1806 the United States ceded all the public lands remaining in the State to Tennessee on certain conditions, one of these being that one hundred thousand acres of land should be set apart for the use of two colleges, the same amount for the support of academies, the lands so set apart to be subject to the disposition of the legislature at not less than $2 an acre, "and the proceeds of the sales of the lands aforesaid shall be vested in funds for the respective uses aforesaid forever. And the State of Tennessee shall moreover, in issuing grants and perfecting titles, locate six hundred and forty acres to every six miles square in the territory hereby ceded, where existing claims will allow the same, which shall be appropriated for the use of schools for the instruction of children forever."1 The policy inaugurated by the ordinance of 1787 was not confined to the Northwest Territory. In the act approved March 3, 1803, providing for the disposal of lands belonging to the United States south of Tennessee, the reservation was made of lot No. 16 of each township and of an entire township for the purposes of common school and university education. From that time until 1848, on the organization of each new Territory similar provisions were made for public education. In that year, on the organization of the Territory of Oregon, the quantity of land reserved for the benefit of common schools was doubled; and to each new Territory organized and State admitted since, except West Virginia, the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of every township, one-eighteenth of the entire area, have been granted for common schools. To each State admitted into the Union since the year 1800, except Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, and to the Territories of New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, have been granted two or more townships of land to endow a university. The States that received more than two townships, or 46,080 acres, are: Ohio, 69,120 acres; Florida and Wisconsin, 92,160 acres each; and Minnesota, 82,640 acres. In 1862 the law granting lands to each State to endow colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts was enacted. The lands granted to the several States under this act aggregate 9,600,000 acres. The State of Texas, on her admission into the Union, retained the title to her public land, and is consequently excepted from the grants to endow common schools and universities; but she shared the benefits of the act endowing colleges of agriculture, receiving as her share land scrip representing 180,000 acres. United States Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 383. 2 In 1839 the Republic of Texas set apart three leagues (13,284 acres) of land in each county for the support of a common school or academy therein, and the following year increased the grant to each county for this purpose to four leagues, or 17,712 acres.. By the act of 1839, fifty leagues, or 221,400 acres, were granted for university purposes Since her admission into the Union, and since the civil war, Texas has reaffirmed her consecration of these lands to the purpose for which they were thus designated, and added by constitutional provisions to these liberal grants in aid of education by INDIVIDUAL GRANTS OF LAND. Besides the general grants there have been special grants of land and buildings to institutions of learning in several States and Territories, as follows: Alabama.-Lafayette Academy Connecticut.-Asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb... Dakota.-Holy Cross Mission Florida.-Chattahoochee arsenal, buildings, lands, &c., to State.. Acres. 480 23, 040 160 10 Georgia.-Dahlonega arsenal, grounds, buildings, &c., for agricultural college. Kentucky.-Asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb; benefit trans- 22, 400 ferred to Centre College. Louisiana.- Pine Grove Academy (quitclaim by the United States) Public schools, Mackinac, lot and building.... Minnesota.-Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Epis- Mississippi.-Jefferson College, outlot at Natchez.. West Virginia.-Storer College, four lots and buildings at Harper's Ferry Portage des Sioux St. Charles St. Louis St. Ferdinand Villa A. Robert Carondelet..... Ste. Geneviève. 4, 040 1.26 80 30 3.25 298.38 68.79 394.86 33.30 12.39 37.10 561.68 The quantity of land thus granted, aside from lots the area of which is unknown, is 51,651.01 acres. By an act of September 4, 1841, 500,000 acres of land were granted to each of the following States, for the purpose of internal improvement, viz: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri; and the same grant has been made to each State since admitted into the Union, except Texas and West Virginia. The quantity of land thus granted is 9,000,000 acres. Six of the States since admitted into the Union-California, Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Nevada, and Wisconsin-have set apart the proceeds of the sales of these lands, by provisions in their respective constitutions, for the benefit of free schools. PROCEEDS OF SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS. At an early period Congress inaugurated the policy of granting a portion of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands to the States in which they were situated. Thus, in 1803 an act was passed granting 3 per reserving the alternate sections of land granted to railroads and other corporations, together with the entire proceeds of all future sales of public lands. Texas has also made a grant of 1,000,000 acres for the endowment of a branch college of the State university for the benefit of the colored people. cent. of such net proceeds to the State of Ohio for "laying out, opening, and making roads within the said State, and to no other purpose whatever; and an annual account of the application of the same shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury." Similar grants (in some cases of 3 and in others of 5 per cent.) have been made to the States admitted into the Union since Ohio, except to Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, in none of which did the General Government possess any public land. In some States the grants were dedicated to purposes of internal improvement, in others to education. The terms of the grant to Illinois are as follows: SEC. 1. Be it enacted, &c., That the Secretary of the Treasury shall, from time to time, and whenever the quarterly accounts of public moneys of the several land offices shall be settled, pay three per cent. of the net proceeds of the lands of the United States lying within the State of Illinois which since the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, have been or hereafter may be sold by the United States, after deducting all expenses incidental to the same, to such person or persons as may be authorized by the legislature of the said State to receive the same; which sums, thus paid, shall be applied to the encouragement of learning within said State, in conformity to the provisions on this subject contained in the act entitled "An act to enable the people of the Illinois Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States," approved April eighteenth, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen, and to no other purpose; and an annual account of the application of the same shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury by such officer of the State as the legislature thereof shall direct; and, in default of such return being made, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby required to withhold the payment of any sums that may then be due, or which may thereafter become due, until a return shall be made as herein required. Approved, December 12, 1820. By the act of April 18, 1818, it was provided that one-sixth of the sums derived from the 3 per cent. of net proceeds of public land sales should "be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." From 1821 to 1869, Illinois received under this law $713,495.45. The whole amount paid to the several States as percentages on the net proceeds of sales of public lands was $6,508,819.11. How much of this sum has been devoted to educational purposes has not yet been ascertained, but the States named below have received the amounts named, respectively, which (either by the terms of the grant by Congress or by State constitutional enactment) are to be applied for the benefit of public education: Besides this, the State of Arkansas has received from the same source $224,473.15, which sum, by a provision of the State constitution adopted in 1868, was to be devoted to education, but respecting which the later constitution of 1875 is silent. Missouri has in like manner received under two acts, dated respectively March 6, 1820, and February 28, 1859, the sum of $1,008,321.86. The constitution of Missouri adopted in 1875 establishes a school fund, one of the components of which is, in the words of a clause in section 6: Also any proceeds of the sales of public lands which may have been or may hereafter be paid over to this State (if Congress will consent to such appropriation). Several of the States have devoted the net proceeds of the sales of swamp and saline lands to public education, but the amounts derived from these sources have not been generally ascertained. in In Ohio the amount realized from the sale of the saline grants and added to the common school fund was reported in 1850 at $41,024; Indiana the State school fund realized from the same source $85,000. The constitutions of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi (with some unimportant reservations), and Indiana contain provisions requiring that the net proceeds of the sales of swamp lands shall be used for the benefit of public education; and in several other States, as, for example, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the same disposition has been made under general laws, without a specific constitutional enactment. The constitution of Alabama once contained this provision; the amendment of 1875 abrogated it. It appears from the report of the State superintendent of public instruction for 1875 that up to that date the sum of $27,340.31 had been received into the State treasury on account of sales of swamp land, but it does not appear that this amount or the income thereof had ever been used for the benefit of public education. The amount of swamp lands granted and patented to each of the States, from the date of the first grant to June 30, 1876, is as follows: 1 25, 640.71 1,256, 631.96 1,453, 611. 67 3, 185, 479. 44 392,719. 61 2,681, 383. 16 8,468, 964. 93 5,864, 669.55 7,059, 827.68 Official reports of the amounts received from sales of these lands and of the distribution of the proceeds are not easily accessible, and it is impracticable to present at this time any statement on these heads. 1 Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1876. DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS REVENUE. In 1836 there was a large sum in the Treasury of the United States, chiefly derived from the sales of public lands, which was not needed for the current expenses of the General Government, and a law was approved on June 23 which provided for a distribution of the surplus among the twenty-five States of the Union on the basis of their respective representation in Congress. Afterward, the benefit of the act was extended to Michigan, which had just been admitted into the Union. This fund, amounting to $28,101,644.91, has since been held by the several States admitted into the Union prior to 1837, subject to call by the General Government. Several of them have devoted a part or the whole of the income realized from this fund to public education. ALABAMA. Of the fund referred to, Alabama received $669,086.79, which sum was deposited in the State Bank and its branches. By the first section of an act approved February 3, 1840, the bank and its branches were required to pay yearly $200,000 "for the purpose of aiding in the establishment of schools in the several townships of this State;" by the fifth section it was provided that no town should receive its proportion of this fund until it could be shown that a sum equal to one-third of the amount applied for had been raised by subscription; and the tenth section provided that "the annual interest of the surplus revenue deposited with this State shall be set apart to assist in the appropriation made by this act." This law was repealed January 21, 1843. A law "to establish and maintain a system of free public schools in Alabama" was enacted February 15, 1854, the preamble to which reads as follows: That to carry into effect that provision of our State constitution which wisely declares that "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged in this State;" to realize the objects of the General Government in making grants and appropriations for the establishment of schools in each township; and to extend upon equal terms, to all the children of our State, the inestimable blessings of liberal instruction, the following system of free public schools is hereby established in this State and shall have the full force of law after the passage of this act. The law was very elaborate. The first section of Article 1 contains provisions to create an educational fund, the first component of which was to consist of "the annual interest, at 8 per cent., on that portion of the surplus revenue of the United States deposited with this State under the act of Congress of the 23d of June, 1836." This school law was amended in 1856 and again in 1860, but the provision respecting the interest on the surplus revenue fund was not disturbed. The first application of the income of the surplus revenue fund for the support of schools (for 1855) was made December 1, 1854; the amount was $53,526.94. The total income of Alabama for educational purposes in that year was $237,515.39. Of this sum, $74,687.60 represented the |