Freeborn County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 20 of those read), 1882

And State Separated Colonial Period States In The Northwest

As a word, education is of wide application and may convey but an indefinite idea. Broadly, it means to draw out, to lead forth, to train up, to foster, to enable the individual to properly use the faculties, mental or corpora), with which he is endowed; and to use them in a way that will accomplish the desired result in all relations and in any department of industry, whether in the domain of intellectual research, or confined to the fields of physical labor.

State Education points at once to a definite field of investigation; an organization which is to have extensive direction and control of the subject matter embraced in the terms chosen. It at once excludes the conclusion that any other species of education than secular education is intended. It excludes all other kinds of education not included in this term, without the slightest reflection upon parochial, sectarian, denominational or individual schools; independent or corporate educational organizations. State Education, then, may embrace whatever is required by the State, in the due execution of its mission in the protection of individual rights and the proper advancement of the citizen in material prosperity; in short whatever may contribute in any way to the honor, dignity, "and fair fame of a State; whose sovereign will directs, and, to a very great extent, controls the destiny of its subjects.

A reason may be given for this special department of education, without ignoring any others arising from the necessity of civil government, and its necessary separation from ecclesiastical control. It must be observed by every reasoning mind, that in the advancement and growth of social elements from savagery through famUies and tribes to civilization, and the better forms of government, that in the increasing growth multijjlied industries continually lead to a resistless demand for devision of labor, both intellectual and physical. This division must eventually lead, in every form of government, to a separation of what may be termed Church and State: and, of course, in such division every separate organization must control the elements necessary to sustain its own perpetuity; for otherwise its identity would be lost, and it would cease to have any recognized existence.

In these divisions of labor, severally organized for different and entirely distinct objects, mutual benefits must result, not from any invasion of the separate rights of the one or the other, by hostile aggression, but by reason of the greatest harmony of elements, and hence greater perfection in the labors of each, when limited to the promotion of each separate and peculiar work. In the division, one would be directed towards the temporal, the other toward the spiritual advancement of man, in any and all relations which he sustains, not only to his fellow men, but to the material or immaterial universe. These departments of labor are sufficiently broad, although intimately related, tojequire the best directed energies of each, to properly cultivate their separate fields. And an evidence of the real harmony existing between these organiza- tionB, the Church and State, relative to the present investigation, is found in the admilted fact that education, both temporal and spiritual, secular and sectarian, was a principal of the original organization, and not in conflict with its highest duty, or its most vigorous growth. In the division of the original organization, that department of education, which was only spiritual, was retained with its necessary adjuncts, while that which was only temporal was relegated to a new organization, the temporal organization, the State. The separate elements are still of the same (juality, althougli wielded by two instead of one organization. In this respect education may be compared to the diamond, which when broken and subdivided into most minute particles, each separate particle retains not only the form and number of facets, but the brilliancy of the original diamond. So in the case before us, though education has suffered division, and has been aj)i)ropriated by different organisms, it is nevertheless the same in nature, and retains the same quaUty and luster of the parent original.

The laws of growth in these separate organizations, the Church composed of every creed, and the State in every fonn of government, must determine the extent to which their special education shall be carried. If it shall be determined by the church, that her teachers, leaders, and followers in any stage of its growth, shall be limited in their acquisitions to the simple elements of knowledge, reading, writing, and arithmetic, it may be determined that the State should limit education to the same simple elements. But as th(! Church, conscious of its immature growth, has never restricted her leaders, teachers, or followers, to these simple elements of knowledge; neither lias the State seen fit to limit, nor can it ever limit education to any standard short of the extreme limits of its growth, the fullest development of its resources, and the demands of its citizens. State Education and Church Education are alike in their infancy, and no one is able to prescribe limits to the one or the other. The separation of Church and State, in matters of government only, is yet of very narrow limits, and is of very recent origin. And the separation of Church and State, in matters of education, has not yet clearly dawned upon the minds of the accredited leaders of these clearly distinct organizations.

reasonable men, it would be quite as easy to determine the final triumph of State Education, as to determine the final success of the Christian faith over Buddhism, or the fijial triumph of man in the subjugation of the earth to his control. The decree has gone forth, that man shall subdue the earth; so that, guided by the higher law, Education, under the direction or protection of the State, must prove a final success, foi' only by organic, scientific, and human instrumentality can the purpose of the Creator be possibly accomplished on earth.

If we have found greater perfection in quality, and better adaptation of methods in the work done by these organizations since the separation, we must conclude that the triumphs of each wiU be in proportion to the completeness of the separation; and that the countries the least shackled by entangling alliances in this regard, must, other things being equal, lead the van, both in the advancement of science and in the triumphs of an enlightened faith. And we can, by a very slight comi^arison of the ])resent with the past, determine for ourselves, that the scientific curriculum of State schools has been greatly widened and enriched, and its methods better adapted to proposed ends. We can as easily ascertain the important fact that those countries are in advance, where the two great organizations, Church and State, are least in conflict. We know also, that from the nature of the human movement westward, that the best defined conditions of these organizations should be found in the van of this movement. On this continent, then, the highest development of these organizations should be found, at least, when time shall have matured its natural results in the growth and polish of our institutions. Even now, in our infancy, what coimtry on earth can showequal results in either the growth of general knowledge, the advance of education, or the triumphs of Christian labor at home and abroad ? These are the legitimate fruits of the wonderful energy given to the mind of man in the separate labors of these organizations, on the j'rinciple of the division of labor, and consequently better directed energies in every department of industry. This movement is onward, across the continent, and thence around the globe. Its force is irresistable, and all efforts to reunite these happily divided powers, and to return to the culture of past times, and the governments and laws of past ages, must be as unavailiug as an attempt to reverse the laws of nature. In their separation and friendly rivalry, exists the hope of man's temporal and sjnritual elevation.

State Education is natural in its application. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and every organism after its own kind. Now, in pursuance of this well known law of nature, that everything created is made after its own order and its own likeness, it follows that the new comers on this continent brought with them the germ of national and spiritual life. If we are right in this interpretation of tlie laws of life relating to living organisms, we shall expect to find its proper manifestation in the early institutions they created for their own special purposes immediately after their arrival here. We look into their history, and we find that by authority of the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1636, sixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, Harvard College was established, as an existing identity; that in 1638, it was endowed by John Harvard, and named after him. But the Common School was not overlooked. At a public meeting in Boston, April 13th 1636, it was "generally agreed that one Philemon Pormont be entreated to become schoolmaster for teaching and nourtering children."

After the date above, matters of education ran through the civil authority, and is forcibly expressed in the acts of 1642 and 1647, passed by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By the act of 1642, the select men of every town are required to have vigilant eye over their brothers and neighbors, to see, first, that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as shall enable them perfectly to read the English tongue, and knowledge of the Capital laws, under penalty of twenty shillings for each offence. By the act of 1647, support of schools was made compulsory, and their blessings universal. By this law "every town containing fifty house-holders was required to appoint a teacher, to teach all children as shall resort to him to write and read;" and every town containing one hundred families or house-holders was required to "set up grammar schools, the master thereof being able to instruct youths so far as they may be fitted for the University."

In New Amsterdam, among the Keformed Protestant Dutch, the conception of a school system guaranteed aud protected by the State, seems to have been entertained by the colonists from Holland, although circumstances hindered its practical development. The same general statement is true of the mixed settlements along the Delaware; Menonites, Catholics, Dutch, aud Swedes, in connection -with their churches, established little schools in their early settlements. In 1682, the legislative assembly met at Chester. William Penn made provision for the education of youth of the province, and enacted, that the Governor and provincial Council should erect and order all public schools. One section of Penn's "Great law" is in the woi'ds following :

'^Be it enacted by authority aforesaid, that all persons within the province and territories thereof, having children, and all the guardians and trustees of orphans, shall cause such to be instructed in reading and writing, so that they may be able to read the scriptures and to write by the time that they attain the age of 12 years, aud that they then be taught some useful trade or skill, that the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want; of which every county shall take care. And in case such parents, guardians, or oversee;'s shall be found deficient in this respect, every such parent, guardian, or overseer, shall pay for every such child five pounds, except there should appear incaisacity of body or understanding to hinder it."

And this "Great law" of William Penn, of 1682, will not suffer in comparison with the English statute on State Education, passed in 1870, and amended in 1877, one hundred and ninety-five years later. In this respect, America is two hundred years in advance cf Great Britain in State education. But our present limits will not allow us to compare American and English State school systems.

In 1693, the assembly of Pennsylvania passed a second school law providing for the education of youth in every couuty. These elementary schools were free for boys and girls. In 1755, Pennsylvania College was endowed, and became a University in 1779.

In Virginia, William and Mary College was famous even in colonial times. It was supported by direct State aid. In 1726, a tax was levied on liquors for its benefit by the House of Burgesses;

These extracts from the early history of State Education in pre-Cohjnial and Colonial times give abundant evidence of the nature of the organisms planted in American soil by the Pilgrim Fathera and their successors, as well as other early settlers on our Atlantic coast. The inner life has kept pace with the rcrpiirements of the external organizations, as the body assumes still greater and more national proportions. The inner life grew with the exterior demands.

On the 9th of July, 1787, it was proclaimed to the world, that on the 15th of November, 1778, in the second year of the independence of America, the several colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Kbode Island, Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virgiuia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had entered into a Confederate Union.

This Confederate Union, thus organized as a Government, was able to receive grants of land and to hold the same for such purposes as it saw proper. To the new government cessions were made by several of the States, from 1781 to 1802, of which the Virginia grant was the most important.

The Confederate Government, on the 13th of July, 1787, and within less than four years after the reception of the Virginia Land Grant, known as the Northwest Territory, passed the ever memorable ordinance of 1787. This was the first real estate to wliich the Confederation had acquired the absolute title in its own right. The legal government had its origin September 17th, 1787, while the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory was passed two months and four days before. Article Third of the renowned ordinance reads as follows:

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

What is the territory embraced by this authoritative enunciation of the Confederate (ToveruniBut ? The extent of the land embraced is abnost if not quite e(iual to the area of the original thirteen colonies. Out of this munificent possession added to the infant American Union, have since been carved, by the authority of the United States government, the princely states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and in part Minnesota. In this vast region at least, the Government has said that education "shall bo forever encouraged." Encouraged how and by whom? Encouraged by the Government, by the legal State, by the supreme power of the land. This announcement of governmental aid to State schools was no idle boast, made for the encouragement of a delusive hope, but the enunciation of a great truth, inspired by the spirit of a higher life, now kindled in this new American temple, in which the Creator intended man should worship him according to the dictates of an enlightened conscience, "where none should molest or make him afraid."

The early Confederation passed away, but the sjjirit that animated the organism was immortal, and immediately manifested itself in the new Government, under our present constitution. On the 17th of September, 1787, two months and four days from the date of the ordinance erecting the Northwest Territory was adopted, the new Constitution was inaugurated. The first State government erected in the new territory was the state of Ohio, in 1802. The enabling act, passed by Congress on this accession of the first new State, a part of the new acquisition, contains this substantial evidence that State aid was faithfully remembered and readily olTered to the cause of education :

Sec. 3: "That the following proposition be and the same is hereby offered to the convention of the eastern States of said territory, when formed, for their free acceptance or rejection, which if accepteil by the convention shall be obligatory upon the United States:

" That 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 township for the use of schools."

The proposition of course was duly accepted bj the vote of the people in the adoption of theii constitution prior to their admission to the Union, and on March 3d, 1803, Congress granted to Ohio in addition to section sixteen, an additional grant of one complete township tor the purpose of establishing any higher institutions of learning. This was the beginning of substantial national recogniiHf tion of State aid to schools by grants of lanJ out of the national domain, but the government aid did not end in this first effort. The next State, Indiana, admitted in 1816, was granted the same section, number sixteen in each township; and in addition thereto, two townships of land were expressly granted for a seminary of learning. In the admission of Illinois, in 1818, the section numbered sixteen in each township, and two entire townships in addition thereto, for a seminary of learning and the title thereto vested in the legislature. In the admission of Michigan in 1836, the same section sixteen, and seventy-two sections in addition thereto, were set apart to said State for the purpose of a State University. In the admission of Wisconsin, in 1848, the same provision was made as was made to the other States previously formed out of the new territory. This was the commencement.

These five States completed the list of States which could exist in the territory northwest of the Ohio Kiver. Minnesota, the next State, in part lying east of the Mississippi, and in jiart west, takes its territory from two different sources; that east of the Father of Waters, from Virginia, which was embraced in the Northwest Territory, and that lying west of the same from the " Louisiana Purchase," bought of France by treaty of April 30, 1803, including also the territory west of the Missippi, which Napoleon had previously acquired from Spain. The greater portion of Minnesota, therefore lies outside the first territorial acquisition of the Government of the United States; and yet the living spirit that inspired the early grants out of the first acquisition, had lost nothing of its fervor in the grant made to the New Northwest. When the Territory of Minnesota was organized, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, then a Senator in Congress from the state of Illinois, nobly advocated the claims of Minnesota to an increased amount of Government aid for the support of schools, extending from the Common school to the University. By Mr. Douglas' very able, disinterested and generous assistance and support in Congress, aided by Hon. H. M. Rice, then Delegate from Minnesota, our enabling act was made still more liberal in relation to State Education, than that of any State or Territory yet admitted or organized in the amount of lands granted to schools generally.

"And be it further enacted, That when the lands in said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the Government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in each township in said Territory, shall be, and the same are hereby reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Ttrritories hereafter to be created out of the same."

As the additions to the family of States increase westward, the national domain is still more freely contributed to the use of schools; and the character of the education demanded by the people made more and more definite. In 1851, while Oregon and Minnesota were yet territories of the United States, Congress passed the following act:

" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Eepresentatives of America, in Congress assembled : That the Governors and legislative assemblies of the territories of Oregon and Minnesota, be, and they are hereby authorized to make such laws and needful regulations as they shall deem most expedient to protect from injury and waste, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in said Territories reserved in each township for the support of schools therein.

(2.) "And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to set apart and reserve from sale, out of any of the public lands within the territory of Minnesota, to which the Indian title has been or may be extinguished, and not otherwise appropriated, a quantity of land not exceeding two entire townships, for the use and support of a University in said Territory, and for no other purpose whatever, to be located by legal subdivisions of not less than one entire section."