nary that really had a corporate existence was a young ladies' seminary, incorporated in March, 1830, with Governor Lewis Cass as president and his friend and companion, C. C. Trowbridge, as treasurer. It is noticeable that this seminary received governmental aid, for the governor and judges granted a great portion of the ground on which the Detroit City Hall is now located on condition that a suitable building should be erected before 1835. A building was erected within the stated time and a school was kept there until 1842, when the building was transferred to the State in trust for the university.

As early as 1802 there was a request before Congress for aid in establishing common schools, and possibly this petition encouraged Congress to the notable act of giving section sixteen in every township for school purposes, as had been done previously in grants to the Ohio Company. The act of March 26, 1804, was the foundation of the primary school fund of the State. Sunday, February 26, 1809, the governor and judges of Michigan Territory framed "An act concerning schools," providing for the division of poor districts into school districts, and the laying of public taxes for their support. But the act is interesting rather as a step toward public education than because of any immediate result. Not until 1827 were there any vigorous efforts in the direction of popular education, at which time an act authorized each township to determine by a two-thirds vote whether it would support a school, and if the vote was favorable the township was authorized to secure the services of a grammar school master of good morals." And from this time on we find various acts for the encouragement of general education, and there are indications of some zeal in carrying out the purpose of the acts. But beyond showing the extent of early popular interest in educational matters and suggesting a popular basis for higher education, it is not the intention here to give a general description of the growth of the common school system in the States. But this substratum so necessary for the proper support of institutions of higher education we must pass with a word of congratulation and an acknowledgment of the debt the university and colleges in the State owe to those who have so wisely built up and so carefully managed the common and secondary schools of Michigan.

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With this outline of the settlement and growth of the Territory and State, its peculiar conditions, and the difficulties of early years in the way of progress in education, we may perhaps more clearly perceive the immense advance of Michigan; how remarkable in many ways has been her progress upward and onward in offering means for popular enlightenment and furnishing opportunity to all to acquire a superior education under the best of circumstances.

713-No. 4—2

CHAPTER II.

LAND GRANTS AND THEIR DISPOSITION.

All accounts of the development of higher education in any State formed from the old Northwest Territory must begin with quoting the famous Ordinance of 1787, which has influenced in so many ways the growth and development of the country for which it was a charter. "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa tion shall forever be encouraged." We can hardly doubt that these words stimulated Congressional action. The grant made this same year to the New England Ohio Company contained many reservations in the spirit of this provision, and these became precedents for future action by Congress in reference to lands within newly formed territòries. There have been many controversies regarding the justice of giving to a new State land owned by the United States, when the funds from the sale of the land were to be used for purposes of education within the State itself. An article in the New Englander as late as August, 1854, will show that not yet were the old States reconciled to this generosity :

Of late the Western States claim the entire right to these lands, and the Eastern States, partners in the firm of States, and originally constituting the entire firm, are smiled at for their superannuated simplicity when they assert that these lands belong to the United States, and not to the West alone. This treatment of the old thirteen States is neither just nor honorable.

Happily this narrow feeling is now a mark of "superannuated simplicity." There is a broader conception of the term United States citizenship that covers over such limited views of sectional patriotism, and it is well realized that opportunities offered by one State for persons to become enlightened citizens are a benefit to a common country. And yet such claims as these were not uncommon, nor, uarrow as they were, are they entirely without foundation in reason or justice. State universities in the West may well keep in mind that they are reared on national grants and that no restricted or selfish policy is worthy of their origin; that the land grants were made because of a generous patriotism, and that for that end must State universities strive, and not merely for State aggrandizement and glorification, if they do not intend to be unfilial and ungrateful. An examination of the careers of Western universities will show that they have appreciated their debts, and

that, while under State auspices and generously aided by State grants, they have not lost sight of their national origin or suffered their national duties to become obscured or their national characteristics to disappear.

In spite of many objections from some of the citizens of the East, Congress continued the liberal and generous policy begun in its act of July 27, 1787, and no Territory has been organized or State admitted to the Union since that date that like action has not been taken. March 26, 1804, Congress in accord with this policy, on making arrangements for disposal of public lands in Indiana Territory, reserved a township in each of the three divisions of that Territory, in which were their land offices. Michigan was thus included, for it will be remembered that after the 30th of April, 1802, until June 30, 1805, Michigan was included in Indiana Territory. January 11, 1805, Congress passed an act to take effect June 20, whereby Michigan Territory was thus defined:

All that part of Indiana Territory which lies north of a line drawn east from the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan until it shall intersect Lake Erie, and east of a line drawn from the said southerly bend through the middle of said lake to its northern extremity; and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States.

However, this reservation never became part of the resources of the Territory, but may be considered as another indication of a national policy. But, by a substitution in later years, from this grant came the basis of the present endowment of the university.

It is quite evident that for some years after the War of 1812 the governor and the people of Michigan Territory were occupied with more substantial interests than university education. Nothing had been done for the selection of the lands before the war. Everything was in confusion during the first few years of Cass's governorship. The Indians were nominally friendly, but inclined to be intolerably insolent; the territory but slowly recovered from the terrible devastation that had resulted from a war carried on by savages instigated to cruelty by an implacable enemy. Many of the inhabitants were without homes and were dependent on the General Government for support, and so not until about 1817 does there appear any striving for general education, at which time there seems to have been a good deal of agitation of the subject among all classes of the people. The land titles in the territory were until that time scarcely less confused than they were 15 years before. Many of the records had been destroyed during the British occupancy of Detroit, and the public lands were not opened for sale until 1818. It may perhaps be fortunate that attempts were not made earlier to select university lands. When the selection was made it was a good one, and with more conservative management an immense return might have been gained from the sale.

The aborigines can not be left out of consideration in a discussion of land grants for education. Judge Cooley in his "Michigan" has com

pared the generosity of the Indians to that of Nicholas Brown, Elihu Yale, and John Harvard, and the comparison, if we judge by the amount given and not by the sacrifice implied, is to the advantage of the untutored savage. In the treaty of Fort Meigs, negotiated September 29, 1817, where Lewis Cass appeared as commissioner on part of the Government, the Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas, Indian tribes of the Northwest, granted six sections of land for purposes of education, half of this grant to be given to the College at Detroit, which was a branch of the Catholepistemiad to be described hereafter, and the immediate forerunner of the university, and the other half to St. Anne's Church, which had been interested in educational matters for years. It will be noticed that this stipulation in the treaty was secured just as the people of Detroit were beginning to arouse themselves to the necessity of furnishing educational advantages.

There is something pathetic [writes President Angell] in this gift of the Indians who were even then so rapidly fading away. They doubtless hoped that some of their descendants might attain to the knowledge which the white man learned in his schools, and which gave him such wonderful power and skill. This hope has never been realized, so far as I know, by the education of any full-blooded Indian at the university.1 Neither this grant nor the one of 1804 was made complete by the selection of the lands until some time after the date of the treaty just mentioned. June 20, 1821, Hon. Austin E. Wing, in the meeting of the governing board of the new "University of Michigan," introduced the following resolution, which was carried:

Resolved, That his excellency, Lewis Cass, and Mr. Sibley be a committee whose duty it shall be to communicate with the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States on the subject of the location of the college townships in this Territory, and that he be urged to hasten the location of the same.

This resolution did not include the selection of the sections granted in the treaty of Fort Meigs. But Governor Cass, authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury, commissioned Mr. Wing and Mr. Lecuyer to select these lands. An examination of the country resulted in the choice of lands a little below Detroit, and also in Oakland County, and patents were issued for these by the Government May 15, 1824, some seven years after the treaty was signed. Without referring to these lauds again it may be well to say that funds from the sale of them were used for educational work in the city of Detroit in accordance with the intent of the grant. Part of this was probably retained in Detroit without transfer at the time of the establishment of the university in 1837. Part, doubtless, went to the Detroit building, which was used under various conditions until 1837, when it was tendered to the regents free of rent as an inducement to the establishment of a Detroit branch of the university. This building was used for the purposes of that branch until 1842, and in 1844 the board of education of the city began making use of it for school purposes.

University of Michigan, Semicontennial, page 155.

When the trustees turned over to the regents of the university the property in their possession, 1837, they failed to account for the lots on Bates street, in Detroit. Action was brought to recover them, and in 1856 the Supreme Court decided that the two boards were practically the same, and directed the transfer. The lots were sold to the Young Men's Society of Detroit, but they were unable to pay, and after other difficulties the regents consented to cancel the contract. The lots were then sold for $22,010. This money was used for buildings, and though the board resolved to set aside a certain amount each year, to be known as reserve fund," their well-meant efforts were unsuccessful. The

sum of $19,000 so set aside, the interest of which was to increase the library, was used up in building the university hall and in making up certain deficits of the years 1874 and 1875.

The selection of lands under the act of 1804 proved no easy task. It was discovered that the choice must be made from lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished at the time of the grant; and as it was difficult to ascertain just what those lands were, and as it seemed quite evident that such a choice must almost necessarily result in the securing of undesirable portions, it was decided to apply to Congress for relief, rather than be content with inferior townships of insignificant or uncertain value. A committee, comprising Messrs. Woodbridge, Sibley, and Williams, was appointed by the board to take the necessary measures for the attainment of the desired end. This committee drew up a memorial to Congress, which was read to the board, approved December 10, 1823, and sent to Washington, in company with a bill drafted to include the substance of the memorial.' Congress took action May 20, 1826, giving to Michigan for a "seminary of learning" two townships of land in lieu of the one given in the act of 1804.2 In accordance with this act it was possible to locate lands in various parts of the country as might seem best, and to select them from any part of the public domain not appropriated at the time of the selection. This privilege proved a great advantage, for lands were wisely chosen in parts of the country where they were sure to be of permanent and increasing value. The act was read in a meeting of the board August 1, 1826, and was received with approbation and even enthusiasm, and steps were at once taken toward having the land selected. Mr. Wing and Dr. Brown were appointed a committee to take the matter in charge, and were authorized to secure the services of a surveyor, who might act with them as one of the committee. May 11, 1827, the board passed the following resolution in regard to the locating of the two townships:

Resolved, That the committee appointed to examine and report their opinion in regard to the two townships of land granted by the United States to this institution, be authorized to locate such tracts at the mouth of Swan Creek, on the Miami River, in this Territory, as may seem to them expedient.

Ten Brook, p. 106.

2 Statutes at Large, Vol. iv, p. 180.