Freeborn County, Minnesota - State Education in Minnesota Board Op Be, 1882

State Education in Minnesota Board Op Be

When Minnesota was prepared by her population for ajiplication to Congress for admission as a State, Congress, in an act authorizing her to form a State government, makes the following provision for schools:

( 1 ) "That sections uumliered sixteen and thirtysis in every township of public lands in said State, and where either of said sections, or any part thereof, has been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to said State for the use of schools.

(2) "That seventy-two sections of land shall be set apart and reserved for the use and support of a State TJuivei'sity to be selected by the Governor of said State, subject to the approval of the commissioner at the general land office, and be appropriated and applied in such manner as the legislature of said State may prescribe for the jMirposes aforesaid, but for no other purpose." [Passed February 26, 1857.]

But that there might be no misapprehension that the American Government not only had the inclination to aid in the proper education of the citizen, but that in cases requiring direct control, the government would not hesitate to exercise its authority, in matters of education as well as in any and all other questions affecting its sovereignty. To this end, on the second of July, 1862, Congress passed the "act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts."

"Be it enacted, «fcc., that there be granted to the several States for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, an amount of public land to be apportioned to each State (except States in reliellion), a quantity equal to thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment imdor the census of 1860."

lands, directly or indirectly, shall be invested in stocks yielding not less than five per cent, upon the par value of such stocks. That the money so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest thereof shall be inviolably appro- ])riated by each State which may claim the benefit of the act to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college, where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning :is are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

Section five, second clause of said act, provides "That no portion of said fund, nor the interest thereon, shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretence whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings."

Section five, third clause, "That any State which may take and claim the benefit of the provisions of this act shall provide, within five years, at least not less than one college, as described in tlie fourth section of this act, or the grant to such State shall cease; and the said State shall be bound to pay the United States the amount received of any lands previously sold."

Section five, fourth clau.se, "An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of each college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their costs and results, and such other matters, including State industrial and economical statistics, as may be supposed useful; one copy of which shall be transmitted by mail free, by each, to all the other colleges which may be endowed under the provisions of this act, and aLso one copy to the Secretary of the Interit)r."

Under this act Minnesota is entitled to select 150,000 acres to aid in teaching the branches in the act named in the State University, making the endowment fund of the Government to the state of Minnesota for educational purposes as follows:

Aid Of Congress In 1862

All these lands have not been selected. Under the agricultural college grant, only 94,439 acres have been selected, and only 72,708 acres under the two University grants, leaving only 167,147 acres realized for University purposes, out of the 208,360, a possible loss of 41,203 acres.

The permanent school fund derived from the national domain by the state of Minnesota, at a reasonable estimate of the value of the lands secured out of those granted to her, cannot vary far from the results below, considering the prices already obtained:

These several grants, ample as they seem to be, are, however, not a tithe of the means required from the State itself for the free education of the children of the State. We shall see further on what the State has already done in her free school system.

Minnesota, a State first distinguished by an extra grant of government land, has something to unite it to great national interest Its position in the sisterhood of States gives it a prominence that none other can occupy. A State lying on both sides of the great Father of waters, in a continental valley midway between two vast oceans, encircling the Western Hemispliere, with a soil of superior fertility, a climate unequalled for health, and bright with skies the most inspiring, such a State, it may be said, must ever hold a prominent position in the Great American Union.

In the acts of the early settlements on the Atlantic coast, in the Colonial Government, and the National Congress, we have the evidence of a determined intention "that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged" by the people who have the destinies of the Western Hemisphere in their hands. That the external organism of the system capable of accomplishing this heavy task, and of carrying forward this responsible duty, rests with the people themselves, and is as extensive as the government they have established for the protection of their rights and the growth of their physical industries, and the free development of their intellectual powers. The peojjle, organized as a Nation, in assuming this duty, have in advance proclaimed to the world that "Religion, Morality, and Knowledge" are alike essential "to good government." And in organizing a government free from sectarian control or alliance, America made an advance hitherto unknown, both in its temporal and spiritual power; for hitherto the work of the one had hindered the others, and the labors and unities of the two were inconsistent with the proper functions of either. The triumph, therefore, of either, for the control of both, was certain ruin, while separation of each, the one from the other, was the true life of both. Such a victory, therefore, was never before known on earth, as the entire separation, and yet the friendly rivalry of Church and State, first inaugurated in the free States of America. This idea was crystalized and at once stamped on the fore-front of the Nation's life in the aphorism, "Keligion, morality, and knowledge are alike essential to good government." And the deduction from this national aphorism necessarily follows: "That schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged." We assume, then, without further illustration drawn from the acts of the Nation, that the means of education have not and will not be withheld. We have seen two great acquisitions, the Northwest Territory, and the Louisiana Purchase, parceled out in greater and greater profusion for educational uses, till the climax is reached in the Mississippi Valley, the future great cent«r of national power. At the head of this valley sits as regnant queen the state of Minnesota, endowed with the means of education unsurpassed by any of her compeers in the sisterhood of States. Let us now inquire, as pertinent to this discussion,

The answer is in part made up from her constitution and the laws enacted in pursuance thereof: First, then, article VIII. of her constitution reads thus:

Section 1. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools.

Section 2. The proceeds of such lands as are, or hereafter may \>e granted by the United States, for the use of schools in each towuship in this State, shall remain a perpetual school fund to the State. * * * * The principal of aU funds arising from sales or other disposition of lands or other property, granted or entrusted to this State, sliall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished; and tlie income arising from the lease or sale of said school land shall be distributed to the different townships throughout the State in proportion to the number of scholars in each township, between the ages of five and tweuty-one years; and shall be faitlifully applied to the specific object of the original grant or appropriation."

Section 3. The legislature shall make such provision by taxation or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools in each township in the State.

But in no case shall the moneys derived as aforesiiid, or any portion thereof, or any public moneys or property, be njipropriated or used for the support of schools wherein the destinctive doctrines, creeds, or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect are promulgated or taught."

The Dnivbrsitt

"Section 4. Tlie location of the University of Minnesota, as established by existing laws, [Sept. 1851] is hereby confirmed, and said institution is hereby declared to be tie University of Minnesota. All the rights, immunities, franchises, and endowments heretofore granted or conferred, are hereby perpetuated unto the said University; and all lands which may be granted hereafter by Congress, or other donations for said University purposes, shall rest in the institution referred to in this section.

The State constitution is in full harmony with the National government in the distinctive outlines laid down in the extracts above made. .\nd the Territorial and State governments, within these Umits, have consecutively appropriated by legislation, sufficient to carry forward the State school system. In the Territorial act, establishing the University, the peojile of the State announced in advance of the establishment of a State government, " that the proceeds of the land that may hereafter be granted by the United States to the Territory for the sujjport of the University, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, to be called "the

University Fund," the interest of which shall be appropriated to the support of a University, and no sectarian instruction sliall be allowed in such University! "' This organization of the University was confirmed by the State constitution, and the congressional land grants severally passed to that corporation, and the use of the funds arising therefrom were subjected to the restrictions named. So that both the common school and University were dedicated to State school purposes, and exjirossly excluded from sectarian control or sectarian instruction.

In this respect the State organization corresponds with the demands of the general government; and has organized the school system reaching from the common school to the university, so that it may be said, the State student may, if he choose, in the state of Minnesota pass from grade to grade, through common school, high school, and State University free of charge tor tuition. Without referring f.pecially to the progressive legislative enactments, the united system may be referred to as made up of units ot diflerent order.i, and successively in its ascending grades, governed by separate boards, rising in the scale of importance from the local trustee, directors, and treasurer, in common school, to the higher board of education, of six members ip the independent school district, and more or less than that number in districts and large cities under special charter, until we reach the climax in the dignified Board of Regents; a board created by law and known as the Regents of the State University. This honorable body consists of seven men nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the senate of the State legislature, each holding his office for three years; and besides these there are three ex-officio members, consisting of the President ot the State University, the' Superintendent ot Public Instruction, and the Governor of the State. This body of ten men are in reality the legal head of the State University, and indirectly the effective liead ot the State school system of Minnesota, and are themselves subject only to the control of the State Legislature. These various officers, throughout this series, are severally trustees ot legal duties which cannot be delegated. They fall under the legal maxim "that a trustee cannot make a trustee." These are the legal bodies to whom the several series of employes and servitors owe obedience. These various trustees determine the courae of studv and the rules of transfer from grade to grade until the last grade is reached at the head of the State system, or the scholar has perhaps completed a post-graduate course in a polytechnic school, inaugurated by the State for greater perfection, it may be in chemistry, agriculture, the mechanic arts, or other specialty, required by the State or national government.

This system, let it be understood, differs from all private, parocliial, denominational, or sectarian schools. The State organism and all the sectarian elements of the church are, in this department of labor, entirely distinct. The State protects and encourages, but does not control either the schools or the faith of the church. The church supports and approves, but does not yield its tenets or its creed to the curriculum of the schools of the State. The State and the Church are in this respect entirely distinct and diflferent organizations. State education, however, and the education of the adherents of the church are in harmony throughout a great portion of the State curriculum. Indeed, there seems to be no reason why the greater portion of denominational teaching, so far as the same is in ha'mony with the schools of the State, should not be relegated to the State, that the church throughout all its sectarian element might be the better able to direct its energies and economize its benevolence in the cultivation of its own fields of chosen labor. But, however this may be, and wherever these two organizations choose to divide their labors, they are still harmonious even in their rivalry.

The organism as a State system has, in Minnesota, so matured that through all the grades to the University, the steps are defined and the gradients passed without any conflict of authority. The only check to the regular order of ascending grades was first met in the State University. These schools, in older countries, had at one time an independent position, and in their origin had their own scholars of all grades, from the preparatory department to the Senior Class in the finished course; but in our State system, when the common schools became graded, and the High School had grown up as a part of the organism of a completed system, the University naturally took its place at the head of the State system, having the same relation to the High School as the High School has to the Common School. There was no longer any reason why the same rule should not apply in the transfer from the High School to the University, that applied' in the transfer from the Common School to the High School, and to this conclusion the people of the State have already fully arrived. The rules of the board of Regents of the State University now allow students, with the Principal's certificate of qualification, to enter the Freshman class, on examination in sub-Freshman studies only. But even this is not satisfactory to the friends of the State school system. They demand for High School graduates an entrance into the University, when the grade below is passed, on the examination of the school below for graduation therein. If, on the one hand, the High schools of the State, under the law for the encouragement of higher education, are required to prepare students so that they shall be qualified to enter some one of the classes of the University, on the other hand the University should be required to admit the students thus qualified without further examination. The rule should work in either direction. The rights of students under the law are as sacred, and should be as inalienable, as the rights of teachers or faculties in State institutions. The day of unlimited, irresjionsible discretion, a relic of absolute autocracy, a despotic power, has no place in systems of free schools under constitutional and statutory limitations, and these presidents and faculties \\ ho continue to exercise this power in the absence of right, should be reminded by Boards of Regents at the head of American State systems that their resignation would be acceptable. They belong to an antiquated system, outgrown by the age in which we live.

The spirit of the people of our State was fully intimated in the legislature of 1881, in the House bill introduced as an amendment to the law of 1878-79, for the encouragement of higher education, but finally laid aside for the law then in force, slightly amended, and quite in harmony with the House bill. Sections two and five alluded to read as follows;

".\ny public, graded or high school in any city or incorporated village or township organized into a district under the s(<-called township system, which shall have regular cla.sses and courses of study, articulating with some course of study, optional or required, in the State University, and shall raise annually for the expense of said school doiible the amoiuit of State aid allowed by this act, and shall admit students of either sex into the higlier classes thereof from any part of the State, without charge for tuition, shall receive State aid, as specified in section four of this act. Provided, that non-resident pupils shall in all cases be qualified to enter the highest department of said school at the entrance examination for resident pupils."

"The High School Board shall have power, and it is hereby made their duty to provide uniform questions to test the qualifications of the scholars of said graded or high schools for entrance and graduation, and especially conduct the examinations of scholars in said schools, when desired and notified, and award diplomas to graduates who shall upon examination be found to have completed any course of study, either optional or required, entitling the holder to enter any class in the University of Minnesota named therein, any time within one year from the date thereof, without further examination; said dijiloma to be executed by the several members of the High School Board."

The Kelated System

We have now seen the position of the University in our syst«m of public schools. In its position only at the head of the series it differs from the grades below. The rights of the scholar follow him throughout the series. When he has completed and received the certificate or diploma in tlic prescribed course in the High School, articulating with any course, optional or required, in the University, he has the same right, unconditioned, to pass to the higher class in that course, as he had to pass on examination, from one class to the other in any of the grades beiow. So it follows, that the University faculty or teacher who assnmes the right to reject, condition, or re-examine such student, would exercise an abuse of power, unwarranted in law, arbitrary in spirit, and not republican in character. This rule is better and better understood in all State Universities, as free State educational organisms are more crystalized into forms, analogous to our State and national governments. The arbitrary will of the intermediate, or head master, no longer prevails. His will niust yield to more certain legal rights, as the learner passes on, midcr prescribed rules, from infancy \o manhood through all the grades of school life. And no legislation framed on any other theory of educational promotion in republican States can stand against this American consciousness of equality existing between all the members of the body politic. In this consciousness is embraced the inalienable rights of the child or the youth to an education free in all our public schools. In Minnesota it is guaranteed in the constitution that the legislature shall make such provisions, by taxation or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school fund, will secure a thorough and cllicient system of public schools in each township in tlie State. Who shall say that the people have no right to secure such thorough and efficient system, even should that "thorough and efficient system" extend to direct taxation for a course extending to graduation from a University? Should such a course exceed the constitutional limitation of a thorough and eflicient system of public schools?

Interpketation Of The Constitution

The people, through the medium of the lawmaking power, have given on three several occasions, in 1878, 1879, and 1881, an intimation of the scope and measuring of our State constitution 'on educational extension to higher education than the common school. In the first section of the act of 1881, the legislature created a High School Board, consisting of the Governor of the State, Superintendent of Public lustniction, and the President of the University of Minnesota, who are charged with certain duties and granted certain powers contained in the act. And this High School Board are required to grant State aid to the amount of .f 400 diiring the school year to any public graded school, in any city or incorporated village, or township organized into a district, which shall give preparatory instruction, extending to and articulating with the University course in some one of its classes, and shall admit students of either sex, from any part of the State, without charge for tuition. Provided only that non-resident pupils shall be qualified to enter some one of the organized classes of such graded or high school. To carry out this act, giving State aid directly out of the State treasury to a course of education reaching upward from the common school, through the high school to the University, the legislature appropriated the entire sum of #20,000. In this manner we have the interpretation of the people of Minnesota lis to the meaning of "a thorough and efficient system of public schools, operative alike in each township in the State." And this interpretation of our legislature is in harmony witli the several acts of Congress, and particularly the act of July the second, 1862, granting lands to the several States of the Union, known as the Agricultural College Grant. The States receiving said lands are required, in their colleges or universities, to "teach such branches of learning as are related to Agriculture and the Mechanic arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, in such manner as the legislatures of (he States may respectively prescribe, in order to jMomote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."'

And the Legislature of Minnesota has already established in' its University, optional or required courses of study fully meeting the limitations in the congressional act of 1862. In its elementary department it has three courses, known as classical, scientific, and modern. In the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts, the courses of study are an extension of those of the elementary departments, and lead directly to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Literature. In the College of Mechanic Arts the several courses of studies are principally limited to Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Architecture. In the College of Agriculture are : (1 ) The regular University course, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture. (2) The elementary course, in part coinciding with the Scientific course of the Elementary Department. (3) A Farmers' Lecture course. (4) Three special courses for the year 1880-81. Law and Medicine have not yet been opened in the State University for want of means to carry forward these departments, now so much needed.

Our State constitution has therefore been practically interpreted by the people, by a test that caimot be misconstrued. They have fortified their opinion by the payment of the necessary tax to insure the success of a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the State. This proof of the people's interest in these schools appears in the amounts paid for expenses and instruction. From the school fund the State of Minnesota received, in 1879, the full sum of $232,187.43 The State paid out the same year, the sum of $394,737.71. The difference is $162,- 550.28, which was paid out by the State more than was derived from the government endowment fund. And it is not at all likely that the endowment fund, generous as it is, will ever produce an amount equal to the cost of instruction. The ratio of the increase of scholars it is believeil will always be in advance of the endowment fund. The cost of instruction cannot fall much below an average, for all grades of scholars, of eight dollars per annum to each pupil. Our present 180,000 scholars enrolled would, at this rate require $1,440,000, and in ten years and long before the sale of the school lands of the State shall have been made, this 180,- 000 will have increased a hundred per cent., amounting to 360,000 scholars. These, at $8.00 per scholar for tuition, would equal $2,880,000 per annum, while the interest from the school fund in the same time cannot exceed $2,000,000, even should the land average the price of $6.00 per acre, and the interest realized be always equal to 0 per cent.

Some Of The Results

In these infant steps taken by our State, we can discern the tendency of our organism towards a completed State system, as an element of a still wider union embracing the nation. To know what is yet to be done in this direction we must know what has already been done. We have, in the twenty years of our State history, built 3,693 schoolhouses, varying in cost from $400 to $90,- 000; total value of all, $3,156,210; three Normal school buildings at a cost of (1872) $215,231.52; a State University at an expenditure for buildings alone of $70,000, and an allowance by a late ack of the legislature of an additional $100,000, in three yearly appropriations, for additional buildings to be erected, in all $170,000, allowed by the State for the University. Add these to the cost of common school structures, and we have already expended in school buildings over $4,800,000 for the simple purpose of housing the infant oi-ganism, our common school system here planted. We have seen a movement in cities like St. Paul, Minneapolis, Stillwater, and Winona, towards the local organization of a completed system of home schools, carrying instruction free to the University course, with a total enrollment of 13,500 scholars and 265 teachers, daily seated in buildings, all in the modem style of school architecture and school

We have, in addition to these schools in the cities named, other home and fitting schools, to whom have been paid iji'lOO eaeh, under the law for the "Enoouragemont of Higher Education," passed in 1878, and amended in 1870, as follows: Anoka, Austin, Blue Earth City, Chatfield, Cannon Falls, Crookstou, Duluth, Detroit, Eyota, Faribault, Garden City, Glenooc, Howard Tiake, Hastings, Henderson, Kasson, Litchfield, Lancbboro, Le Sueur, Lake City, Monticello, Moorhead, Mankato, Northfield, Owatonna, Osseo, Plainview, Eed Wing, Rushford, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Peter, Sauk Centre, Spring Valley, Wells, Waterville, Waseca, Wabasha. Wilmar, Winnebago City, Zumbrota, and Mantorville.

These forty-two Stat* aid schools have paid in all for buildings and furniture the gross sum of 8042,700; some of these buildings are superior in all that constitutes superiority in school architecture. The Rochester buildings and grounds cost the sum of $90,000. Several others, such as the Austin, Owatonna, Faribault, Hastings, Red Wing, Rushford, St. Cloud, and St. Peter schoolhouses, exceed in value the sum of 825,000; and others of these buildings arc estimated at «G,000, 88,000, .$10,000, and 815,000. In all they have an enrollment of scholars in attendance on classes graded up to the University course, numbering 13,000, under 301 teachers, at an annual salary amounting in all to $123,509, and having in tlieir A, B, C, D classes 1704 scholars, of whom 120 were prepared to enter the sub-freshman class of the State University in 1880, and the number entering these grades in the year 1879-80 was 934, of whom 400 were non-residents of the districts. And in all these forty-two home schools of the people, the fitting schools of the State University, one uniform course of study, articulating with some course in the Univenrity, was observed. As many other courses as the local boards desired were also carried on in these schools. This, in short, is a part of what we have done.

The organic elements that regularly combine to form governments, are similar to tho.sc organic elements that combine to form systems of mental culture. The primitive type of government is the family. This is the lowest organic form. If no improvement is ever made upon this primitive element, by other combinations of an artificial nature, human governments would never rise higher than the family. If society is to advance, this organism widens into the clan, and in like manner the clan into the village, and the village into the more dignified ])rovince, and the province into the State. All these artificial conditions above tho family are the evidences of growth in pursuance of the laws of artificial life. In like manner the growth of intellectual organisms proceeds from the family instruction to the common school. Here the artificial organism would cease to advance, and would remain stationary, as the clan in the organism of government, unless the common school should pass on to the wider and still higher unit of a grad(>d system reaching upward to the high school. Now this was the condition of the common school in America during the Colonial state, and even down to the national organization. Soon after this period, the intellectual life of the nation began to be aroused, and within the hujt fifty years the Stata common school has culminated in the higher organism of the high school, and it is of very recent date that the high school has reached up to and articuhitod in any State with the State University. On this continent, both government and State schools started inlo life, freed from the domination of institutions grown effete from age and loss of vital energy. Hero, both entered into wider combinations, reaching higher results than the ages of the past. And yet, in educational organization we are far below the standard of perfection we shall attain in the rapidly advancing future. Not until our eystem of education has attained a national character as complete in its related articulation as the civil organization of towns, counties, and States in the national Union, can our educational institutions do the work required of this age. And in Minnesota, one of the leading States in connected school organic relations, we have, as yet, some 4,000 common school districts, with an enrollment of some 100,000 scholars of different ages, from five to twenty -one years; no higher in the scale than the common school, prior to the first high school on the American continent. These chaotic elements, outside of the system of graded schools now aided by the State, must be reduced to the same organized graded system as those that now articulate in their course with the State University.

Division Uf Labor A Cause Of Growth

educational purposes, equal to the demands of the State, and required by the spirit of the age, will not be consummated until our four thousand school districts shall reap the full benefits of a graded system reaching to the high school course^ articulating with some course in the State University and a course in commen with every other high school in the State. The system thus organized might be required to report to the Board of Begents, as the legal head of the organization of the State School system, not only the numerical statistics, but the number and standing of the classes in each of the high schools in the several studies of the uniform course, established by the Board of Eegents, under the direction of the State Legislature. To this system must finally belong the certificate of standing and graduation, entitling the holder to enter the designated class in any grade of the State schools named therein, whether High School or University. But this system is not and can never be a skeleton merely, made up of lifeless materials, as an anatomical specimen in the office of the student of the practice of the healing art. Within this organism there must preside the living teacher, bringing into this organic structure, not the debris of the effete systems of the past, not the mental esuvia of dwarfed intellectual powers of this or any former age, but the teacher inspired by nature to feel and appreciate her methods, and ever moved by her divine afflatus.

Every living organism has its own laws of growth; and the one we have under consideration may, in its most important feature, be compared to the growth of the forest tree. In its earlier years the forest tree strikes its roots deep into the earth aud matures its growing rootlets, the support of its future trunk, to stand against the storms and winds to which it is at all times exposed. When fully rooted in the groimd, with a trunk matured by the growth of years, it puts forth its infant branches and leaflets, suited to its immature but maturing nature; finally it gives evidence of stalwart powers, and now its widespreading top towers aloft among its compeers rearing its head high among the loftiest denizens of the woods. In like manner is the growth of the maturing State school organism. In the common school, the foundation is laid for the rising structure, but here are no branches, no fruitage. It seems in its earliest infancy to put forth no branches, but is simjjly taking hold of the elements below on which its inner life and growth depend. As the system rises, the underlaying laws of life come forth in the principles of invention, manufacturing, engraving, and designing, enriching every branch of intellectual and professional industry, and beautifying every field of human culture. These varied results are all in the law of growth in the organism of State schools carried on above the common schools to the University course. The higher the course the more beneficial the results to the industries of the world, whether those industries are intellectual or purely physical, cater only to the demands of wealth, or tend to suljserve the modi st demands of the humblest citizen.

The only criticism that can reach the question now under consideration, is whether the graded organization tends to produce the results to which we have referred. The law relating to the division of .labor has esiJCcially operated in the graded system of State schools. Under its operation, it is claimed, by good judges, that eight years of school life, from five to twenty-one, has been saved to the pupils of the present generation, over those of the imgraded schools ante-dating the last fifty years. By the operation of this law, in one generation, the saving of time, on the enrollments of State schools in the graded systems of the northern States of the American Union, would be enormous. For the State of Minnesota alone, on the enrollment of 180,000, the aggregate years of time saved would exceed a million! The time saved on the enrollment of the schools of the different States, under the operation of this law would exceed over twenty million years!

To the division of labor is due the wonderful facility with which modern business associations have laid their hands ui^on every branch of industrial pursuits, and bestowed upon the world the comforts of life. Introduced into our system of education it produces results as astonishing as the advent of the Spinning Jenny in the manufacture of cloth. As the raw material from the cotton field of the planter, passing, by gradation, through the unskilled hands of the ordinary laborer to the more perfect process of improved machinery, secure additional value in a constantly increasing ratio; so the graded system of intellectual culture, from the Primary to the High school, and thence to the University, adds increased lustre and value to the mental development in a ratio commen-

The law of growth in State schools was clearly aniidunced by Horace Mann, when he applied to this system the law governing hydraulics, that no stream could rise above its fountain. The common school could not jjroduce a scholarship above its own curriculum. The high school was a grade above, and as important in the State system as the elevated fountain head of the living stream. This law of growth makes the system at once the most natural, the most economical, and certainly the most pojnilar. These several elements might be illustrated, but the reader can easily imagine them at his leisure. As to the last, however, suffer an illustration. In Minnesota, for the school year ending August 21st, 1880, according to the report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, there were enrolled, one hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight scholars in the State schools, while all others, embracing kindergartens, private schools, parochial schools, of all sects and all denominations, had an attendance at the same time of only two thousand four hundred and tweuty-eight; and to meet all possible omissions, it M'O allow double this number, there is lyss than three per cent, of the enrollment in the State school. This ratio will be found to hold good, at least throughout all the Northern States of the American Union. These State schools, then, are not unpopular in comparison with the schools of a private and opposite character. Nor is it owing altogether to the important fact, that State schools are free, that they are more popu'ir than schools of an character; for these State schools are a tax upon the property of the people, and yet a tax most cheerfully borne, in consequence of their superior excellence and importance.

The State school, if not already, can be so graded that each scholar can have the advantage of superior special instruction far better adaptsd to the studies through which he desires to pass, than similar instruction can be had in ungraded schools of any character whatever. In this respect the State system is without a rival. It has the power to introduce such changes as may meet all the demands of the State and all the claims of the learner.

The State school knows no sect, no party, no privileged class, and no special favorites; the high, the low, the rich, and the poor, the home and foreign-boru, black or white, are all equal at this altar. The child of the ruler and the ruled are here equal. The son of the Governor, the woodsawyer, and tlie hod-carrier, here meet on one level, and alike contend for ranks, and alike expect the honors due to superior merit, the reward of intellectual culture. But, aside from the republican character of the State school system, the system is a State necessity. Without the required State culture under its control, the State must cease to exist as an organism for the promotion of human hapjriness or the protection of human rights, and its people, though once cultured and refined, must certainly return to barbarism and savage life. There can be no compromise in the warfare against inherited ignorance. Under all governments tha statute of limitations closes over the subject at twenty-one years; so that during the minority of the race must this warfare be waged by the government without truce. No peace can ever be proclaimed in this war, until the child shall inherit the matured wisdom, instead of the primal ignorance of the ancestor.

The State school system, in our government, is from the necessity of the case, national. No State can enforce its system beyond the limits of its own territory. And unless the nation enforce its own uniform system, the conflict between jurisdictions could never be determined. No homogeneous system could ever be enforced. As the graded system of State schools has now reached the period in its history which corresponds to the colonial history of the national organization, it m\ist here fail, as did the colonial system of government, to fully meet the demands of the people. And what was it, let us consider, that led the people in the organization of the national government "to form a more perfect union?" Had it then become necessary to take this step, that "justice" might be established, domestic tranquility insured, the common defense made more efficient, the general welfare promoted, and the blessings of liberty better secured to themselves and their posterity, that the fathers of the government should think it necessary to form a more perfect union?" Why the necessity of a more perfect union? Were our fathers in fear of a domestic or foreign foe, that had manifested his power in their immediate jjrescnce, threatening to jeopardize or destroy their domestic tranquility? Was this foe an hereditary enemy, who mi_L'ht at long intervals of time invade their territory, and endanger the liberties of this people ? And tor this reason did they demand a more perfect imion? And does not this reason now exist in still greater force fur the formation of » still more perfect union in our system of State schools? Our fathers were moved by the most natural of all reasons, by this law of self-defense. They were attacked by a power too great to be successfully resisted in their colonial or unorganized state. The fear of a destruction of the several colonies without a more perfect union drove them to this alternative. It was union and the hope of freedom, against disunion and the fear of death, that cemented the national government. And this was an external organism, the temple in which the spirit of freedom should preside, and in which her worshippers should enjoy not only domestic but national tranquility. Now, should it be manifested to the world that the soul and spirit, the very life of this temple, erected to freedom, is similarly threatened, should not be the same cause that operated in the erection of the temple itself, operate in the protection of its sacred fires, its soul and spirit? It would seem to require no admonition to move a nation in the direction of its highest hopes, the protection of its inner life.

And what is this enemy, and where is the power able to destroy both the temple and the spirit of freedom? And why should State Education take upon itself any advanced position other than its present indej)endent organic elements? In the face of what enemy should it now be claimed we should attempt to change front, and "form a more perfect union to insure domestic tranquility, and promote the {.eneral welfare," to the end that we may the better secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ? That potent foe to our free institutions, to which we are now brought face to face, is human ignornuce, the natural hereditary foe to every form of enlightened free government. This hereditary enemy is now homesteaded upon our soil. This enemy, in the language of the declaration made by the colonies against their hereditary foe, this enemy to our government, has kept among us a standing army of illiterates, who can neither read nor write, but are armed with the ballot, more powerful than the sword, ready to strike the most deadly blow at human freedom; he has cut off and almost entirely destroyed our trade between States of the same government; has imposed a tax upon us without our consent, most grievous to be borne; he has quite abolished the free system of United States laws in several of our States; he has established, in many sections, arbitrary tribunals, excluding the subject from the right of trial by jury, and enlarged the powers of his despotic rule, endangered the lives of peaceable citizens; he has alienated government of one section, by declaring the inhabitants aliens and enemies to his supposed hereditary right; he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us; he has endeavored to destroy the peace and harmony of our people by bringing his despotic ignorance of our institutions into conflict with the freedom and purity of our elections; he has raised up advocates to his cause who have openly declared that our system of State Education, on which our government rests, is a failure;* he has spared no age, no sex, no portion of our country, but has, with his ignominious minions, afflicted the North and the South, the East and the West, the rich and the poor, the black and the white; an enemy alike to the people of every section of the government, from Maine to California, from Minnesota to Louisiana. Such an inexorable enemy to government and the domestic tranquility of all good citizens deserves the opprobrium due only to the Prince of Darkness, against whom eternal war should be waged ; and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we should, as did our fathers, mutually pledge to each other, as citizens of the free States of America, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

We have thus far considered the State school system in some of its organic elements, and the nature, tendency, and neceseary union of these elements; first in States, and finally for the formation of a more perfect union, that they may be united ia one national organization under the control of one sovereign will. The mode in which these unorganized elements shall come into union and harmony with themselves, and constitute the true inner life and soul of the American Union, is left for the consideration of those whose special duty it is to devote their best energies to the promotion of the welfare of the Nation, and by .statesman-like forethought provide for the domestic, social, civil, intellectual, and industrial progress of the rapidly accumulating millions who

But we must be allowed, in a word, to state the results which we hope to see accomplished^ before the jostling fragments which are yet plastic and warm, shall have attained a temperament not easily fused and "rounded" into one homogenous national system, rising in the several States from the kindergarten to the University, and from the State Universities through all orders of specialties demanded by the widening industries and growing demands of a progressive age. And in this direction we cannot fail to see that the national government must so mould its intellectual systems that the State and national curricula shall be uniform throughout the States and territories, so that a class standing of every pupil, jji'operly certified, shall be equally good for a like class standing in every portion of the government to which he may desire to remove. America will then be ready to celebrate her liual indejjendeuce, the inalienable right of American youth, as ha\'ing a standing limited by law in her State and national systems of education, entitling them to rank everywhere with associates and compeers on the same plain; when in no case, shall these rights be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State or authority thereof, on account of race, color, or previous condition of scholarship, secular or secfarian, till the same shall forever find'the most ample protection under the broad banner of NATIONAL and NATURAL rights, common alike to all in the ever widening uia-unLic of i.eiters.

Treaties With Sioux Indians From 1812 To

TREATIES WITH SIOUX INDIANS FROM 1812 TO 1859 THEIR RESERVATIONS CIVILIZATION EFFORTS - SETTLEMENTS OF THE WHITES CONTIGUOUS TO THE RESERVATIONS.

The first authentic knowledge of the country upon the waters of the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, was given to the world by Louis Hennepin, a native of France. In 1680 he visited the FaUs of St. Anthony, and gave them the name of his patron saint, the name they still bear.

Hennepin foimd the country occupied by wild tribes of Indians, by whom he and his companions were detained as prisoners, but kindly treated, and finally released.

In 1766, this same country was again visited by a white man, this time by Jonathan Carver, a British subject, and an officer in the British army. Jonathan Carver spent some three -years among different tribes of Indians in the Upper Mississippi country. He knew the Sioux or Dakota Indians as the Naudowessies, who were then occupying the country along the Mississippi, from Iowa to the Falls of St. .'Vntliony, and along the Minnesota river, then called St. Peter's, from its 6ource to its mouth at Mendota. To the north of these tribes the country was then occupied by the Ojibwas, commonly called Chippewas, the hereditary enemies of the Sioux.

Carver found these Indian nations at war, and by Ms commanding influence finally succeeded in making peace between them. As a reward for his good offices in this regard, it is claimed that two chiefs of the Naudowessies, acting for their nation, at a council held with Carver, at the great cave, now in the corporate limits of St. Paul, deeded to Carver a vast tract of land on the Mississippi river, extending from the FaUs of St. Anthony to the foot of Lake Pepin, on the Mississippi; thence east one hundred English miles; thence north one hundred and twenty miles; thence west to the place of beginning. But this pretended grant has been examined by our government and entirely ignored as a pure invention of parties in interest, after Carver's death, to profit by his Indian service in Minnesota.

There can be no doubt that these same Indians, known to Captain Carver as the Naudowessies, in 1767, were the same who inhabited the country upon the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries when the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was made, in 1851, between the United States and the Sisse- 'ton and Wapaton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indians. The name Sioux is said to have been bestowed upon these tribes by the French; and that it is a corruption of the last syllable of their more ancient name, which in the peculiar guttural of the Dakota tongue, has the sound of the last syllable of the old name NaudowesszVs, Sioux.

The tribes inhabiting the Territory of Minnesota at the date of the massacre, 1862, were the following: Medawakontons (or VUlage of the Spirit Lake); WajDatons (or Village of the Leaves); Sissetons (or Village of the Marsh); and Wajjakutas (or Leaf Shooters). All these were Sioux Indians, connected intimately with other wild bands scattered over a vast region of country, including Dakota Territory, and the country west of the Missouri, even to the base of the Eocky Mountains. Over all this vast region roamed these wild bands of Dakotas, a powerful and warlike nation, holding by their tenure the country north to the British Possessions.

The Sissetons had a hereditary chief, Ta-tanka Mazin, or Standing Bufialo; and at the date of the massacre his father, "Star Face," or the "Orphan," was yet aUve, but superannuated, and all the duties of the chief were vested in the sou. Standing Buffalo, who remained friendly to the whites and took no part in the terrible massiicre on our border in 1862.

The four tribes named, the Medawakontons, Wapatons, Sissetons and Wapakutas, comprised the entire "annuity Sioux" of Miune-ota; and in 18C2 these tribes numbered about six thousand and two hundred persons. All these Indians had from time to time, from the 19th day of July, 1815, to the date of the massacre of 1SC2, received presents from the Government, by virtue of various treaties of amity and friendship between us and their accredited chiefs and heads of tribes.

Soon after the close of the last war with Great Britain, on the first day of June, 1816, a treaty was concluded at St. Louis between the United States and the chiefs and warriors representing eight bands of the Sioux, composing the three tribes then called the "Sioux of the Leaf," the "Sioux of the Broad Leaf," and the "Sioux who Shoot in the Pine Tops," by the terms of which these tribes confirmed to the United States all cessions or grants of lands previously made by them to the British, French, or Spanish governments, within the limits of the United States or its Territories. For these cessions no annuities were paid, for the reason that they were mere confirmations of grants made by them to powers from whom we had acquired the territory.

From the treaty of St. Louis, in 1816, to the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1859, these tribes liad remained friendly to the whites, and had by treaty stipulations parted with all the lands to which they claimed title in Iowa; all on the east side of the Mississippi river, and all on the Minnesota river, in Minnesota Territory, except certain reservations. One of these reservations lay upon both sides of the Minnesota, ten miles on either side of that stream, from Hawk river on the north, and Yellow Medicine river on the south side, thence westerly to the head of Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse, a distance of about one hundred miles. Another of these reservations commenced at Little Kock river on the east, and a line running due south from opjjosite its mouth, and extending up tlie river westerly to the easterly line of the first-named reservation, at

The Indians west of the Missouri, in referring to those of their nation east of the river, called them Isanties, which seems to have been applied to them from the fact that, at some remote period, they had lived at Isantamde, or "Knife Lake," one of the Mille Lacs, in Minnesota.

These Indian treaties inaugurated and contributed greatly to strengthen a custom of granting, to the pretended owners of lands occupied for purposes of hunting the wild game thereon, and living upon the natural products thereof, a consideration for the cession of their lands to the Government of the United States. This custom culminated ia a vast annuity fund, in the aggregate to over three million dollars, owing to these tribes, before named, in Minnesota. This annuity system was one of the causes of the massacre of 1862.

Indian Litb. - Before the whites came in contact with the natives, they dressed in the skins o' animals which they killed for food, such as the buffalo, wolf, elk, deer, beaver, otter, as well as the small fur-bearing animals, which they trapped on lakes and streams. In later years, as the settlements of the white race approached their borders, they exchanged these peltries and furs for blankets, cloths, iind other articles of necessity or ornament. The Sioux of the plains, those who inhabited the Cuteau and beyond, and, indeed, some of the Sisseton tribes, dress in skins to this day. Even among those who are now called "civilized," the style of costume is often unique. It is no picture of the imagination to portray to the reader a "stal- WAKT Indian" in breech-cloth and leggins, with y. calico shirt, all "fluttering in the wind," and hia head surmouuted with a stove-pipe hat of most surprising altitude, carrying in his hand a pipe of exquisite workmanship, on a stem not unlike a cane, sported as an ornament by some city dandy. His appearance is somewhat varied, as the seas(ms come and go. He may be seen in summer or in winter dressed in a heavy cloth coat of poarse fabric, often turned inside out with all his civilized and savage toggery, from head to foot, in the most bewildering juxtaposition. On beholding him, the dullest imagination cannot refrain from the poetic exclamtion of Alexander Pope,

Efforts to Civilize these Ankuity Indians. - The treaty of 1858, made at Washingtou, elaborated a scheme for the civihzation of these annnity Indians. A civilization fund was proxdded, to be taken from their annuities, and expended in improvements on the lands of such of them as should abandon their tribal relations, and ;:dopt the habits and modes of life of the -n-hite race. To aU such, - lands were to be assigned in severalty, eighty acres to each head of a family. On these farms were to be erected the necessary farm-buildings, and farming implements and cattle were to be furnished them.

In addition to these favors the government offered them pay for such labors of value as were performed, in addition to the crops they raised. Indian farmers now augmented rapidily, until the appalling outbreak in 1862, at which time about one hundred and sixty had taken advantage of the munificent provisions of the treaty. A number of farms, some 160, had good, snug brick houses erected upon them. Among these cisj7z>cfZ savages was Little Crow, and many of these farmer- Indians belonged to his own band.

The Indians disliked the idea of taking any portion of the general fund belonging to the tribe for the purpose of carrying out the civilization scheme- Thos6 Indians who retained the "blanket," and hence called "blanket Indians," denounced the measure as a fraud upon their rights. The chase was then a God-given right; this scheme forfeited that ancient natural right, as it pointed unmistakably to the destruction of the chase.

But to the friends of Indian races, the course inaugurated seemed to be, step by step, lifting these rude children of the plains to a higher level. This scheme, however, was to a great degree thwarted by the helpless. condition of the "blanket Indians" during a great portion of the year, and their persistent determination to remain followers of the chase, and a desire to continue on the warpath.

When the chase fails, the "blanket Indians" resort to their relatives, the farmers, pitch their tepees around their houses, and then commence the process of eating them out of house and home. When the ruin is complete, the farmer Indians, driven by the law of self-preservation, with their wives and children, leave their homes to seek such subsistence as the uncertain fortunes of the chase may yield.

In the absence of the family from the house and fields, thu5 deserted, the wandering "blanket Indians" commit whatever destruction of fences or tenements their desires or necessities may suggest. This perennial process go2s on; so that in the spring Allien the disheartened farmer Indian returns to his desolate home, to prepare again for another crop, he looks forward with no different results for the coming winter.

It will be seen, from this one illustration, drawn from the actual results of the civilizing process, how hopeless was the prospect of elevf/ting one class of related savages without at the same time protecting them from the incursions of their own relatives, against whom the class attempted to be favored, had no redress. In this attempt to civilize these Dakota Indians the forty years, less or more, of missionary and other efforts have been measurably lost, and the money spent in that direction, if not wasted, sadly misapplied.

The treaty of 1858 lu-d opened for settlement a vast frontier country of the most attractive character, in the Valley of the Minnesota, and the streams putting into the Minnesota, on either side, such as Beaver creek. Sacred Heart, Hawk and Chippewa rivers and some other small streams, were flourishing settlemelits of white families. Within this ceded tract, ten miles wide, were the scattered settlements of Birch Coolie, Patterson Eapids, on the Sacred Heart, and others as far up as the Upper Agency at Yellow Medicine, in Eenville county. The county of Brown adjoined the reservation, and was, at the time of which we are now writing, settled mostly by Germans. In this county was the flourishing town of New Ulm, and a thriving settlement on the Big Cottonwood and Watonwan, consisting of German and American pioneers, who had -selected this lovely and fertUe valley for their future homes.

Other counties. Blue Earth, Nicollet, Sibley, Meeker, McLeod, Kandiyohi, Monongalia and Murray, were all situated in the finest portions of the state. Some of the valleys along the streams, such as Butternut valley and others of similar character, were lovely as Wyoming and as fertile as the Gardaa of Edeu. These counties, with others somewhat removed from the direct attack of the Indians in the massacre, as Wright, Stearns and Jackson, and even reaching on the north to Fort Abercrombie, thus extending from Iowa to the Valley of the Bed Eiver of the North, were severally involved in the consequences of the war- fare of 18G2. This extended area had at the time a population of over fifty thousand people, principally in the pursuit of agriculture; and although the settlements were in their infancy, the people were happy and contented, and as prosperous as any similar community in any new country on the American continent, since the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.

We have in short, traced the Dakota tribes of Minnesota from an early day, when the white man first visited and explored these then unknown regions, to the time of the massacre. We have also given a synopsis of all the most important treaties between them and the government, with an allusion to the country adjacent to the reservations, and the probable number of people residing in the portions of the state ravaged by the savages.