National Legislation Concerning Education

PREFACE

THE following paper constitutes a portion of an investigation begun by the writer in October, 1897, at the suggestion of Professor Butler. In order to adapt the mass of material at hand to the space limitations of a thesis, it has become necessary to restrict the treatment of the general subject of National Legislation concerning Education in the United States in two directions. Hence, just a few well-defined movements are considered in Part I., in order that the reader may obtain a general notion of the nature and spirit of such legislation. This part is to be considered merely as a tentative outline of a larger paper now in preparation. Part II. is limited to a treatment of the influence and effect of congressional enactments relating to education in the six public lands States east of the Mississippi admitted prior to 1820, and may be considered to be relatively complete for the States treated.

The writer's orientation is determined by the acts of Congress. Consequently, merely so much of individual State legislation has been introduced as would function in interpreting and binding together congressional acts. It is believed that under each State considered will be found all the acts of Congress relating to education in such individual State, together with important subsequent State legislation relating to those acts.

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In the complete investigation, soon to be published, most of the topics merely mentioned in Part I. will receive a more adequate treatment; while a similar method will be applied to all the States in the Union as has been applied to the six States herein considered.