The contention below and here was and is that the words “school conveyances,” being placed between “electric railways” and “other public transportation,” must necessarily be interpreted as relating only to conveyances of the same character as the others specified, that is “public or common carriers”; which the hired wagon provided by appellant was not. To this we cannot assent. The ejusdem generis argument, upon which this conclusion is attempted to be based, is inapplicable, not only because “school conveyances” are not the general words in the sentence, these being “other public transportation,” but also because carriage by “school conveyances” of this character are “public transportation” though their actual use, for the purpose stated, is limited to a part of the community only and because, further, “school conveyances,” which were a well-known method of transportation before the passage of the act, were not and are not “common carriers” in any proper sense of the term.
The latter may carry school children, but that alone would not make their cars “school conveyances”; particular cars would have to be devoted to this use, before they would be so designated, and no one suggests there is any such requirement. Moreover, if the words “school conveyances” were limited in meaning to “public or common carriers,” they would be surplusage, since “electric railways……or other public transportation” embraces everything in that class. The courts are not permitted, however, to so treat any words in a contract or statute, unless no other conclusion can reasonably be reached: Vulcanite Paving Co. v. Phila.
It is clear to us that the “free transportation of pupils ……authorized by this Act,” as referred to in the section under consideration, means that specified in section 1404, by which “The board of school directors of any school district……may, out of the funds of the district, provide for the free transportation of any pupil to and from the public schools.” Substantially similar language occurs in other sections, and nowhere does there appear any intention to limit the character of conveyance to those belonging to and used by “common carriers”; they may be any proper form of transportation prescribed by the board, certainly, in the absence of a reasonably clear expression to the contrary, they may be by private carriers, which, as stated, was not uncommon prior to the act.
So far as appears, the old Franklin school building is a “proper shelter” within the meaning of the proviso quoted, and the hired wagon is not shown to be an inadequate vehicle for the carriage of the children; hence the school district performed its full duty when this was sent to carry relator’s children between that “shelter” building and the West Benton school.
