7. Utah. Admitted in 1896. Received the 2d, 16th, 32d, and 36th sections for schools. No minimum sale price fixed, as the value of much of the land is problematical. The total grant was 6,007,226 acres. The five per cent fund was also given for schools, and this had produced $54,286 by 1910, one-fifth of which was received that year. The amount produced by 1912 was $1,173,975, while the total estimated value of lands and fund was $5,170,527. If the minimum sale price fixed for Arizona and New Mexico, $3 per acre, could be realized, a fund of $20,000,000 should eventually be built up from the national grants for common schools. 8. Oklahoma. Admitted in 1907. Received the 16th and 36th sections, in Oklahoma proper, for common schools, a total of 1,240,242 acres, and $5,000,000 in lieu of grants in the Indian Territory. Minimum sale price fixed at appraised value. The five per cent fund also given for schools. This had produced, up to 1910, $38,644, the amount in 1909-10 being $24,041. The school lands were estimated as worth $20 per acre, and probably will average higher. If properly managed a fund of $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 should be produced from the government grants for common schools alone.

9. Arizona. Admitted in 1911. Received the 2d, 16th, 32d, and 36th sections for common schools. Minimum sale price fixed at $3 per acre for ordinary lands, and $25 per acre for irrigation lands. Total grant for common schools, 8,100,694 acres. The five per cent fund also granted for common schools. One million acres granted to certain counties to pay off certain bonds, and any surplus also to go to the school fund. Value of the lands somewhat uncertain, but a fund of from thirty to forty millions for schools should eventually be produced.

10. New Mexico. Admitted in 1911. grants as Arizona, a total of 8,618,736 acres.

Received the same
Minimum sale price

fixed at $3 per acre in western New Mexico, $5 per acre in eastern New Mexico, and $25 per acre for irrigated lands. A fund of from thirty-five to forty-five millions should eventually be produced for schools from these grants.

IV. NATIONAL AID TO HIGHER EDUCATION

1. Seminary Township Grants

This was first begun in the Ordinance of 1787, relating to the sale of a tract of land to the Ohio Company and confirmed to the state of Ohio by the act of 1803. In 1806 Tennessee

TABLE SHOWING THE GRANTS OF LAND TO EACH STATE FOR UNIVERSITY PURPOSES

Including Section 13 in each township, estimated at 235,514 acres

was granted 100,000 acres of land for two colleges. In the Enabling Act for Indiana, in 1816, the following clause occurs:

SEC. 6, Fourth. That one entire township, which shall be designated by the President of the United States, in addition to the one heretofore reserved for that purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, and vested in the legislature of the said State, to be appropriated solely to the use of such seminary by the said legislature. (Poore, B. P., Charters and Constitutions, I, 499.)

All states have since received two townships (46,080 acres) and a few have received a larger amount.

Beginning with 1889 a new policy was adopted, and the last ten states admitted have received large grants for higher education. (See Table of Specific Grants, page 62.) In the case of Oklahoma (see Enabling Act, Sec. 8) one section of land was granted for the aid of the university, normal schools, and agricultural and mechanical colleges, in addition to other liberal grants. Most of the new states have also received liberal grants of land for the aid of normal schools, and for charitable, penal, and reformatory institutions. (See Table of Specific Grants.)

2. Proposition to grant Land for Universities

In all of these grants the old original states of course did not share, and propositions have been made, from time to time, to grant land to them also for university purposes, but these met with no success until 1862. The following Report reveals the usual objections raised against such proposals.

PROPOSITION TO GRANT ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES OF LAND TO EACH STATE FOR THE ENDOWMENT OF A UNI

VERSITY

Communicated to the House of Representatives, Jan. 18, 1819.

[American State Papers, Public Lands, III, p. 363.]

Mr. Poindexter, from the Committee on Public Lands, to whom was referred a resolution instructing said committee to inquire into

G

the expediency of appropriating one hundred thousand acres of land to each State, for the endowment of a university in each State, reported:

That they are fully impressed with the propriety and importance of giving every encouragement and facility to the promotion of learning, and the diffusion of knowledge over the United States, which can be done without a violation of the principle of the constitution, and the system of policy heretofore adopted for the advancement of the general welfare. The proposition under consideration is, whether it be or be not expedient to authorize a grant of one hundred thousand acres of land to each State in the Union, making in the whole two million three hundred thousand acres, to be vested in bodies corporate, created by the several States having the care and management of their respective universities. Your committee have no specific knowledge of the necessity which exists for this appropriation, in reference to any particular State whose resources may not be adequate to the support of literary institutions, as no petitions or memorials have been referred to them on the subject. In the absence of these it is fair to presume that the internal wealth and industry of the population, composing the several States, have been found sufficient to answer all the purposes of public education and instruction, so far as they have deemed it prudent and necessary to apply the means they possess to those objects. But if the aid of the General Government should, at any time, be required to enable a particular State, or every member of the Union, to carry into effect a liberal and enlarged system of education, suited to the views, capacities, and circumstances, of all classes of society; and if it should be thought wise and constitutional to extend to them the national bounty, the donation of extensive tracts of lands in the unappropriated Territories of the United States appears to your committee to be the most exceptionable form in which the requisite assistance could be granted. To invest twenty-three corporations, acting under State authority, with a fee simple estate in two million three hundred thousand acres of land, to be located in the Western States and Territories, would put it in their power to impede the settlement of that section of the Union by withholding these lands from market; to interfere with the general regulations now in force for the disposal of the public lands; to divide settlements which would otherwise be contiguous; and, consequently, to lessen the value of the lands offered for sale by the United States in the neighborhood of these large grants, which may remain unoccupied for any length of time, at the discretion of the Legislature of the State to which the donation is made. Your committee are of opinion

that, besides these strong objections to the donations proposed in the resolutions submitted to their consideration, it does not comport with sound policy, or the nature of our republican institutions, to grant monopolies of large and extensive tracts of the public domain, either to individuals or bodies corporate. The lands of the United States ought, as far as practicable, to be distributed in small quantities among the great body of the people for agricultural purposes; and this principle ought in no instance to be violated, where the grantee is exempted from the payment of a valuable consideration to the Government. Your committee are sensible that it may be found necessary and useful, for the promotion of learning in this growing republic, either to endow a national university, or to extend its benevolence in a reasonable and proper proportion to individual States; but, in either case, they are of opinion that the requisite aid should be given in money and not in the mode pointed out in the resolution referred to them. They, therefore, recommend the following resolution to the House: Resolved, That it is inexpedient to grant to each State one hundred thousand acres of land for the endowment of a university in each State.

3. The Land-Grant Colleges

In 1850 the legislature of Michigan petitioned Congress for a grant of 350,000 acres of public land to found a college of agriculture, and for the next twelve years this matter was before Congress, in one form or another, and from time to time. In 1858 Michigan repeated its petition. In 1859 a bill was passed, granting 20,000 acres of land for each member in Congress to each state for the purpose, but was vetoed by President Buchanan as unconstitutional and bad in principle. In 1862 a similar bill, granting 30,000 acres instead of 20,000, was passed by Congress and approved by President Lincoln. The policy thus begun has been extended, from time to time, until to-day national aid for the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts forms an important and very significant feature of the relation of the Federal Government to the educational work of the states.

The veto of President Buchanan, in 1859, is interesting, as presenting the old arguments against national aid, and as a prediction of evils which both did and did not come to pass.