1

REORGANIZATION OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The record of the State, after twenty years of silence, on the subject of the injudicious investments of the funds of a struggling college, was broken by the event of the Civil War. The college suspended its work from 1862 to 1865, and when it resumed it was upon a new basis-that of a university. The Constitution adopted in 1865 declared expressly that "The General Assembly shall also establish and maintain a State university, with departments for instruction in teaching, in agriculture, and in natural science, as soon as the public school funds will permit.”1 The condition of the university in 1866 was deplorable. The sole endowment consisted of one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars of stock in the old Bank of the State of Missouri and its branch at Chillicothe, the investment of the proceeds of the Congressional grant.

This stock paid, occasionally, small dividends. The number of students in 1866 was one hundred and four, the total income $7,292.98, while a floating debt of twenty thousand dollars harassed the new officers of the institution. A corps of six-a president, three professors, and two tutors-composed the teaching force.

It was evident that this was not the university called for by the Constitution.

Not a dollar had ever been appropriated by the State in any manner whatever toward the support of the university. But the spell was broken in 1866-67 when the Legislature, for the first time, showed a gleam of recognition of its responsibility to higher education by appropriating ten thousand dollars for repairs on buildings. At the same time one and three fourths per cent. of the State revenue, after deducting twenty-five per cent. for the public school fund, was devoted to the support of the institution. By this act its annual income was inincreased from the amount of twelve thousand dollars to fourteen thousand dollars.

THE AGRICULTURAL GRANT,

An attempt to dispose of the Congressional land grant led to an entire reorganization of the university. A committee was appointed on reorganization and enlargement. The normal department had already been organized in 1868, and the university in 1870 consisted of this department and the College of Liberal Arts before referred to.

In accepting the grant of three hundred and thirty thousand acres of land scrip, seventy-five per cent. of the proceeds was devoted to an Agricultural and Mechanical College, and twenty-five per cent. to a School of Mines; the former was organized in 1870, the latter in 1871. This was the beginning of the reorganization recommended by the committee which reported in 1870 and placed the university at the head of the public school system.

'Constitution of 1865, Art. IX, sec. 4.

The College of Law was organized in 1872, and in the year following the College of Medicine and the department of analytical and applied chemistry.

The agricultural college was located at Columbia, in Boone County, a farm of six hundred and forty acres and thirty thousand dollars being donated by that' county for its location.1

Under the new organization the endowment funds increased from one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars of unproductive bank stock in 1870 to two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars productive funds in 1876, in addition to the income from the Congressional land grant, the State income, and the Rollins fund. The entire income in 1876 was $63,443.69.

The State has since made appropriations at different times. According to the report of the curators in 1884-85 the whole amount of State appropriations from October 1, 1841, to Decem ber 31, 1882, a period of more than forty years, has been $534,343. A comparison with other institutions in the same period shows the entire expenditure for the penitentiary to be $2,381,052.72; for the insane asylums, $2,071,273.21; deaf and dumb asylums, $1,044,901.37; school for the blind, $661,592.51.2

GIFTS AND APPROPRIATIONS.

Seminary fund from the original grant of two townships of land by Congress in 1820 investment 3.

Gifts from individuals, Boone County, in order to secure the location of the university (1839)..........

$108,700

117,500

130, 545

90,000 32,000

Gift of Phelps County to secure the location of the School of Mines (1871) Gift of Boone County and Columbia to secure the location of the Agricultural College....

The Rollin's gift, at present (1882)..

APPROPRIATIONS BY THE STATE.

Upon the reorganization of the university in 1872, the State issued bonds covering the amount of the fund derived from the agricultural grant of 1862, which, with interest on the same, was one hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars; and the indebtedness of the State bank, on account of the seminary funds held in trust. The entire amount of the bonds issued was one hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars. In addition to this the Legislature authorized that bonds be issued to the amount of thirty-five thousand dollars for the benefit of the School of Mines at Rolla; the proceeds to be used in the erection of buildings for that institution. From this time on the State has been the

1 Report of Curators, 1884-85, 200.

2Ibid., 205.

3 History of the University of Missouri, Franklin B. Hough, 51. 880-No. 1-19

earnest friend of the university and its departments, as the following appropriations will show:

Comparing the statement with the report of the curators, given above, that the total State appropriations prior to 1882 was $534,339, we find that since that date the sum of $460,098.50 has been appropri ated, or a grand total of $995,437.50, for the University of Missouri.

32, 450.00

146, 911.00

IOWA.

CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGISLATIVE ACTS.

The first legislation in Iowa in favor of higher education was made in reference to the disposal of the seminary lands reserved by Congress, July 20, 1840, "for the use and support of a university within the said. Territory when it becomes a State."1

The State Constitution adopted on the event of the admission of Iowa into the Union guards with jealous care the grant of the Federal Government. It instituted that measures should be taken by the General Assembly for the protection and improvement of the university lands, and that all revenues arising from the sale of the same should constitute a permanent fund, the interest of which should be used for the support of a university "with such branches as the public convenience hereafter demand for the promotion of literature, the arts and the sciences as may be authorized by the terms of such grant.” 3 These principles are more clearly set forth in the code."

1U. S. Statutes at Large, V. 789.

2 The Constitution, proposed and rejected by the people in 1844, contained the same provisions.

3 Constitution of 1846, Art. X, sec. 5.

Title XII, Art. 1, 2, 3.

Following closely the decrees of the Constitution, the first Legislature passed an act1 locating the University of Iowa at Iowa City, granting for its use the public buildings of the city, together with ten acres of land upon which they were situated, and the two seminary townships. The act further provides for the appointment of fifteen trustees by the General Assembly for the control of the said university, and authorized the proceeds of funds arising from the sale of lands to be loaned on real estate security for a term of years not less than five. It was further enacted "that the said university shall never be under the exclusive control of any religious denomination whatever." These donations were made upon the express condition that the said university shall, at such a time as the revenue shall equal two thousand dollars per annum, instruct and prepare fifty students annually for the business of common school teaching.3

In January, 1849, two branches of the university were authorized, one at Fairfield and the other at Dubuque, each to be placed on an equal footing with that of Iowa City.1

At Fairfield a site was purchased containing twenty acres and a building partially erected at a cost of twenty-five hundred dollars. In 1850 a hurricane nearly destroyed the building, which, however, was replaced by the citizens of Fairfield.5

At the request of the board controlling the Fairfield branch all connection with the State was severed.

The board of trustees of the University of Iowa, at a meeting held February 21, 1850, recognized "The College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Upper Mississippi," formerly established at Davenport, as an association branch of the university. The Legislature, in 1851, confirmed the action of the board and made the College of Physicians and Surgeons a part of the university, and subsequently, in 1864, placed it under the control of the board of trustees of the Univesity of Iowa. This connection was severed in 1857 by the provisions of the new Constitution.

OPENING OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The university was partially opened for the admission of students in March, 1855, and again in September of the same year, and for each succeeding year regularly.

1 Report of Board of Regents, 1877, 8.

2 The public buildings were not vacated by the removal of the State government to Monroe City, according to the authorized plan. It was not until 1856 that the seat of the government was fixed at Des Moines. The buildings were vacated the following year.

3 Laws of Iowa.

4 Regents' Report, 1877, 9.

5 Report of Board of Regents, 1877, 10.

6 The total amount spent by the trustees from 1840 to January 1, 1855, was $1,044.88. Report of trustees, 1877, 10.

The Constitution adopted in 1857 contained several important meas. ures relative to the management of the university. All branches were discontinued by the following section, viz: “The State university shall be established at one place without branches at any other place, and the university fund shall be applied to that institution and no other.”1 The branch at Dubuque had never been organized, the branch at Fairfield had already been separated, and the medical college was the only department affected by this wise measure. "No aid from the State or from the university fund was ever given in support of the branches." Immediately after the adoption of the Constitution of 1857, the General Assembly made a new law for the organization of the university, which contained essentially the same enactments as the former law, with an additional proviso for twenty-six free tuition scholarships issued to young men selected from the high schools of the State, with the stipu lation on their part to teach in some school for a term equal to the time they had accepted the benefit of the scholarship.3 Other legislation of an unimportant nature followed for the further organization of the uni versity, but the board at its meeting in February, 1859, decided, on account of the conditions of the finances of the university, not to reopen it and to close the normal department at the end of the term. It was finally concluded, at a subsequent meeting, to continue the normal department, and to formally reopen the university in September, 1860. This latter date may be regarded as the beginning of the existence of the university.

STATE APPROPRIATIONS.

Although it took thirteen years of legislation to start the State University of Iowa, the State upon the whole has shown itself faithful to the trust, both in legislation and in appropriations for expenses. The first appropriation was made in 1858, three thousand dollars being de voted to the repairs on the old State capitol and ten thousand dollars for the erection of the new building. The second appropriation was made in 1860, and, though small, is noted for the fact that it was paid from the proceeds of the saline land grants. Five thousand dollars were devoted to the new building, and five thousand to the purchase of apparatus and for repairs on the old building. As students filled the university to overflowing, the General Assembly assisted by appropriating from time to time funds for building purposes, for repairs, and for general expenses. Some of the principal donations are as follows:*

I Constitution, 1857. Art. IX, sec. 11.

2 Board of Trustees, 1877, 9.

3 This law was repealed in December of the same year. The original law was passed March 12, 1858. (Report of the Trustees, 1877, 12, 13.)

4 Report of the State University, 12 et seq.