The Exaggerator continues its public-service mission of calling the Notice and Attention of certain Zealots and True Believers among the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right challenging the legality and constitutionality of provisions in the several State Constitutions as call for:

• establishing systems of free public education; and
• proscribing use of public funds for religiosectarian purposes and ends,

by calling attention to the specific clauses of the several State Constitutions relative to the preceding points.

We continue as thus:

NEBRASKA:

• The Legislature shall provide for the free instruction in the common schools of this state of all persons between the ages of five and twenty-one years. The Legislature may provide for the education of other persons in educational institutions owned and controlled by the state or a political subdivision thereof. (Article VII, section 1, Nebraska Constitution)
• Notwithstanding any other provision in the Constitution, appropriation of public funds shall not be made to any school or institution of learning not owned or exclusively controlled by the state or a political subdivision thereof; PROVIDED, that the Legislature may provide that the state or any political subdivision thereof may contract with institutions not wholly owned or controlled by the state or any political subdivision to provide for educational or other services for the benefit of children under the age of twenty-one years who are handicapped, as that term is from time to time defined by the Legislature, if such services are nonsectarian in nature.

All public schools shall be free of sectarian instruction.

The state shall not accept money or property to be used for sectarian purposes; PROVIDED, that the Legislature may provide that the state may receive money from the federal government and distribute it in accordance with the terms of any such federal grants, but no public funds of the state, any political subdivision, or any public corporation may be added thereto.

A religious test or qualification shall not be required of any teacher or student for admission or continuance in any school or institution supported in whole or in part by public funds or taxation. (Article VII, section 11, op. cit.)

NEVADA:

• The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district at least six months in every year, and any school district which shall allow instruction of a sectarian character therein may be deprived of its proportion of the interest of the public school fund during such neglect or infraction, and the legislature may pass such laws as will tend to secure a general attendance of the children in each school district upon said public schools. (Article 11, section 2, Nevada Constitution)
• No sectarian instruction shall be imparted or tolerated in any school or University that may be established under this Constitution.  (Article 11, section 9, op. cit.)

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

• Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country, being highly conducive to promote this end; it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people: Provided, nevertheless, that no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools of institutions of any religious sect or denomination. (Article 83, New Hampshire Constitution; this particular article also includes proscriptions on monopoly power and devious business practices contrary to public interest, as are irrelevant to the subject @ hand and, ergo, not included here.) 

NEW JERSEY:

• The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years. (Article VIII, section 4, clause 1, New Jersey Constitution of 1947)
• The fund for the support of free public schools, and all money, stock and other property, which may hereafter be appropriated for that purpose, or received into the treasury under the provisions of any law heretofore passed to augment the said fund, shall be securely invested, and remain a perpetual fund; and the income thereof, except so much as it may be judged expedient to apply to an increase of the capital, shall be annually appropriated to the support of free public schools, and for the equal benefit of all the people of the State; and it shall not be competent, except as hereinafter provided, for the Legislature to borrow, appropriate or use the said fund or any part thereof for any other purpose, under any pretense whatever. The bonds of any school district of this State, issued according to law, shall be proper and secure investments for the said fund and, in addition, said fund, including the income therefrom and any other moneys duly appropriated to the support of free public schools may be used in such manner as the Legislature may provide by law to secure the payment of the principal of or interest on bonds or notes issued for school purposes by counties, municipalities or school districts or for the payment or purchase of any such bonds or notes or any claims for interest thereon. (Article VIII, section IV, clause 2, op. cit.)

NEW MEXICO:

• A uniform system of free public schools sufficent for the education of, and open to, all the children of school age in the state shall be established and maintained. (Article XII, section 1, New Mexico Constitution)
• No religious test shall ever be required as a condition of admission into the public schools or any educational institution of this state, and no teacher or student of such school or institution shall ever be required to attend or participate in any religious service whatsoever. (Article XII, section 9, op. cit.)

NEW YORK:

• The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated. (Article XI, section 1, New York State Constitution of 1938)
• Neither the state nor any subdivision thereof, shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination  or inspection, of any school or institution of learning wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in  which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught, but the  legislature may provide for the transportation of children to and from any school or institution of learning. (Article XI, section 3, op. cit.)