically enforced requires the making of a different disposition of property than that which the law prescribes, a court of equity will scrupulously weigh the evidence and require clear proof of the existence and execution of the contract.

3. SAME-rule where contract is claimed to have been in writing but is lost. Where it is claimed that the contract sought to be specifically enforced was in writing but is lost or destroyed and it is attempted to prove the contract by parol evidence, the existence and terms of the contract must be established with the same certainty as though the contract rested entirely in parol.

4. SAME-what does not establish a contract. A contract to adopt the complainant and to leave her the adoptors' property is not established where the only evidence thereof is the testimony of two persons who claim to have seen the written contract under circumstances which render their testimony very improbable and whose testimony as to what the contract contained is uncertain, and where no person who would be interested in the contract is shown to have known of its existence.

FARMER, J., dissenting.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of St. Clair county; the Hon. THOMAS M. JETT, Judge, presiding.

BARTHEL, FARMER & KLINGEL, and SCHAEFER & KRUGER, for appellant.

D. J. SULLIVAN, for appellees Arthur W. Rohm and William L. Rohm.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE CRAIG delivered the opinion of the

court:

Appellant, Ollie Mould, filed her bill in chancery in the circuit court of St. Clair county against Arthur W. Rohm, William L. Rohm, the Southern Illinois Trust Company, (administrator of the estate of Louisa Rohm, deceased,) and others, for the specific performance of an alleged contract for her adoption by Louisa Rohm (formerly Louisa Strecker) and her husband, Christ F. Strecker, by which they had agreed to adopt her as their own child and provide for her as such, and for partition of the real estate of which Louisa Rohm died seized and possessed.

This is the second suit between the parties involving the real estate in question. At the April term, 1911, of the circuit court of St. Clair county the appellant filed a bill in chancery against appellees, Arthur W. Rohm and William L. Rohm, and others, for the purpose of having an alleged contract between her and Louisa Rohm, deceased, dated January 2, 1899, decreed a deed and for partition of the land therein described. An answer was filed to the bill and a replication to the answer, and on the issue thus formed a hearing was had in the circuit court and a decree entered in favor of appellant. The defendants to the bill prosecuted an appeal from the decree to this court, where the decree was reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to dismiss the bill. The case is reported under the title of Mould v. Rohm, 257 Ill. 436. Thereafter the cause was re-docketed in the lower court and a decree entered dismissing the bill for want of equity, pursuant to the mandate of this court. Thereafter appellant filed her bill in this case at the April term, 1913, of that court for a specific