State treasury in each of the years named in this act shall be placed to the credit of a fund known as the Permanent Endowment Fund of the Indiana University. It is estimated that this tax will give a fund in twelve years of more than seven hundred thousand dollars.

SPECIAL APPROPRIATIONS.

2

Besides those already mentioned the Legislature of Indiana has made special appropriations to the university at Bloomington as follows: In 1873, for building purposes, ten thousand dollars; in 1873, for contingent expenses, twelve thousand dollars; in 1874, for building purposes, ten thousand dollars; in 1874, for contingent expenses, twelve thousand dollars. In 1885 the sum of thirty thousand dollars was granted for the purpose of erecting buildings destroyed by fire. For the latter purpose two colleges were erected by Monroe County.

PURDUE UNIVERSITY.

This institution was first organized under the name of the Indiana Agricultural College, located at La Fayette, in accordance with the stipulations of the Congressional grant of 1862. Indiana's share of the grant was 390,000 acres in land scrip, which yielded a fund from sales of $212,238.50; this had increased to the sum of $265,000 in 1876, according to Mr. Smart, and amounted in 1885 to $340,000, yielding an annual income of $17,000.5

Hon. John Purdue, a citizen of La Fayette, gave as an endowment to the college one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and its name was subsequently changed to Purdue University. On condition that it should be located in Tippecanoe County said county gave to the University the sum of fifty thousand dollars. To carry out its part of the contract the State, by the General Assembly, devoted eighty thousand dollars for buildings and grounds."

The total value of the funds, productive and unproductive, amounted to $650,000 in 1883.7

The State has made the following special appropriations for its support:

COUNTY SEMINARIES.

The seminaries of Indiana would fall, according to modern classification, within the grade of secondary schools; but as a support and, beginning of higher education in early times they deserve a passing notice. Elsewhere in this paper the constitutional provisions relative to the public school system have been cited as authorizing "seminaries" of learning in the several counties. This was followed by a law, approved in 1824, authorizing the establishment of seminaries in each county in the State. In the following year county seminaries and district schools began to be built by means of public revenue, supplemented by contributions of materials and labor levied as a tax on individuals. 1 The fre. quent incorporation of seminaries seemed to indicate that the system would be a success.

By an act of the Legislature passed in 1827 seminaries were incorporated in Wayne, Franklin, Henry, Rush, Randolph, Allen, Vigo, Daviess, Madison, Hamilton, and Sullivan Counties. By subsequent acts of the same year a seminary was incorporated in each of the following counties,3 viz: Washington, Harrison, Knox, Fayette, and Clark.

Yet the system did not succeed, although by 1837 the General Assembly had incorporated twenty-six by special legislation, and many more under a general law.

However, in 1852, after the reorganization of the school system under its present form, the Legislature ordered the sale of all the property, real and personal, constituting the county seminaries, and the placing of the net proceeds to the credit of the common school fund.*

THE COMMON SCHOOL FUND.

Although the system of public schools was not established until 1852, the permanent fund of the same has grown to enormous proportions, and has been derived principally from the following sources:

(1) The sale of the township sixteenth sections granted for common schools, as in other States.

(2) In 1834 a fund of eighty thousand dollars was derived from a tax of twelve and one-half per cent. on each share of bank stock.

(3) The Legislature provided by the same act that the State bank should be established, and authorized a loan of $1,300,000; eight hundred thousand dollars of this was to pay for the stock in the bank, and five hundred thousand dollars to be loaned to individuals. A sinking

5

1 State Report, 1884, 11; one of the early school taxes in Indiana was levied in the form of days' work; every citizen in the district was obliged to furnish so many days work or its equivalent in materials.

2 Statutes of Indiana, 1827, chap. 94, pp. 87-99.

3 Laws of 1827, chaps. 95, 96, 97, 98, 99.

fund was established to pay the loan, including the expenses and the interest; the remainder of the loan was ordered to be turned into a permanent fund for the purpose of common school education. This has increased the common school fund about $5,500,000.1

(4) The surplus revenue fund of 1836 was devoted to the cause of education, and yielded the sum of $862,254 to Indiana's share; $573,502.96 were set apart to augment the common school fund.

(5) The proceeds of the sales of swamp lands of the 1850 grant were devoted to the common school fund.

(6) All salt springs in Indiana Territory, granted to the Territory by act of Congress in 1816, were devoted to the school fund. From this. source eighty-five thousand dollars were realized.

(7) Sales of the county seminary lands were returned to common school fund.

(8) The contingent fund, yielded from escheats, fines, etc.

The fund has continued to increase from time to time until it now amounts to nearly nine millions ($8,799,191).2 Nearly the entire fund was devoted to common schools.

One-half of one per cent. tax on each $100 of taxable property in the State for a term of twelve years, 1883-95, estimated

700,000

No direct efforts were made by the State of Illinois to encourage higher education until the year 1867. The action taken then was in compliance with the conditions of the act of Congress donating public lands to the several States for the purpose of establishing colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. The attitude of the State during the first fifty years of its existence was, on the whole, one of indifference to the interests of higher education. Not only did the State withhold the funds which the Federal Government appropriated

for the establishment of a college and seminary of learning, but for a number of years made use of them for other purposes, thus in a sense antagonizing the interests of higher education.1

COLLEGE AND SEMINARY FUNDS.

In 1804 Congress, as we have seen in a previous chapter, established three land districts in the Territory of Indiana (Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Detroit). In each of these land districts a certain section in every township was set apart for school purposes, and also one township in each land district for the use of a seminary of learning. In 1809 the Kaskaskia district became known as the Territory of Illinois, retaining the same rights and privileges as under the former government. The act admitting Illinois into the Union in 1818 confirmed the appropriations made for the Territory, and in addition gave a second township for the support of a seminary of learning. This additional appropriation of a township was made in such terms as to permit the State to select the land in choice, detached tracts. Thus better lands were obtained for higher education than could have been selected under the old requirement.

Still another provision of this act of Congress especially favored the promotion of higher education in Illinois. Instead of granting 5 per cent. of the proceeds derived from the sale of public lands for building roads, as had always been done, the act set apart only 2 per cent. for that purpose and 3 per cent. for the encouragement of learning, of which a sixth part should be exclusively bestowed upon a college or university. The principal object of this provision was that immediate aid might be given to schools and to a college, which at that time were provided for only by the sale of waste lands. 5

But so far as the establishment of a college was concerned, no steps were taken in that direction until the year 1833. In that year a bill to incorporate an institution under the name of Illinois University, and to endow it with the college and seminary funds, was introduced into the State Legislature, but was defeated. The cause of the failure of the bill was, as appeared at the time, due to the jealousy which it aroused among other colleges then in existence but not incorporated, which feared that they would be completely overshadowed by a well endowed State university. No doubt the opposition thus aroused helped to defeat the bill, but in the light of the accompanying legislation a more potent cause was the absence of the college and seminary fund. The funds had

1W. L. Pillsbury: Early Education in Illinois; Illinois School Report for 1885-86, CXII.

Pillsbury: Ill. Sch. Rep., 1885-86, cv.

* Poore, 438.

4 Ibid., 438.

Annals of the 15th Congress, April 4, 1848. 6 Pillsbury: Ill. Sch. Rep., 1885-86, cxii.

evidently been used up in defraying the expenses of the government, and could not at that time have been produced.1

The action of the State Legislature four years before, in their haste to dispose of the seminary lands, strengthens this view. In 1829 the Legislature had authorized the sale of these lands at public auction, with a minimum price placed upon them of $1.25 an acre. In a short time sixty-seven and a half out of the seventy-two sections were sold, and but three of them for more than the minimum price.3 At this time there was no institution dependent upon the proceeds of these sales for support, nor, so far as can be learned, did the Legislature contemplate establishing one. As a matter of fact none was established for over a quarter of a century. It is evident from a careful review of the transactions of these few years that the State Government was in need of money to defray its expenses, and, rather than raise it by a tax upon the people, sold out at auction these lands appropriated by the Federal Government for the benefit of a seminary of learning.4

After the sale of the seminary lands the derived proceeds, together with the college fund, were borrowed at once by the State at six per cent. interest, the interest to be added to the principal until used.5 This action on the part of the State confirms the view expressed above, that it needed money and adopted this means of obtaining it. It will be noticed further, that the addition each year of the interest to the principal was a mere nominal transaction. The transfer needed simply to be made upon the books. In 1835 it was provided that the interest should be loaned to the school fund for distribution over the State." This continued until the establishment of the State Normal University in 1857, when the income of the college and seminary funds was turned over to it. The State has never repaid the interest on the seminary fund during this period (1835-1857) though it has paid that of the college fund.9

The proceeds of the sale of the seminary lands amounted in all to about sixty thousand dollars, and the interest on this for twenty-two years, which was never repaid, amounted to twenty thousand dollars.10

The college fund, or one-sixth of three per cent. of the proceeds of the sale of public lands, amounted to $118,790. Part of the interest upon this was granted for the erection of the State Normal University build

For full discussion of this and the following, see Knight, 205.
Illinois Laws.

3 Pillsbury Sketch of the Permanent Public School Funds of Illinois; Illinois School Report for 1881-82, cxxxiii.