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not be stated; all the proceeds of the five hundred thousand acres of land to which this State is entitled by the provisions of an act of Congress entitled “An act to appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and to grant pre-emption rights," approved the fourth of September, 1841; and also the five per centum of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands to which this State shall become entitled on her admission into the Union, if Congress shall consent to such appropriation of the two grants last mentioned, shall be set apart as a separate and irreducible fund, to be called the common school fund, the interest of which, together with all other revenues derived from the school lands mentioned in this section, shall be exclusively applied to the support and maintenance of common schools in each school district, and the purchase of suitable libraries and apparatus therefor.

3. The legislative assembly shall provide by law for the establishment of a uniform and general system of common schools.

4. Provision shall be made by law for the distribution of the income of the common school fund among the several counties of this State, in proportion to the number of children resident therein between the ages of four and twenty years. 5. The governor, secretary of state, and state treasurer shall constitute a board of commissioners for the sale of school and university lands, and for the investment of the funds arising therefrom; and their powers and duties shall be such as may be prescribed by law: Provided, That no part of the university funds, or of the interest arising therefrom, shall be expended until the period of ten years from the adoption of this constitution, unless the same shall be otherwise disposed of by the consent of Congress for common school purposes.

Area, 78,418 square miles.

KANSAS.

Organized as a Territory in 1854. Admitted into the Union in December, 1859. Population in 1860, 107,206.

The provision for education in its constitution is in these words:

ARTICLE VI.-EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The State superintendent of public instruction shall have the gen eral supervision of the common school funds, and educational interests of the State, and perform such other duties as may be prescribed by law. A superintendent of public instruction shall be elected in each county, whose term of office shall be two years, and whose duty and compensation shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 2. The legislature shall encourage the promotion of intellectual, moral, scientific, and agricultural improvement by establishing a uniform system of common schools, and schools of higher grade embracing normal, preparatory, collegiate, and university departments.

SEC. 3. The proceeds of all lands that have been or may be granted by the United States and the State for the support of schools, and the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to the new States, under an act of Congress distributing the proceeds of public lands among the several States of the Union, approved September 4, A. D. 1841, and all estates of persons dying without heir or will, and such per cent. as may be granted by Congress on the sale of lands in this State, shall be the common property of the State, and shall be a perpetual school fund, which shall not be diminished, but the interest of which, together with all the rents of the lands, and such other means as the legislature may provide by tax or otherwise, shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools.

SEC. 4. The income of the State school funds shall be disbursed annually, by order of the State superintendent, to the several county treasurers, and thereon to the treasurers of the several school districts, in equitable proportion to the number of children and youth resident therein, between the ages of five and twentyone years: Provided, That no school district in which a common school has not

been maintained at least three months in each year shall be entitled to receive any portion of such funds.

SEC. 5. The school lands shall not be sold unless such sale shall be authorized by a vote of the people at a general election, but subject to a revaluation every five years; they may be leased for any number of years not exceeding twentyfive, at a rate established by law.

SEC. 6. All money which shall be paid by persons as an equivalent for exemp tion from military duty; the clear proceeds of estrays, ownership of which shall vest in the taker up; and the proceeds of fines for any breach of the penal laws, shall be exclusively applied in the several counties in which the money is fined, or fines collected, to the support of common schools.

SEC. 7. Provision shall be made by law for the establishment, at some eligible and central point, of a State university for the promotion of literature, and the arts and sciences, including a normal and agricultural department. All funds arising from the sale or rents of lands granted by the United States to the State for the support of a State university, and all other grants, donations, or bequests, either by the State or by individuals, for such purpose, shall remain a perpetual fund to be called the "University fund," the interest of which shall be appropriated to the support of the State university.

SEC. 8. No religious sect or sects shall ever control any part of the common school or university funds of the State.

SEC. 9. The State superintendent of public instruction, secretary of state, and attorney general shall constitute a board of commissioners for the management and investment of the school funds. Any two of said commissioners shall be a quorum.

WEST VIRGINIA.

Area, 23,000 square miles. Admitted as a State in December, 1862. Population in 1860, 393,234.

The constitution, as amended February 18, 1863, has the following:

ARTICLE X.-EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. All money accruing to this State being the proceeds of forfeited, delinquent, waste, and unappropriated lands, and of lands heretofore sold for taxes, and purchased by the State of Virginia, if hereafter redeemed or sold to others than this State; all grants, devises, or bequests that may be made to this State for the purpose of education, or where the purposes of such grants, devises, or bequests are not specified; this State's personal share of the literary fund of Virginia, whether paid over or otherwise liquidated, and any sums of money, stocks, or other property which this State shall have the right to claim from all persons who may die without leaving a will or heir, and of all escheated lands: the proceeds of any taxes that may be levied on the revenues of any corporation hereafter created; all moneys that may be paid as an equivalent for exemption from military duty; and such sums as may from time to time be appropriated by the legislature for the purpose, shall be set apart as a separate fund to be called the school fund, and invested, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, in the interest-bearing securities of the United States or of this State; and the interest thereof shall be annually applied to the support of free schools throughout the State, and to no other purpose whatever. But any portion of such interest remaining unexpended at the close of a fiscal year shall be added to, and remain a part of, the capital of the school fund.

SEC. 2. The legislature shall provide, as soon as practicable, for the establishment of a thorough and efficient system of free schools. They shall provide for the support of such schools by appropriating thereto the interest of the invested school fund, the net proceeds of all forfeitures, confiscations, and fines accruing to this State under the laws thereof, and by general taxation on persons or property or otherwise. They shall also provide for raising in each township, by the authority of the people thereof, such a proportion of the amount required for the support of free schools therein as shall be prescribed by general laws. SEC. 3. Provision may be made by law for the election and prescribing the

duties of a general superintendent of free schools for the State, whose term of office shall be the same as that of the governor, and for a county superintendent of each county; and for the election in the several townships, by the voters thereof, of such officers not specified in this constitution as may be necessary to carry out the objects of this article; and for the organization, whenever it may be deemed expedient, of a State board of instruction."

SEC. 4. The legislature shall foster and encourage moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; they shall, whenever it may be practicable, make suitable provisions for the blind, mute, and insane, and for the organization of such institutions of learning as the best interests of general education in the State may demand.

NEVADA.

Organized as a Territory in 1861. Admitted as a State in 1864. Area, 283,500 square miles. Population in 1863, 40,000.

The constitution (1864) provides for education in these words:

ARTICLE XI.-EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, literary, scientific, mining, mechanical, agricultural, and moral improvement, and also provide for the election by the people, at the general election, of a superintendent of public instruction, whose term of office shall be two years from the first Monday of January, A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-five, and until the election and qualification of his successor, and whose duties shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 2. The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district at least six months in every year, and any school district neglecting to establish and maintain such a school, or which shall allow instruction of a sectarian character therein, may be deprived of its portion of the interest of the public school fund during such a neglect or infraction, and the legislature may pass such laws as will tend to secure a general attendance of the children in such school districts upon said public schools.

SEC. 3. All lands, including the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections in every township, donated for the benefit of public schools in the act of the thirty-eighth Congress to enable the people of Nevada Territory to form a State government, the thirty thousand acres of public lands granted by an act of Congress approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, for each senator and representative in Congress, and all proceeds of lands that have been or may be hereafter granted or appropriated by the United States to this State, and also the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to the new States under the act of Congress distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the several States of the Union, approved A. D. eighteen hundred and forty-one: Provided, That Congress make provision for or authorizes such division to be made for the purpose herein contained; all estates that may escheat to the State; all of such per cent. as may be granted by Congress in the sale of land; all fines collected under the penal laws of the State; all property given or bequeathed to the State for educational purposes; and all proceeds derived from any or all of said sources, shall be, and the same are hereby, solemnly pledged for educational purposes, and shall not be transferred to any other fund for any other uses, and the interest thereon shall, from time to time, be apportioned among the several counties in proportion to the ascertained numbers of the persons between the ages of six and eighteen years in the different counties; and the legislature shall provide for the sale of floating land warrants to cover the aforesaid lands, and for the investment of all proceeds derived from any of the above-mentioned sources in United States bonds or the bonds of the State: Provided, That the interest only of the aforesaid proceeds shall be used for educational purposes, and any surplus interest shall be added to the principal sum; And provided further, That such portions of said interest as may be necessary may be apportioned for the support of the State university.

SEC. 4. The legislature shall provide for the establishment of a State uni

versity, which shall embrace departments of agriculture, mechanic arts, and mining, to be controlled by a board of regents, whose duties shall be prescribed by

law.

SEC. 5. The legislature shall have power to establish normal schools and such different grades of schools, from the primary department to the university, as, in their discretion, they may deem necessary; and all professors in said university or teachers in said schools, of whatever grade, shall be required to take and subscribe to the oath as prescribed in article sixteen of this constitution. No professor or teacher who fails to comply with the provisions of any law framed in accordance with the provisions of this section shall be entitled to receive any portion of the public moneys set apart for school purposes.

SEC. 6. The legislature shall provide a special tax of one-half of one mill on the dollar of all taxable property in the State in addition to the other means provided, for the support and maintenance of said university and common schools: Provided, That at the end of ten years they may reduce said tax to one-quarter of one mill on each dollar of taxable property.

SEC. 7. The governor, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction shall, for the first four years, and until their successors are elected and qualified, constitute a board of regents to control and manage the affairs of the university and the funds of the same, under such regulations as may be provided by law. But the legislature shall, at its regular session next preceding the expiration of the term of office of the said board of regents, provide for the election of a new board and define their duties.

SEC. 8. The board of regents shall, from the interest accruing from the first funds which come under their control, immediately organize and maintain the said mining department in such manner as to make it the most effective and useful: Provided, That all the proceeds of the public lands donated by act of Congress approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, for a college for the benefit of agriculture, the mechanic arts, and including military tactics, shall be invested by the said board of regents in a separate fund, to be appropriated exclusively to the benefit of the first named departments to the university, as set forth in section four above; and the legislature shall provide that if, through neglect or any other contingency, any portion of the fund so set apart shall be lost or misappropriated, the State of Nevada shall replace said amount so lost or misappropriated in said fund, so that the principal of said fund shall forever remain undiminished.

SEC. 9. No sectarian instruction shall be imparted or tolerate in any school or university that may be established under this constitution

NEBRASKA.

Organized as a Territory in 1854. Area, 63,300 square miles. Admitted into the Union March, 1867.

Its constitution has the following article on

EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The principal of all funds arising from the sale or other disposition of lands, or other property granted or intrusted to this State for educational and religious purposes, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished; and the income arising therefrom shall be faithfully applied to the specific objects of the original grants or appropriations. The legislature shall make such provisions, by taxation or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State; but no religious sect or sects shall ever have any exclusive right or control of any part of the school funds of this State.

SEC. 2. The university lands, school lands, and all other lands which have been acquired by the Territory of Nebraska, or which may hereafter be acquired by the State of Nebraska for educational or school purposes, shall not be aliened or sold for a less sum than five dollars per acre.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION RESPECTING EDUCATION.

REVISIONS OF 1867-'68.

ALABAMA.

The constitution of the State of Alabama, as revised and amended by the constitutional convention assembled at Montgomery on the 5th day of November, 1867, contains the following provision:

ARTICLE XI.-EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The common schools, and other educational institutions of the State, shall be under the management of a board of education, consisting of a superintendent of public instruction and two members from each congressional district.

The governor of the State shall be ex-officio a member of the board, but shall have no vote in its proceedings.

SEC. 2. The superintendent of public instruction shall be president of the board of education, and have the casting vote in case of a tie; he shall have the supervision of the public schools of the State, and perform such other duties as may be imposed upon him by the board and the laws of the State. He shall be elected in the same manner and for the same term as the governor of the State, and receive such salary as may be fixed by law. An office shall be assigned him in the capital of the State.

SEC. 3. The members of the board shall hold office for a term of four years, and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. After the first election under the constitution the board shall be divided into two equal classes, so that each class shall consist of one member from each district. The seats of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of two years from the day of election, so that one-half may be chosen biennially.

SEC. 4. The members of the board of education, except the superintendent, shall be elected by the qualified electors of the congressional districts in which they are chosen, at the same time and in the same manner as the members of Congress.

SEC. 5. The board of education shall exercise full legislative powers in reference to the public educational institutions of the State, and its acts, when approved by the governor, or when re-enacted by two-thirds of the board, in case of his disapproval, shall have the force and effect of law, unless repealed by the general assembly.

SEC. 6. It shall be the duty of the board to establish, throughout the State, in each township, or other school district which it may have created, one or more schools, at which all the children of the State, between the ages of five and twenty-one years, may attend free of charge.

SEC. 7. No rule or law affecting the general interest of education shall be made by the board without a concurrence of a majority of its members. The style of all acts of the board shall be, "Be it enacted by the board of education of the State of Alabama."

SEC. 8. The board of education shall be a body politic and corporate, by the name and style of the Board of Education of the State of Alabama. Said board shall also be a board of regents of the State University, and, when sitting as a board of regents of the university, shall have power to appoint the president and the faculties thereof.

The president of the university shall be ex-officio a member of the board of regents, but shall have no vote in its proceedings.

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