tire townships in addition to the two townships already reserved, for the use of two seminaries of learning, one to be located east and the other west of the Suwanee River." The duty of selecting and securing these lands was by an act of 1835 intrusted to the register of the land office. Eight years later five trustees were appointed to take charge of and lease the seminary lands. All sums that had been or should be obtained from this source were to be loaned on bond and mortgage at eight per cent.3 In 1847 the register of public lands was given power to rent or sell the lands, and invest the proceeds in United States stock.4

5

The first move toward realizing the object of the grant was made in 1846, when a board composed of two persons from each section of the State was directed to give its views in regard to establishing the two universities. An act of January 24, 1851, authorized the establishment of two seminaries of learning; the one east of the Suwanee was to be a normal school; the one on the west was to give instruction in the mechanic arts, in husbandry and agricultural chemistry, in the fundamental laws, and in what regards the rights and duties of citi zens. As soon as the buildings of either seminary were ready for use, one-half of the interest on the seminary fund was to be passed to its credit.

It is interesting to note that on the day the above act was passed a memorial of the Legislature to Congress requested that permission be given the State to appropriate the proceeds of the seminary lands to common schools. A similar petition appeared in 1877, on the ground that it would be better to maintain efficient common schools and a normal school. Both efforts seem to have been unsuccessful.

Liberal aid being granted by the inhabitants of the two towns, East Florida Seminary was located at Ocala (but afterwards removed to Gainesville) and West Florida Seminary at Tallahassee." In 1869 they were made free schools, with the exception of the classical department of East Florida Seminary.10

1 Act of March 3, 1845.

2 The Territory had assisted education by means of lotteries. Quincy Academy had been authorized to raise one thousand two hundred dollars by a lottery, while a like device was to secure ten thousand dollars for establishing and maintaining free schools in St. Augustine. See Laws of 1834, 56, 64.

3 Laws of 1843, 36. (See also Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1876, 61–63, where the whole history of the seminary lands can be followed.)

*Laws of 1846-47, 47.

5 Ibid., 83.

6 Laws of 1850-51, 97. 'Ibid., 186.

8 Laws of 1877, 149.

9 Laws of 1852-53, 83; Laws of 1856-57, 28; Laws of 1865-66, 50.

10 Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1876, 63.

STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

The proceeds of the sale of land scrip, invested in United States or State bonds, were by an act of 1870 to form the endowment of Florida Agricultural College.1 Its site was fixed at Eau Gallie, but as this was "a remote and comparatively unsettled and inaccessible part of the State," the Legislature in 1877 ordered that the college should be removed to any central point the trustees should select.2 Lake City was chosen, and the college was organized in 1885. Up to 1887 $30,750 had been received from the State.3

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS.

Article X of the Constitution of 1838 reads as follows:

"SECTION 1. The proceeds of all lands that have been, or may hereafter be, granted by the United States for the use of schools and a seminary or seminaries of learning, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which, * shall be inviolably appropriated

*

to the use of schools and seminaries of learning, respectively, and to no

other purpose.

"SECTION 2. The General Assembly shall take such measures as may be necessary to preserve from waste or damage all land so granted and appropriated to the purpose of education."4

The substance of these provisions reappears in the Constitution of 1865. The Constitution of 1868 contains the following provision:

"The Legislature shall provide a uniform system of common schools, and a university, and shall provide for the liberal maintenance of the same. Instruction in them shall be free." 995

Educational property may be exempted by law from taxation.

SUMMARY.

Although Florida's educational policy has been one of State aid, her conduct is more creditable in the field of common schools than in the field of higher education, where it is only of late years that much activity has been manifested. The appropriations for the latter purpose, so far as ascertained, amount to $30,750, for the Agricultural College.

3 Report of Commissioner of Education for 1886-87, 710.

Poore: Charters and constitutions, 326. Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1867-68, 112.

5Art. IX, sec. 2, Rep. Com'r Educ., 1867-68, 127; Poore, 355. In 1869 an act was passed in conformity to this provision. It was made the duty of the Board of Education "to use the available income and appropriations to the university or seminary fund in establishing one or more departments in the University," beginning with normal and preparatory work, but keeping in view the establishment of a university on a broad and liberal basis. See Laws, second session of 1869, 9, and further, Bush, Education in Florida, 46, 47.

6 Art. XII, sec. 1; Poore, 357.

880-No. 1—14

The following extract taken from a letter received from Mr. Albert J. Russell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Florida, dated July 27, 1888, indicates the work being done by that State toward higher education. It indicates that Florida is assisting State institutions.

"There is no published statement of appropriations, except what is given in the journals of the various Legislatures. An annual appropria tion of eight thousand dollars is made for normal colleges, and one of five thousand dollars for the Deaf-Mute Institute. These are fixed. Each Legislature, however, is frequently called upon for appropriations for the State college and State seminary. In 1885 ten thousand dollars were given to the State college, and in 1887 seven thousand five hundred dollars more to the same college and ten thousand dollars to the East Florida Seminary. Each of these institutions has a permanent inviolable invested fund of its own, the former one hundred and ninetyfive thousand dollars, and the latter ninety-five thousand dollars, with sixty thousand acres of land unsold and in the market. The State also appropriates annually one thousand five hundred dollars for teachers' institutes. I believe these facts cover the field of our appropriations.

CHAPTER VI.

STATE EDUCATION IN THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY.

The Ordinance of 1787 was the magna charta of the North-West Territory, wrested from Congress by the people. Though generally attributed to the generosity and wisdom of a central legislative body, the real spirit of its origin must be sought in the desires of the people who proposed to live in that Territory. It was the privilege of self-government, determined by the people, and granted by the supreme legislative body.

The Ordinance was not a cunning device wrought upon the theory of the abstract fitness of things. It arose from practical conditions, .although its significance soon outstripped the most sanguine dreams. of its originators. The design of Jefferson for universal freedom became enlarged, and was carried out by those directly interested in the settlement of the territory in question, and their faithful allies. The people demanded provisions for religion, for schools, and for the exclusion of slavery, and they were granted.

The far-reaching influence of the Ordinance was grasped by the mind of Webster, when he expressed his sentiments before Congress in the following words: "At the foundation of the constitution of these new north-western States, lies the celebrated Ordinance of 1787. We are accustomed, sir, to praise the law-givers of antiquity, and we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law, of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. That instrument was drawn by Nathan Dane, then and now a citizen of Massachusetts.1 It was adopted, as I think I have

66

1The most recent criticism on the Ordinance of 1787 considers it the product of many minds, and not of an individnal. "No one," says Mr. Poole, "I think, in the present state of investigation, can be regarded as its author. It came from a committee, and what occurred in two sessions of the committee is not known. The scribe of the committeee was Nathan Dane, and if the manuscript of the final draft could be found, it would probably appear in his handwriting." (See W. F. Poole, in Papers of American Historical Association, Vol. III.) The credit of framing the principal clauses is sometimes given to Dr. Manasseh Cutler, the director of the Ohio Company, Although he is entitled to much credit, his associates, General Rufus Putnam, Samuel Holden Parsons, as well as the prominent members of Congress, a majority of them southern members, must be considered worthy sharers of the honor. (Poole.) It must be remembered, also, that prior work of Thomas Jefferson had at least determined the plan of action,

211

understood, without the slightest alteration, and certainly it has happened to few men to be the author of a political measure of more large and enduring consequences."1

The importance of the Ordinance appears in the fact that the Federal Government acknowledged its right and duty to look after the educa tional interests of the people, and that, having placed the means of education within reach of the State governments, it threw all responsibility of organization and control of education upon the States. It placed in the care of the State a trust fund for the support of educa tion and held the State responsible for the administration of the same. Started as a policy in reference to a single State, the grants for education extended to all the States admitted thereafter, with the exception of those whose land policies had been already settled at the time of their admission.

Though furnished the means of education, the settlers of "the Ohio" encountered many of the same difficulties of planting a university in the wilderness that were met by the colonists on the Atlantic seaboard. To force nature, on the one hand, by hard toil to yield her resources, and, on the other haud, to protect their homes from the ravages of the Indians and the jealousy of foreign nations, required nearly their entire attention, and left little time for culture.

But the desire for culture and learning was deep-seated and constant. The Ohio country was chiefly settled by persons from the New England and Middle States, who carried with them notions of education entertained by their fathers. Consequently we find an eagerness to found universities and colleges at the earliest opportunity. Two years after Ohio became a State, the Ohio University.was chartered and organized, and five years thereafter the Miami University was located in Butler County. Ten years before the admission of Indiana the University of Vincennes was chartered and organized. Michigan and Wisconsin each chartered a university while they were yet Territories.

These universities were necessarily of slow growth, and in this respect they were not unlike other institutions of their own time. The growth of permanent institutions in new countries is always slow. Harvard is great with two hundred and fifty years to grace her venerable life, and Yale University will soon celebrate her one hundred and ninetieth anniversary. If the Johns Hopkins University sprang within a decade to the foremost rank among the institutions of America, it was because the times were ripe for such an institution. More than two centuries of educational development prepared the way and made the support of the university possible.

Two principal motives characterize the haste to establish universities in this wilderness: the first was the zeal of the inhabitants for education, and the second the desire on the part of the people to secure to

I Webster's Works, III, 263.

2 Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Texas.