Rice County, Minnesota - Chapter 29, 1882

Chapter 29

STATE EDUOATTON IN MINNESOTA BOARD OF REGENTS - UNIVERSITY GitANT - AID OP CONGRESS IN 1862 VALUE OF SOHOOLHOUSES - LOCAL TAXATION IN DIFFERENT STATES - STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM KNOWS NO SECT IGNORANCE INHERITED,

When Minnesota was prepared by her population for application 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 numbered sixteen and thirtysix 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 e(juivaleut 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 University 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 purposes 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, &c., that there be granted to the several States for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, an amount of public land to be apportioned to eacli State (except States in rebellion), a quantity equal to thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860."

lauds, 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 appropriated 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 as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively ]5rescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and jirofessions 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 buUdings."

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 iu the 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 clause, "An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of eadh college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their costs and results, and such other matters, including State industrial and economical statistics, aa 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 Interior."

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 tlie endowment fund of the Government to the state of Minnesota for edtKjational purposes as follows:

Aid Of Congress In 1862

All th(-so lands have not been selcctod. Unilor the agricidturiil collogo grant, only 91,4.'5'.) .icres have been selected, and only 72,708 acriw under the two University grants, leaving only 1()7,14:7 acres realized for University pnrposes, ont oE the 208,360, a possible loss of 41,203 acres.

The pennnnont 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 iuterest. Its position in the sisterhood of States gives it a i)romineuce that none other can occuj^y. A State lying on both sides of the great Father of waters, in a continental valley midway between two vast oceans, encircling the Western Hemisphere, 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 people, <irganized as a Nation, in assuming this duty, have in advance proclaimed to the world that "Keligion, 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 triumjjh, tlierefore, 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, fii'st 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 center 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 unifoim system of public schools.

State Education

Section 2. The proceeds of such lands as are, or hereafter may be granted by the United States, for the use of schools in each township in this State, shall remain a perj)etual school fund to the State. =s * * * The principal of all funds arising from sales or otlier disposition of lands or other property, granted or entrusted to this State, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished ; and the income arising from the lease or sale of said school land shall be distriluited to the different townships throughout the State in proportion to the number of scholars in each township, between the ages of five and twenty-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 townshijJ in the State.

But in no case shall the moneys derived as aforesaid, or any portion thereof, or any jjublic moneys or property, be ajipropriated 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 Dniveesity

"Section 4. The location of the University of Minnesota, as istablishrd by existing laws, [Sept. 1851] is hereby contiruied, and said institution is hereby declared to be tie University of Minnesota. All the rights, inmaunitios, franchises, and endowments heretofore granted or conferred, are hereby perpetuated unto the f aid 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. And the Territorial and State governments, within these limits, have consecutively appropriated by legislation, sufficient to carry forward the State school system. In the Territorial act, establishing the University, the people of the State announced in advance of the establishment of a State government, " that the proceeds of the laud that may hereafter be granted by the United States to the Territory for the support of the University, shall bo 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 shall be allowed in such University! " This organization of the University was confirmed by the State constitution, and the congressional laud 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 expressly excluded from sectarian control or sectarian instruction.

In this respect the State organization corresponds with the demands oC 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 for tuition. Without referring specially to the progressive legislative enactments, the united system may be referred to as made up of units of different orders, 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 io 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 Begents 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 of the State University, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Governor of the State. This body of ton men are in reality the legal head of the State University, and indirectly the effective head of 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 of legal duties which cannot be delegated. They fall under the legal maxim "that a trustee cannot make a trustor." These are the legal bodies to whom the several series of employes and servitors owe obedience. Tliese various trustees determine the course of study and tlie rules of transfer from grade to jrrade 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 imderstood, differs from all private, parochial, 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 different 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 harmony 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 energiefa 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 regiilar 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 prejiaratory department to the Seuior 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 tlie 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 deiuand 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, irresponsible discretion, a relic of absolute autocracy, a despotic jjower, has no place iu systems of free schools under constitutional and statutory limitations, and these presidents and faculties who 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 iu 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 harminjy with the H( iu.se bill. Sections two and five .^lluded to read as follows:

"Any 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 classes 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 double the amount of State aid allowed by this act. and shall admit students of either sex into the higher classes thereof from any part of the State, witliout 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 schodl 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 ui^on examination be found to have completed any course of study, either optional or re([uired, 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 diploma to be executed by the several members of the High School Board."

The Related System

We have now seen the position of the University in our system 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 tlie 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 assumes 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 crystalizod 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, under prescribed rules, from infancy to 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 efficient system of public schools in each township in the State. Who shall say that the peojjle 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 efficient system of public schools?

Interpeetation 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 constitutitm 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 Instruction, 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 recjuired to grant State aid to the amount of $400 during 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 tliat 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 sch<i'>l to the University, the legislatiu-e appropriated the entire sum of .'520,000. In this manner we have the interpretation of the people of Minnesota as to the lueaniiig of "a thorough and effioieiit systeiu of public schools, operative alike iu each township in the State." And this interpretation of our legislatui'e is iu harmony with the several acts of Congress, and particularly the act of July the second, 1SC2, granting lands to the several States of the Union, known as the Agricultural College Graiil. The States receiving said lands are rcq\iircd, 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 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."

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 Jlechanic 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 AgrieiUturc. (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 iu 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 cannot be misconstrued. They have fortified their opinion by the payment of the necessary tax to insure the success of a thorough and efficieijt system of public schools throughout the State. This proof of the people's interest in these schools ajjpears in the amounts paid for expenses and instruction. From the school fund the State of Minnesota received, in 1879, tlie full sum of §232,187.43 The State paid out the same yerir.

the snm of .1394,737.71. The dilTerence is .fl()2,- 5.50.28, which was paid out by the State more than was derived from tlie government endowment fund. And it is not at all likely that the endowment fund, generous as it is, will ever produce an amount o'cjual t<i the cost of instrucliou. The ratio of the increase of scholars it is believed vi'ill always be in advance of the endowment fund. The cost of instructiou cannot fall much I)elov/ an average, for all grades of scholars, of eight dollars per annum to each pupil. Our pi-o.ii^nt 180,000 scholars enrolled would, at this rate require .'|fl,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 3()0,000 scholars. These, at .S8.00 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 ^(i.OO per acre, and the interest realized be always equal to "6 per cent.

Some Of The Hesults

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 sclioolhouses, 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 act of the legislature of an additional $100,000, in three yearly appropriations, for additional buildings to be erected, iu 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 simjjle purpose of housing the infant organism, our common school system here planted. We have seen a movement in cities like St. Paul, Minneajiolis, 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 buOdiugs, 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 $100 each, under the law for the "Encouragement of Higher Education," passed in 1878, and amended in 1879, as follows: Anoka, Austin, Blue Earth City, Chatfield, Cannon Palls, Crookston, Duluth, Detroit, Eyota, Faribault, Garden City, Gleucoe, Howard Lake, Hastings, Henderson, Kasson, Litchfield, Lane&boro, Le Sueur, Lake City, Monticello, Moorhead, Mankato, Northfield, Owatnnna, Osseo, Plainview, Eed Wing, Eushford, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Peter, Sauk Centre, Spring Valley, Wells, Waterville, Waseca, Wabasha. Wilmar, Winnebago City, Zumbrota, and Mantorville.

These forty-two State aid schools have paid in all tor buildings and furniture the gross sum of $042,700; some of these buildings are superior in all that constitutes superiority in school architecture. The Kochester buildings and grounds cost the sum of $90,000. Several others, such as the Au.stin, Owatonna, Faribault, Hastings, Ked Wing, Eushford, St. Cloud, and St. Peter schoolhouses, exceed in value the sum of .'J'iS.OOO; and others of these buildings are estimated at SG,000, S8,000, $10,000, and $15,000. 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 $123,569, and having in their A, B, C, I) classes 1704 scholars, of whom 126 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 University, 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 those organic elements that combine to form systems of mental culture. The jjrimitivc type of government is the family. This is tlie lowest organic form. If no improvement is ever made upou tliis 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 province, and the province into the State. All these artificial conditions above tha 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 commoa 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 graded 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 iutellectual life of the nation began to be aroused, and within the last fifty years the State common school has culminated iathe higher organism of the high school, and it is of very recent date that the high school has reached up to and articuLitod in any State with the State University. On this continent, both government and State schools started into life, freed from the domination of institutions grown effete from age and loss of vital energy. Here, both entered into wider combinations, reaching higher results than the ages of the past. And yet, in educational organization we are far below the st.andard 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 differeYit 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.

cJiiOiitional purposes, eijual tii tlio deraamls of the State, and required by the spirit of the age, will not be consummnted uutil 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 Regents, as the legal head of the organization of the State Scliool 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 stamling 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 au anatomical specimen in the oflice 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 exuvia of dwarfed intellectual powers of this or any former age, but the teacher inspired by nature to feel and aj^preciate 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 and matures its growing rootlets, the sujjport 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 f(jr the rising structure, but here are no branches, no fruitage. It seems in its earliest infancy to put forth no branches, but is 8imi)ly 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, manufacituring, 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 subserve 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 especially 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 ungraded 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 upon 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 anuoiinceJ by Horace Mauu, when he applied to this system the law governing hydraulics, that no stream could rise above its fountain. The common school could not produce 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 moat natural, the most economical, and certainly the most popular. 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 lifty-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 thousanil four hundred and twcuty-eight; and to meet all possible omissions, if we allow double this number, there is Ijss 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 unpojralar 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 poj^ul.ar than schools of au opposite 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 adapted to the studies through which he desires to jiass, 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 ail 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-born, 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 the 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 happiness or the protection of human rights, and its people, though once cultured and refmed, must certainly return to barbarism and savage life. There can be no compromise in the warfare against inherited ignorance. Under all governments the 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. J^o 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 must 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 necessaj-y to take this step, that "justice" might be established, domestic tranqudity 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 perfeet union?" Why the nacessity of a more jjerfect union ? Were our fathers in fear of a domestic or foreign foe, that had manifested his power in their immediate presence, threatening to jeopardize or destroy their domestic tranquility? Was this foe an hereditary enemy, who might at long intervals of time invade thc'ii- territory, and entlauger the liberties of this people? And for this reason did they demand a more perfect iiniou? And does not this reason now exist in still greater foree for the formation of a still more perfect vinion 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 imion 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 bo manifested to the world that the soul and spirit, the very life of this temple, erected to freedom, is similarly threatened, should not bo 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 Ufe.

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 Educati<.)n take upon itself any advanced position other than its present independent organic elements? In the face of what enemy should it now be claimed we should attempt to change front, and "form a more perfect luiion to insure domestic tranquility, and jiromote the ;,eneral welfare," to the end that we may the better secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? That jiotent foe to our free institutions, to which we are now brought face to face, is human ignornnce, the natural hereditary foe to every form of enlightened free government. This hereditary enemy is now homesteaded upon our soO. This enemy, in the language of the declaration made liy the colonies against their hereditary foe, this enemy to our government, has kept among us a standuig 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 ujion us without our consent, most grievous to be borae; 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 jjowers 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 insurrectitms 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 sjiared 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 snppiu'tof 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, audfiually for the formation of a more perfect union, that they may be united ia one national orgauiziition under the control of one sovereign will. The mode in which these unorganized elements shall come into uniim 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 progre.ss 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 iutellectual systems that the State and national curricula shall be uniform throughout the States and territories, so that a class standing of every pupil, properly 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 final independence, the inalienable right of American youth, as having 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 sectarian, till the same shall forever find the most ample protection under the broad banner of N.^TioNAL and NATURAL rights, common alike to all in the ever widening uia-UBLic of i.etteks.