all countries of thrift, presented obstacles to education not easily over

come.

Texas retained the right to all of her public lands when admitted to the Union, but very soon gave a liberal land endowment for the establishment of universities. Since that time large tracts of land have been added to this grant which, if properly managed, will yield an income sufficient to fully equip and maintain a university. Funds are being appropriated by the Legislature for support of the university. Arkansas is now realizing the necessity of advanced learning, and is voting funds for the support of an industrial university. Upon the whole the outlook in the South-West is encouraging, although the work of building universities is only fairly commenced by the States.

KENTUCKY.

EARLY EDUCATION.

Although Kentucky was, to use Professor Shaler's expression, "a pioneer commonwealth," the interests of education were by no means neg. lected. As early as 1792, the year of Kentucky's admission to the Union, we find the Legislature authorizing Salem Academy to raise five hundred dollars by a lottery. The policy of the State, thus early indicated, comes out more strongly in the acts of 1798. In February of that year, six thousand acres of land, free from taxes, were granted to each of six academies and seminaries, and all unappropriated lands, south of the Cumberland River and east of Obey's River, were reserved for future appropriation to seminaries of learning. Soon afterward Jefferson Seminary was authorized to raise five thousand dollars by a lottery, and in December nineteen academies were chartered, each to have six thousand acres of land and the privilege of raising not more than one thousand dollars by a lottery. The land thus granted was to be inalienable. By subsequent acts each county in the State received six thousand acres for a county academy.5

A vigorous system of secondary education was thus provided for, but, not content with this, the Legislature began to promote higher instructiou.

TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY.

The Transylvania University was formed by a union of the Transylvania Seminary with the Kentucky Academy in 1798. It may be stated that the university was founded in this year. The Transylvania Semi

1 Littell's Laws of Kentucky, I, 171.

2 Ibid., II, 107. Report of Commissioner of Education for 1876, 133.

3 Littell's Laws, II, 208.

1 Ibid., II, 240.

5 Acts of 1805, Littell's Laws, III, 279. Act of 1834, Laws of 1833, 378.

1

nary was organized in 1783, but for many years did not flourish; in fact, the seminary maintained a struggle for existence. The rudeness of the times, the attention required to protect the homes of the settlers from the Indians, the force required to subdue the wilderness, required all of the native strength of this new country; but we find the Legis. lature at this early period encouraging education. The seat of the seminary was removed to Lexington in 1788, where it was hoped it would have better advantages. The Legislature gave an endowment of twenty-eight thousand acres of land, and subsequently, in 1790, donated to the college one-sixth of the surveyor's fees. After its union with Kentucky Academy, under the name of university, it was in a more flourishing condition, and performed a service to the State for many years.

Transylvania University received the first assistance from the State in 1819, when it was granted for two years the proceeds of the tax on the Farmers and Mechanics' Bank of Lexington. The next few years abound with similar provisions. In 1820 five thousand dollars was granted for the use of the medical department,5 and it was directed that all fines and forfeitures to the Fayette County court should be paid over to the university. This assistance proved insufficient, and the univer sity fell into debt. So, in 1821, it was given one-half of the clear profits accruing on the loans of the Branch Bank of the Commonweath at Lexington until the university's debts should be discharged; the trustees were ordered to manage it without a view to further donations from the Legislature. In 1822 the medical department was authorized to raise twenty-five thousand dollars by a lottery. To procure a library for the law department a tax of two per cent. was laid on all sales at auction in Fayette County. This law remained in force several years. We meet it again in 1833,1o and in 1856 it was re-enacted." In 1830 all escheatable property in the county was vested in the university.12

10

9

8

The relation of the State to Transylvania University is also shown by the frequent appointment of a committee by the Legislature to visit

1 Life and Times of Judge Caleb Wallace, 122. Hening's Statutes of Virginia, XI, 282.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., 123. This law was similar to that of Virginia, which gave one-sixth of the surveyor's fees to William and Mary College. (See Virginia.)

4 Laws of 1818, 692.

5 Laws of 1819, 952.

6Ibid., 976. The act provided that all fines and forfeitures to the county courts should go to the county seminaries. In the counties where there were no seminaries, the colleges were the beneficiaries. It was repealed by the act of 1838, by which fines and forfeitures went to form a jury fund. Laws of 1837-38, 248.

7 Laws of 1821, 354.

8 Laws of 1822, 149.

9 Ibid., 160.

10 Laws of 1832, 103.

11 Laws of 1855-56, II, 454.

12 Laws of 1829, 261.

it and report on its condition. This institution exercised an important educational influence in Kentucky, but finally died out, a victim to sectarian prejudice.1

SOUTHERN COLLEGE OF KENTUCKY.

2

In 1819 the Legislature incorporated four colleges, and, of these, two received public assistance.

In 1821 the Southern College of Kentucky, at Bowling Green, was given one-third of the clear profits from the Branch Bank of the Commonwealth there located, so far as the same were derived from borrowers in Warren County. This was to continue for two years.3 In 1825 the college was granted six thousand acres of unappropriated land."

CENTRE COLLEGE.

This college, the other institution of this year that received State aid, was incorporated with the funds of Danville Academy. Its charter contained a provision that it could subsequently be adopted as a State institution. It received the same share of bank profits as Southern College, but the bank was the one at Harrodsburg, and the county that of Mercer. It passed into Presbyterian control in 1824, and the money received from the Harrodsburg Bank was directed to be paid to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. In 1843 Congress granted Centre College the township of land which it had, in 1826, given to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum.8

AUGUSTA COLLEGE.

This college, located in the town of the same name, was incorporated in 1822.9 In 1825 it received six thousand acres of unappropriated lands.1o Two years later we find an interesting enactment allowing the trustees to establish a ferry across the Ohio at Augusta, for the benefit of the college." This act also fixed the rates of fare, and created a monopoly by declaring that there should be no other ferry within a mile and a half. In 1834 the college received ten thousand dollars from the funds of Bracken Academy.12.

1 Shaler's Kentucky, 399.

2 The other colleges were Urania College at Glasgow, Western College of Kentucky, at Hopkinsville (laws of 1818, 737), and Centre College at Danville.

3 Laws of 1821, 355.

4 Laws of 1825, 98.

5 Laws of 1818, 618. This provision was also embodied in the charter of Southern

SHELBY COLLEGE.

A college was chartered at Shelby by an act of 1836, and the following year it was given permission to raise one hundred thousand dollars by a lottery. The proceeds of this lottery were afterwards ordered to be invested in stocks. This institution became St. James College in 1868.3

1

CONCORD COLLEGE.

From the Reports of the Commissioner of Education we learn that Concord College, at New Liberty, received annual appropriations from 1875 to 1879, varying from two hundred and forty to six hundred dollars.

THE STATE COLLEGE.

Kentucky accepted the land grant for agricultural colleges (three hundred and thirty thousand acres) early in 1863, and in the same year a committee was appointed to locate the college. In 1865 the trustees of Transylvania University and those of Kentucky University at Harrodsburg gained permission to unite the two institutions at Lexington under the name of Kentucky University, and to establish the Agricultural and Mechanical College as a department of this. The financial prospects of this skillful patchwork were encouraging. The land scrip was sold for $164,960, and this, with the endowments of the two universities and the amount raised by subscription, formed a capital of over five hundred thousand dollars, mostly invested at six per cent. Twenty thousand dollars was loaned by the State to put the Agricultural College into immediate operation."

The connection with Kentucky University proved unfortunate. A fierce religious war broke out when the institution was getting well under way, and in 1878 the two colleges were separated and commissioners appointed to select a new location for the Agricultural College." Lexington offered the most favorable terms and the college was located there. It is generally known as Kentucky State College and is, with but one possible exception, the best educational institution in the State.

8

An assured financial basis was given by an act of 1880, in passing

1 Laws of 1836-37, 219.

2 Laws of 1837-38, 199.

3 Private laws of 1867-68, I, 353. Another college was founded in 1836, Columbia College, and the fines and forfeitures in Adair County, previously vested in Robertson Academy, were given it. Laws of 1836-37, 100.

4 Private laws of 1861-62-63, 335.

5 Ibid., 371.

6 On the organization of the Agricultural College, see the Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1867, 164-167, 291; Shaler's Kentucky, 361, 362, 400; Public laws of 1865, 45 ff., 67, 68; Public laws of 1865-66, 29.

7 Shaler, 400; Public laws of 1878, 46.

Public laws of 1879, 5, 18.

for the benefit of the college, a tax of five mills on each hundred dollars of property liable for State taxation.1 Colored citizens are not subject to this tax, as only white students are admitted to the college. The annual income from the land-scrip fund is nine thousand nine hundred dollars; from the State tax twenty-four thousand dollars is annually received.2

EXEMPTION FROM TAXATION.

Educational property is not subject to taxation by virtue of an act of 1869, which declares that "all college buildings and seminaries of learning, and all the real estate, not exceeding five acres, and all the personal property of every kind belonging to any institution of learning within this State, shall be exempt from taxation for any purpose whatever.3

CONCLUSION.

The attitude of Kentucky toward higher education has been favorable. Financial assistance has been given by direct grants of money and by permission to hold lotteries, but the usual way has been to set apart definite sources of revenue for particular institutions. Until Transylvania University was discontinued, it was the chief object of the State's generosity; from 1865 to 1878 State education had its centre in Kentucky University; for the last ten years the State College has been the beneficiary.

TENNESSEE.

INTRODUCTORY

"The history of the common schools is, in the main, the history of public lands in Tennessee, and the history of public lands in this State is the history of confusion." This, the opinion of Tennessee's latest historian, is also applicable to the higher education, since its history, too, is closely connected with that of public lands.

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*

In its early period the State of Tennessee was unable to give assistance to education; to use the words of the State Senate in 1801, replying to the petition from the University of North Carolina, "Tenneshas not arrived at the period when her revenues will even authorize a loan to patronize the seminaries of learning already established within the limits of her own State."5 Accordingly, the first aid to higher education came from the Federal Government.

see

By the act of 1806, Congress granted certain lands to Tennessee for educational purposes. One hundred thousand acres of these lands

1 Public laws of 1879, 137.

2 Letter of Pres. James K. Patterson,

Dec. 12, 1888.

3 Public laws of 1869-70, 2.

4 Phelan, History of Tennessee, 233. Ibid., 235.