but only by a most careful investigation conducted by each state would it be possible to secure anything like a complete account of the total losses in the United States. Loss Under Town The loss due to the mismanagement of permaship Management nent funds by townships was not confined to any of Funds; Records and Proceeds Lost particular state or section. Connecticut in 1837 deposited her portion of the United States Surplus Revenue Loan with the towns to be loaned by them. Soon after the loan had been made, the principal Connecticut began to be absorbed and diverted by the towns, so that at the present time we are told that in most cases the fund exists only on paper.324a Maine Three hundred and fifty-five towns in Maine should have possessed town funds as a result of Massachusetts legislation, 1788, and of subsequent legislation. In 1898 seventy-three towns had misappropriated their funds.3246 In California, the towns sold some fifty thousand acres of lands prior to the consolidation of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth section lands with the State School Fund. The proceeds California of the sales of these lands, estimated at two dollars per acre, should have added one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) to the State School Fund, but the money has never been heard of 324 c In Louisiana and Mississippi the story is much the same: the Louisiana, townships sold large areas of school lands, but Mississippi the proceeds of the sales have entirely disappeared. Frequently the indifference or lack of business methods of those charged with the sale of the school lands has resulted in no record being made of the sales, or in a careless record. In Louisiana some townships intrusted the proceeds of their school lands to the state, some still possess their lands, others have lost all record of them.324 In Mississippi Sales Not 324a Report Conn. Board of Education, 1903, p. 43. 324b Me. School Report, 1898, p. 52. 324c Report Cal. State Supt. of Public Instruction, 1864-65, p. 249. 2244 U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1898, No. 1, p. 104. 1 school lands have been sold and the record of sales lost. In 1895 the titles of some school lands were still in process of litigation.325 The Superintendent of Schools of Alabama, in his report for 1891 wrote: "The loss has frequently been due to the failure of properly recording the sale and title of the school lands. Much of the time of this department is consumed in investigating . . . records relating to the sixteenth section lands. Little evidence has been found regarding the sale of school lands. It is impossible to tell in many cases what subdivisions were sold, because trustees reported by lots instead of subdivisions of sections, and frequently no date of purchase is recorded. Parties who claim to have purchased these lands before the war from the state or from those who originally purchased the same are continually applying for patents, and in order to issue the same, secondary evidence has to be relied upon.326 Method of Sale In a large number of states the manner in which the school lands were sold resulted in great loss to the funds. The bad policies Losses Due to Bad employed vary all the way from methods which were unbusiness like, short-sighted and inefficient to those which were clearly dishonest and fraudulent. This topic will be discussed more fully in connection with management under state control: here one example, that of Ohio, will suffice to suggest what happened in many states. The first report of the State Superintendent of Schools in Ohio contains the following statement: "School land has been taken at six dollars per acre worth at the time fifty dollars. School lands have been sold at less than one dollar and in some cases at less than fifty cents.3 Loss Due to 327 Intrusting the management of the funds to local officers in some cases indifferent, in many cases incompetent, has resulted in another evil: namely, the investment of the principal in poor securities. Attention has been called in the previous chapter to the account by F. P. Alcott, Controller of New York state, in his report, 1877, wherein he wrote Bad Investment 325 Report Miss. State Supt. of Education, 1894–95, p. 31. 326 Report of School Supt., Alabama, 1891, p. 7. 327 Quotation taken from S. P. Orth, Centralization of Administration in Ohio. ... respecting the loaning of the United States Surplus Revenue Fund by county commissioners: "Searches are not made, minutes are not kept, Forged and fictitious mortgages have been taken.315 The state of Missouri presents a striking illustration of loss under local management and of the complex and many reasons causing such losses. Miscellaneous The report of the Superintendent of Public Schools of Missouri for the year 1870, Chapters XII and XIII, attempts to give an account of the Township School Fund lost. As previously stated, the counties managed this fund for the towns. The report shows that over one hundred seventeen thousand dollars of the Township School Fund alone was reported as having been lost prior to 1870, but owing to the fact that in cases of many townships the amount lost could not be ascertained the total loss exceeded the sum named in the report. Among the various causes of loss named are the following: burning of the court-house, parties running away, parties insolvent, default of county treasurer, notes outlawed, stolen, carelessness, the war, insufficient security, parties absconding, robbery, records imperfectly kept, townships having no fund being too disloyal to organize, records burned, carelessness of officials, worthless notes. The reasons given for losses by the different counties number over twenty. Some counties give more than one reason for loss, so that in the following table the sum of the counties does not equal the sum of the reasons. TABLE XVIII. LOSS OF TOWNSHIP SCHOOL FUNDS IN MISSOURI PRIOR TO 1870 (Taken from pp. XII-XIV, Report of Missouri Superintendent of Public |