jealous guarding of their rights to administer their own educational affairs, there has, nevertheless, always existed among many of them the opinion that it is a proper function of the General Government to encourage education within the various States. Accordingly, we find that as early as 1785, during the pre-constitutional period, measures were passed by the old Congress encouraging education; and since that date up to the present time Congress has frequently furthered the cause of education in various States in diverse ways. The aid thus extended may be roughly classified as (1) direct or immediate, and (2) indirect or mediate. Under direct aid are included such benefits accruing to education that result from direct and specific national grants for educational purposes; under indirect aid are included such benefits accruing to education that result from general and unspecified national grants for State purposes, all or a portion of which grants have, in turn, been devoted by such States to purposes of education. Under the former class will be considered the grants for elementary, secondary, and higher education, as contained in the enabling, the admission, or the different special and general acts pertaining to the several States; while under the latter class will be considered the Surplus Revenue Act of 1836, the Distribution Act of 1841, the Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850, and various special acts. With but very few exceptions, it may be added, all Government aid in behalf of education has consisted either of grants of public lands, or of moneys derived from the sales of such lands. CHAPTER I LEGISLATION BY THE CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION THE public lands which constitute the ultimate sources whence have risen Government grants for education from the earliest times down to the present, have had a threefold origin, viz., by conquest, by cession, and by purchase. It was about the question of the ownerhip of the crown lands situated north of the Ohio, west of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi, that the conflicting opinions between the large land owning States and the small landless States arose during the progress of the Revolutionary War. The large land-owning States based their claims to vast areas of unoccupied territory on various general, ill-defined, and usually conflicting grants made by Great Britain in the colonial days, while the small landless States contended that the territory wrested from British dominion by virtue of the united struggles of the collective colonies, was a common treasure to be disposed of for the common benefit of all.1 The attention of the country seems first to have been definitely directed to these conflicting claims by Maryland, in June, 1778. By resolution of Congress of September 6, 1780, the land States were requested to surrender their claims to the disputed territory; and in the following October such lands as might be ceded to the United States were pledged to "be dis 1 For an account of this period see Donaldson, Public Domain, Chapter III, "The States'-Rights Conflict over Public Lands." James C. Welling, in American Historical Association Papers, Vol. III, 167–188. 'Donaldson, Public Domain, 60. posed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other States." The controversy that had been engendered raged with unwonted fierceness. It furnished the raison d'être for the delay in securing the full ratification of the Articles of Confederation by all the States; and Maryland finally accepted the Articles, but with the understanding that the unoccupied lands to the west should form a fund for the common benefit of all the States.' By 1802, all the large land-owning States had ceded to the General Government the tracts of territory out of which were later formed the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Michigan and Wisconsin. By purchase, the United States later acquired the district out of which was formed the State of Florida, and the southern parts of Mississippi and Alabama. It is with these States, excepting Kentucky, which contained no unoccupied public lands on admission, that this investigation is concerned. While the conflict over the question of the ownership of the western lands was still at its height, a plan was in contemplation to found a new State west of the Ohio, to be settled by officers and soldiers of the Federal army who should associate for such purposes. Colonel Timothy Pickering, of Massachusetts, in a letter of April 7, 1783, mentions various propositions to be submitted to Congress concerning such new State, among which occurs the paragraph that "all surplus lands shall be the Donaldson, Public Domain, 64. In compliance with the resolution of September 6, 1780, claims to lands lying northwest of the Ohio river were surrendered by New York, 1781; Virginia, 1784; Massachusetts, 1785; and by Connecticut, 1786; while claims to lands south of the present State of Kentucky were surrendered by South Carolina in 1784, by North Carolina in 1790, and by Georgia in 1802. Donaldson, Public Domain, 65. 'Pickering, I, 457, 546. common property of the State, and disposed of for the common good; as, for laying out roads, building bridges, erecting public buildings, establishing schools and academies, defraying the expenses of government, and other public uses." Associated with Colonel Pickering in this enterprise was General Rufus Putnam, to whom a rough draft of the provisions to govern the new State was submitted. A petition signed' by officers of the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Maryland lines was sent by Putnam to General Washington, requesting the latter to use his good offices in securing the patronage of Congress in furthering the founding of such a State by the granting of suitable quantities of lands to settlers. Accompanying this petition was a letter written by Putnam (June 16, 1783), wherein he makes mention of the advisability of an allowance by Congress of " 3,040 acres for the ministry, schools, waste lands, rivers, ponds and highways in each township." Both letter and petition were the next day referred to the President of Congress by Washington; 10 but the matter was never definitely acted upon by the committee to whom the subject was referred. In the meantime Colonel Bland, a representative from Virginia, introduced a resolution to the effect that Congress accept the proposition of Virginia of January 2, 1781, for the cession of her western lands; that land be granted the officers and soldiers in lieu of certain pay due them; that States be erected out of the territory ceded, and that the rents, shares, profits and Pickering, I, 548. 'Of the 285 names, 235 belonged to New England, 36 to New Jersey, 13 to Maryland, and I to New York. Of the New England names, 155 belonged to Massachusetts, 34 to New Hampshire, and 46 to Connecticut. Quoted by B. A. Hinsdale, "Old Northwest," 267; from the Ohio Archæological and Historical Quarterly, June, 1887, 46. Bancroft, I, 314. 'Walker, History of Athens Co., O., 34, 36. 10 Bancroft, I, 315. "be produce of every 10,000 acres out of each 100,000 acres appropriated to the payment of the civil list of the United States, the erecting frontier forts, the founding of seminaries of learning, and the surplus after such purposes (if any) to be appropriated to the building and equipping a navy, and to no other use or purpose whatever.' This motion was referred to the grand committee of the 30th of May, 1783, and experienced a legislative death in the committee. This motion is significant as being the first mention in Congress of Government aid for education. '11 As a consequence of the Virginia cession, "An ordinance for ascertaining the mode of locating and disposing of lands in the western territory" was reported by a committee, of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman, on May 7, 1784." This bill came up for a second reading on May 28, and the question to take the bill into consideration was lost.13 Under date of March 1, 1785, Colonel Pickering wrote to Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a member from Massachusetts, requesting to be informed what plan Congress would probably adopt in disposing of the land northwest of the Ohio." Mr. Gerry forwarded to Colonel Pickering a draught of the ordinance of the previous year, and being about to return home, requested Colonel Pickering to communicate his views and criticisms to Mr. Rufus King, a member from Massachusetts. Under date of March 8, 1785, Colonel Pickering communicated at length with Mr. King, commenting on the proposed ordinance, and noting, among other things, "I observe there is no provision made for ministers of the gospel, nor even for schools and academies." 15 On March 4, 1785, the ordinance of the previous year was read the first time in Congress; and on the following 16th, after debate, was referred to a committee composed of one 11 Bancroft, I, 313. 18 Ibid., 242. 11 Journals of Congress, VIII, 205. 14 Pickering, I, 504. |