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and 4,000,000 acres, became immediately a State question, that continued to attract attention for the nine ensuing years. An act was passed in October, 1786, authorizing the sale of a portion of the lands. This act gave 500 acres of good land in every town (5 miles square) to the public for the support of the gospel ministry, the same quantity for the support of schools, and 240 acres in fee simple to the first gospel minister who should settle in the township. But the sale of only 24,000 acres was made in pursuance of this legislation. In 1792 the general assembly gave 500,000 acres, lying across the western end of the territory, to the citizens of eight enumerated Connecticut towns, who had suffered loss of property in the Revolution from the numerous expeditions of the British into the State.

In October, 1793, the assembly created a committee of eight persons, whom it authorized to sell the remaining lands on certain specified terms and conditions, and at the same time took the following action:

AN ACT establishing funds for the support of the ministry and schools of education. Be it enacted, &c., That the monies arising from the sale of the territory belonging to this State, lying west of the State of Pennsylvania, be, and the same is hereby, established a perpetual fund, the interest whereof is granted and shall be appropriated to the use and benefit of the several ecclesiastical societies, churches, or congregations of all denominations in this State, to be by them applied to the support of their respective ministers or preachers of the gospel and schools of education, under such rules and regulations as shall be adopted by this or some future session of the general assembly.

An earlier proposition was to devote the funds wholly to the gospel ministry.

This act was not passed without strong opposition in the assembly. Its passage led at once to a widespread, spirited, and even acrimonious discussion, in which the press, the pulpit, the platform, the town meeting, and the legislature all participated. The points of attack were several, as that the act had been hastily passed, without due consideration; that there was no need of disposing of the proceeds of the lands until they had been first sold; that the proceeds could be put to a better use, as paying off the State debt, improving the roads, and promoting agriculture and internal improvement; that the funds should be wholly devoted to education; that they should be given to Yale College; and especially that it was improper and invidious to put the interest of the accruing fund at the disposal of the ecclesiastical societies for the purposes named.

In the section of this chapter devoted to school legislation in Connecticut the relation of ecclesiastical societies to public education at that time has been pointed out. Here it is sufficient to say that there was a strong anti-church feeling in the State, and, moreover, that the church, or religious influence, was sharply divided into the congrega

Made to Gen. S. H. Parsons, and lying on the Mahoning River. See Hist. Coll. Mahoning Valley, Vol. I, pp. 149-151.

tional, orthodox, or established church, and the heterodox or non-established interest, consisting of various dissenting bodies. The regular clergy were strongly assailed, charged with exerting an undue influence in public affairs, and particularly with having influenced or procured this particular act of legislation. For example, the inhabitants of Cheshire, legally assembled in town meeting on the second Friday of December, 1794, voted, among other things:

We also believe the same appropriation to be an introductory step toward estab lishing a certain and permanent civil provision for a certain and permanent sacerdotal order; a provision which, in other ages and nations, has gone forward and proclaimed that the downfall of liberty and pure religion was hastening after, and of course a provision against which the experience of ages admonished us to guard with a jealous eye.

The same line of attack is followed by a writer in the American Telegraph, Newfield, May 27, 1795, who propounds the following questions: (1) For what purpose does the State pay from two to three hundred dollars annually for refreshing and dining the clergy who assemble at elections?

(2) What part of their official duty calls them there?

(3) Whether the spiritual good of men are the objects of their greatest good on such occasions?

(4) Whether an order of men, exempt from all public taxes, and profoundly devoted to the service of the altar, intermeddling in the affairs of government, and in continual progression extending and advancing their secret influence in every department of the State, is not a growing and dangerous aristocracy?

(5) Whether the extraordinary and unprecedented exertion of the clergy to effect a measure of government in their own favor against the will of the people is not sufficient to excite suspicion and even to cause universal alarm?

Various propositions to repeal the act or to modify it were introduced into the assembly from time to time. In the mean time the lands were not sold. At its May session, 1795, the assembly passed a new act making new terms of sale, and the same day put an end to the heated controversy in relation to the destination of the proceeds by passing the following act, which created the State school fund:

AN ACT appropriating the monies which shall arise on the sale of the Western lands belonging to this State.

1. Be it enacted, &c., That the principal sum which shall be received on the sale of the lands belonging to this State lying west of Pennsylvania shall be and remain a perpetual fund for the purposes hereafter mentioned in this act, to be loaned or otherwise improved for these purposes as the general assembly shall direct, and the interest arising therefrom shall be, and hereby is, appropriated to the support of schools in the several societies constituted, or which may be constituted, by law within certain local bounds within this State, to be kept according to the provisions of law which shall from time to time be made, and to no other use or purpose whatsoever, except in the case and under the circumstances hercafter mentioned in this act.

2. Be it further enacted, That the said interest, as it shall become due from time to time, shall be paid over to the said societies in their capacity of school societies according to the list of polls and ratable estate of such societies respectively, which shall, when such payment shall be made, have been last perfected.

3. Provided nevertheless and be it further enacted, That whenever such society shall, pursuant to a vote of such society, passed in a legal meeting, warned for that pur

pose only, in which vote two-thirds of the legal voters present in such meeting shall concur, apply to the general assembly requesting liberty to improve their proportion of said interest, or any part thereof, for the support of the Christian ministry, or the public worship of God, the general assembly shall have full power to grant such request during their pleasure; and in case of any such grant, the school society shall pay over the amount so granted to the religious societies, churches, or congregations of all denominations of Christians within its limits, to be proportioned to such societies according to the lists of their respective inhabitants or members, which shall, when such payment shall from time to time be made, have been last perfected; and in case there shall be in such school society any individuals composing a part only of any such religious society, church, or congregation, then the proportion of such individuals shall be paid to the order of the body to which they belong by the rale aforesaid, and the monies of such individuals shall be discounted from their ministerial taxes or contributions, and in that way inure to their exclusive benefit, and the monies so paid over shall be applied to the purposes of the grant, and to no other whatsoever.

4. Be it further enacted, That if any society, church, or congregation shall apply any of the aforesaid monies to any other use or purpose than those to which they shall or may have a right to apply them pursuant to this act, such society, church, or congregation shall forfeit and pay a sum equal to that so misapplied to the public treasury of this State.

5. Be it further enacted, That all the inhabitants living within the limits of the located societies who by law have, or may have, a right to vote in town meetings, shall meet some time in the month of October annually, in the way and manner prescribed in the statute entitled, "An act for forming, ordering, and regulating societies," and, being so met, shall exercise the powers given in, and by said act, in organizing themselves and in appointing the necessary officers, as herein directed, for the year ensuing, and may transact any other business on the subject of schooling in general, and touching the monies hereby appropriated to their use in particnlar, according to law, and shall have power to adjourn from time to time, as they shall think proper.

6. Be it further enacted, That the inhabitants or members of the several religious societies, churches, or congregations aforesaid, who have the right by law to vote in their respective meetings on the subject of the ministry and the public worship of God, shall assemble themselves some time in the month of December annually, or at such other time as they shall judge convenient, and may organize themselves and appoint the necessary officers as in said act is directed, all in the way and manner therein prescribed, with power to adjourn from time to time, as they may think proper, and in any of their said meetings they shall have power to transact any business relating to the ministry and the public worship of God according to law, but shall have no power to act on the subject of schooling, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

7. Be it further enacted, That an act passed Oct., 1793, entitled, "An act for the establishing a fund for the support of the gospel ministry and schools of education" be, and the same is hereby, repealed.

October 14, 1795, the committee appointed to sell the lands reported to the assembly that it had effected a sale for $1,200,000. Some further points relating to the history of the fund may be found in the following summary:

The first apportionment of the income among the school societies was made in 1799. The interest had been allowed to accumulate, and amounted in March, 1799, to $60,403.78. In March, 1800, the dividends were $23,651. Up to this date the fund had been managed by the com

mittee that negotiated the sale; but in 1800 the management was intrusted to a committee or board of managers, 4 in number. In the course of thirteen years the interest divided and paid out to the societies amounted to $456,757.44, being an average of $35,135.18 per annum. In 1809, at the October session, it appeared from the report of the managers that a large amount of interest was unpaid, and that the collateral securities of the original debts were not safe. In view of these facts a committee of the legislature recommended that the management of the fund should be intrusted to one person, and that efficient measures should be adopted to save the capital as well as interest from loss. In 1810, at the May session, the Hon. James Hillhouse, then a member of the United States Senate, was appointed sole commissioner of the school fund. Mr. Hillhouse immediately resigned his post in the Senate and entered on the duties of his new office. He found that the capital consisted chiefly of the debts due from the original purchasers of the Western Reserve and the substituted securities which had been accepted in their stead. These securities had in the course of fifteen years, by death, insolvency, and otherwise, become involved in complicated difficulties. The interest had fallen greatly in arrears, and in many cases nearly equaled the principal. The debtors were dispersed in different States. Without a single litigated suit, or a dollar paid for counsel, he reduced the disordered management to an efficient system, disentangled its affairs from loose and embarrassed connections with personal securities and indebted estates, rendered it productive of a large, regular, and increasing dividend, and converted its doubtful claims into well secured and solid capital. During the fifteen years of his administration the annual dividend averaged $52,061.35, and the capital was augmented to $1,719,434.24. The amount of the interest that he divided was $780,920.24, which, added to the sum of $456,757.44, previously divided, made an aggregate of $1,237,677.68. The policy thus inaugurated by Mr. Hillhouse was continued by his successor, Hon. Seth P. Beers, who was appointed commissioner in 1825, and held the office till May, 1849, when he resigned. During his administration, by judicious sales and management of lands which came into his possession as forfeited securities, the capital of the fund was increased from $1,719,434.24 to $2,049,482.32; and the income from $72,418.30 to $133,366.50, being an average of $97,815.15 per annum. From 1849 to 1859 there were six different commissioners, but no change followed in the management or prosperity of the fund-the productive capital of which, according to the report of Hon. Albert Sedgwick, dated April 16, 1859, amounted to $2,043,372.01, yielding an income for the year of $142,303.42, or $1.30 for the benefit of each child in the State between the ages of 4 and 16. The entire income of the fund from 1799 to 1859 amounted to $4,940,988.29, besides paying the expense of its management. "We know not in the whole history of public funds or trust estates," says Dr. Barnard, "another instance so creditable to

the economy, fidelity, and practical judgment of the persons intrusted with its management for a period of sixty years." The Connecticut State Report for 1890 gave the fund as $2,023,753.83.

AUTHORITIES.-H. B. Adams: Maryland's Influence upon Western Lands Cessions, Baltimore, 1885. This monograph treats the subject from a new and interesting point of view. B. A. Hinsdale: The Old Northwest, New York, 1888. (See Chaps. XI., The Northwestern Land Claims; XII., XIII. The Northwestern Cessions; XIX. The Connecticut Western Reserve.) G. W. Knight touches the subject of this section in his History and Management of Lands Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory, Part 1, I. A. (See Papers of the American Historical Association, Vol. 1, No. 3.) Dr. Henry Barnard's History of the School Fund of Connecticut, originally published as a separate document, but now found in the American Journal of Education, Vol. VI., pp. 367-425, is marked by the author's usual thoroughness. The acts of 1793 and 1795 are transcribed from this source. (See pp. 376, 412, 413.) The Annual Report of the Board of Education of the State of Connecticut for the year 1876 contains valuable material, particularly The History of Public Education in the State.

V. PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATION.

I. PENN'S COLONY: The frame of government, 1682; the law of 1682; educational chapter of the "great law,” 1682; frame of government, 1683; educational chapter of the laws of 1683; entry in records in court of quarter sessions held at Chester, 1702-3; extract from Governor Markham's frame of government; extract from records of a council held at Philadelphia, 1683; records relating to the Friends' public school, 1693, 1705; petition for a charter for said school, 1697.

II. Notes on the history of education in the Connecticut settlements in the Wyoming Valley, with records.

I. PENN'S COLONY.

Next to Massachusetts and Connecticut there was more educational activity of the kind that leaves traces in the statute book in Pennsylvania than in any other State. No other State had such a diversified and incongruous population; this may be divided in general into three groups-the Quakers, the German colonists, and the Connecticut settlers in Wyoming. Dr. J. P. Wickersham deals with these groups and with the whole subject very comprehensively in his History of Education in Pennsylvania, Private and Public, Elementary and Higher, from the time the Swedes Settled on the Delaware to the Present Day. (See Chaps. II, III, IV.)

The Quakers and the Connecticut men alone furnish material for our inquiry.

The characteristic religious tenet of the Quakers, who founded the Commonwealth, is faith in individual inspiration, or the doctrine of the inner light. "The mystery of the incarnation does not puzzle the Quaker," says the author just mentioned; "as he believes that God

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