acres have been listed as swamp lands, which are now suspended for investigation. Special agents have been, and are now, employed to unearth frauds under this act against the Government. The Commissioners of the General Land Office for years have called the attention of Congress to the frauds and attempted frauds under these several acts by States and their agents.

The amounts realized by the different States and the prices paid to them by individuals and corporations for these lands (many as low as 10 cents per acre, and now the best agricultural land in some of these States), would be an interesting chapter. Such grants are always fertile fields for schemes. See legislative and political history of the several States for this.

The area thus far claimed, and in process of being claimed, by the several States under these various acts, about equals the whole surface of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia.

A total of 69,206,522.06 acres of public lands have been claimed, to June 30, 1880, as swamp and overflowed lands, by States in which they lie, and patents have been issued for 51,952,196.10 acres.

FORM OF SWAMP LAND PATENT.

The following is the form used for swamp-land patents, except those for lands in Minnesota and Oregon, in which reference is made to the act of March 12, 1860:

No.-.

The United States of America, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:

Whereas, by the act of Congress approved September 28, 1850, entitled "An act to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the 'swamp lands' within their limits," it is provided that all the "swamp and overflowed lands," made unfit thereby for cultivation, within the State of which remained unsold at the pas

sage of said act, shall be granted to said State :

And whereas, in pursuance of instructions from the General Land Office of the United States, the several tracts or parcels of land hereinafter described have been selected as 66 swamp and overflowed lands," inuring to the said State under the act aforesaid, situate in the district of lands subject to sale at to wit: [Description of tracts, with the area in each township and the aggregate area embraced in the patent] according to the official plats of survey of said lands, returned to the General Land Office by the surveyor general, and for which the governor of the said State of did, on the day of one thousand eight hundred and

-, request

a patent to be issued to the said State, as required in the aforesaid act: Now, therefore, know ye, that the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, and in conformity with the act of Congress aforesaid, have given and granted, and by these presents do give and grant, unto the said State of, in feesimple, subject to the disposal of the legislature thereof, the tracts of land above described; to have and to hold the same, together with all the rights, privileges, immunities, and appurtenances thereto belonging, unto the said State of in feesimple, and to its assigns forever.

In testimony whereof I,

President of the United States of America, have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto affixed.

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the

day of

in the year

of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and

By he President:

[SEAL.]

By

Secretary.

Recorder of the General Land Office.

OPERATIONS UNDER THE SWAMP LAND ACTS TO JUNE 30, 1880.

Total acres patented to June 30, 1880, under all acts, as above, 51,952,196.10.

CHAPTER XIII.

EDUCATIONAL LAND GRANTS BY THE UNITED STATES TO PUBLICLAND AND OTHER STATES.

GRANTS AND RESERVATIONS.

The lands granted in the States and reserved in the Territories for educational purposes by acts of Congress from 1785 to June 30, 1880, were—

For public or common schools,

Every sixteenth section of public land in the States admitted prior to 1848, and every sixteenth and thirty-sixth section of such land in States and Territories since organized-estimated at 67,893,919 acres.

For seminaries or universities,

The quantity of two townships, or 46,080 acres, in each State or Territory containing public land, and, in some instances, a greater quantity, for the support of seminaries or schools of a higher grade-estimated at 1,165,520 acres.

For agricultural and mechanical colleges.

The grant to all the States for agricultural and mechanical colleges, by act of July 2, 1862, and its supplements, of 30,000 acres, for each Representative and Senator in Congress to which the State was entitled, of land "in place" where the State contained a sufficient quantity of public land subject to sale at ordinary private entry at the rate of $1.25 per acre, and of scrip representing an equal number of acres where the State did not contain such description of land, the scrip to be sold by the State and located by its assignees on any such land in other States and Territories, subject to certain restrictions. Land in place, 1,770,000 acres; land scrip, 7,830,000 acres; total, 9,600,000 acres.

In all, 78,659,439 acres for educational purposes under the heads above set out to June 30, 1880.

The lands thus ceded to the several States were disposed of or are held for disposition, and the proceeds used as permanent endowments for common school funds. (See Reports of the Commissioner of Education, Hon. John Eaton, to June 30, 1880; land and auditors' reports of the several land States; Kiddle & Schem's Dictionary of Education; and also ninth census, F. A. Walker, Superintendent, for details of endowments of the several States for common schools resulting from sales of United States land grants for education.) As an illustration, the State of Ohio has a permanent endowment for education called the "Irreducible State Debt," the result of sale of all granted lands for education, of $4,289,718.52.

EARLY EDUCATIONAL INTEREST.

The importance attached to education by the founders of the Republic is shown by the provisions they made for its permanent endowment. Indeed, in the earliest set

tlements on this continent of the Anglo-Americans, measures were adopted in the cause of education, not only as essential to morals, social order, and individual happiness, but as necessary to new and liberal institutions. Every immigrant ship had its schoolmaster on board, each settlement erected its school-house, and the cultivation of the mind advanced with the culture of the soil from the landing of the Mayflower through our colonial history.

Prior to the revolution, in the different colonies the subject of popular education had attracted attention, and provision had been made for its practical realization. The theory of general education found no basis in the aristocratic social constitution of the mother country, while in the colonies themselves were to be found influences decidedly hostile to it. The injustice and persecution, however, which had caused the immigration to this country, especially to the northern colonies, wonderfully neutralized the religious and political prejudices of our forefathers, and prepared them to accept doctrines of very opposite tendency. The comparative feebleness of aristocratic prestige in the forests of the New World permitted the development of the sentiment of independent manhood. The establishment of democracy was followed by the natural development of its principles, especially in the direction of popular education.

After the erection of the States into an independent republic, and before the adoption of the Constitution, the Continental Congress, by the ordinance of 20th May, 1785, respecting the disposition of lands in the Western Territory, prepared the way for the advance of settlements and education as contemporaneous interests.

THE FIRST RESERVATION FOR SCHOOL PURPOSES-THE SIXTEENTH SECTION.

Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Dane, Mr. Madison, and other statesmen of that day assumed, without question, that a government, as the organ of society, enjoys the right, and is vested with the power, to meet the necessity of public education. So the question of the endowment of educational institutions by the Government in aid of the cause of education seems to have met no serious opposition in the Congress of the Confederation, and no member raised his voice against this vital and essential provision relating to it in the ordinance of May 20, 1785, "for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the Western Territory." This provided: "There shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within said township" This was an endowment of 640 acres of land (one section of land, one mile square) in a township 6 miles square, for the support and maintenance of public schools "within said township." The manner of establishment of public schools thereunder, or by whom, was not mentioned. It was a reservation by the United States, and advanced and established a principle which finally dedicated one thirty-sixth part of all public lands of the United States, with certain exceptions as to mineral, &c., to the cause of education by public schools.

July 23, 1787, in the report from a committee consisting of Messrs. Carrington, King, Dane, Madison, and Benson, reporting an ordinance of "Powers to the Board of Treasury" to contract for the sale of western territory in the Continental Congress, it was ordered "That the lot No. 16 in each township, or fractional part of a township, to be given perpetually for the purpose contained in said ordinance" (the ordinance of May 20, 1785, above referred to). This additional legislation made the reservation of the sixteenth section perpetual.

In the Continental Congress, July 13, 1787, according to order, the ordinance for the government of the "Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio" came on, was read a third time, and passed. It contained the following:

ART. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The provision of the ordinance of May 20, 1785, relating to the reservation of the sixteenth section in every township of public land, was the inception of the present rule of reservation of certain sections of land for school purposes.

The endowment was the subject of much legislation in the years following. The question was raised that there was no reason why the United States should not organize, control, and manage these public schools so endowed. The reservations of lands were made by surveyors and duly returned.

This policy at once met with enthusiastic approval from the public, and was tacitly incorporated into the American system as one of its fundamental organic ideas. Whether the public schools thus endowed by the United States were to be under national or State control remained a question, and the lands were held in reservation merely until after the admission of the State of Ohio in 1802.

The movement in the cause of education was not confined to the legislative department, for at an early period the public mind was aroused to the importance of the subject by elaborate papers emanating from eminent men, among whom stands conspicuous Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who in 1786 memorialized the legislature of Pennsylvania in favor of a thorough system of popular instruction, maintaining that it was favorable to liberty, as freedom could only exist in the society of knowledge; that it favors just ideas of law and government; that learning in all countries promotes civilization and the pleasure of society; that it fosters agriculture, the basis of national wealth; that manufactures of all kinds owe their perfection chiefly to learning; that its beneficial influence is thus made coextensive with the entire scope of man's being, mortal and immortal, individual and social. At a later period, 1790, the same great man addressed a Congressional representative from Pennsylvania, declaring that "the attempts to perpetuate our existence as a free people by establishing the means of national credit and defense" are "feeble bulwarks against slavery compared with the habits of labor and virtue disseminated among our people"; adding, "Let us establish schools for that purpose in every township in the United States, and conform them to reason, humanity, and the state of society in America," and then will "the generations which are to follow us realize the precious ideas of the dignity and excellence of republican forms of government."

RESERVATION OF THE THIRTY-SIXTH SECTION IN ADDITION TO THE SIXTEENTH.

The reservation of a section, or one mile square, of 640 acres, in each township, for the support of public schools, was specially provided for in the organization of each new State and Territory up to the time of the organization of Oregon Territory.

April 30, 1802, Congress, in the act authorizing the formation of a State govern ment in the eastern portion of the Northwestern Territory (Ohio), enacted the following three propositions, which were offered for the acceptance or rejection of the convention to form the constitution of Ohio. (Up to this time no transfers by the United States of title or control of the sixteenth section of reserved school lands had taken place.)

By section 7:

First. That the section number sixteen in every township, and where such section has been sold, granted, or disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and most contiguous to the same, shall be granted to the inhabitants of such townships for the use of schools.

The second was a saline reservation, and the third related to a moiety of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands, for the laying out of roads, &c.

The three conditions above set out were in consideration of the non-taxation of the public domain, for a period after sale, about which there was serious discussion as to who should tax, or whether it should be taxed at all, prior to or after purchase. The non-taxation compensation was that no tax on the land sold by the United States should be laid by the authority of the State, county, or townships therein for the term of five years after the date of sale. The object of this stipulation was to prevent any person from obtaining a tax title under the authority of the State before the United States had received the full amount of the purchase money. Lands were then sold on credit by the United States of one, two, three, four, and five years, at two dollars per acre.

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