the board of regents and continued sixteen weeks. After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a president for the complete university, Hon. Amos Deane, president of the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, was induced to accept, and, for a brief period, made annual visits to the State in the capacity of chancellor. Six gentlemen were named as members of the university faculty. The organization was of a flexible type, contemplating the education of a child of 12, if a girl, and 14 if a boy, through a preparatory department to an elective course of study for a variety of degrees. The result was a school, in 1856, described by the historian of the Higher Education in Iowa, Professor Parker, then a student, as "a State university with 65 children in the common branches, and a total attendance of 183 students; 83 gentlemen, and 41 ladies-65 in preparatory and 40 in the normal department." As late as 1857-58, there were but 107 pupils in the school, of whom only about 6 per cent were from outside Johnson County, 12 per cent beyond Iowa City. It was recognized by the public as "The High School of Johnson County." Chancellor Deane seemed to have grasped the situation and advised the closing of the school till better times, or a better disposition in the legislature to furnish supplies, and followed his advice by resigning his own position in 1858. His best work had been done in his labors on the committee, with Horace Mann, in framing a system of public-school education for the new State.

The legislature in 1857 appropriated $13,000 for repairs and a boarding hall. But, with no proper fund to support the university, it was the part of wisdom to close the doors, except to the normal department, from 1858 to 1860. The State had provided 36 scholarships for as many students who, selected from the high schools of the State, were expected to teach as normal graduates. A new board of trustees were chosen, and Prof. D. Franklin Wills was intrusted with the duties of a professorship. There were only $1,200 available for financial support. Still an enthusiastic body of students gathered at the opening, and with the help of a lady assistant, the good work went on. There were 90 students and 6 graduates in 1859-60. Prof. Silas Totten, D. D., L. L. D., formerly president of Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., was called to the presidency in 1860. But the final establishment of the University of Iowa was made possible by the Congressional grant of public lands for agricultural and mechanical colleges in 1862. An attempt had already been made to establish an agricultural school in the State, but this, with all similar endeavors at a premature movement for the higher education, had come to little.

The first notable revival of the common school in Iowa dates from the administration of Governor James W. Grimes. He secured the appointment of two of the foremost educators of the country, Horace Mann and Amos Deane, both at the time in Western educational service, one as president of Antioch College, Ohio, and the other of the new State University of Iowa, to draw up a plan for the education of the youth of the State. The work was all done by these men, the third member of the commission, Hon. Mr. Bissell, of Dubuque, not serving. It was presented in the form of a school law, with comments and explanations. It included the township plan of districting; a county superintendency; free elementary schools for all the people, including the negroes, and the division of the system into graded, high, and normal schools, up to the State university. The commissioners recommended the original idea of Mr. Jefferson, the establishment of free county high schools, called by the Virginia statesman colleges. It is doubtful if Horace Mann, in all his splendid career, ever did a more valuable work than giving his heart and hand to the preparation of a system for training the youth of what has become one of the most illustrious-if not, indeed, the model one of the States of our Republic. Certainly Amos Deane contributed largely to the "higher civilization," of which he endeavored to write the history, by his cooperation with his eminent compeer. The governor was in hearty sympathy with the idea of educa

tion there presented. The chairman of the committee on education in the State senate was an intimate friend of Horace Mann and contributed greatly to the adoption of the ideas of the report in the new school law of 1858.

The State constitution of 1857 seems to have repeated, or, perhaps, first created, the original provision for the legislative board of education; independent, and of final authority, with the exception of the governor's veto power; and having control of the educational funds of the State, with the proviso that, in 1864, the people should have the opportunity of deciding on its continuance. The new school law of 1858 contained this provision. But the legislature, apparently forgetting that in this respect its legislative occupation was gone, enacted an elaborate school law, a portion of which was declared unconstitutional, and it all went back to the board of education for rectification. This was a hindrance at the outset. But the board confirmed several of the most important recommendations of the three commissioners. This board held three annual meetings which were reported as a basis of action to the legislature. Its wisdom was shown in the appointment of Mr. Thomas H. Benton, jr., to a second term of State superintendency of instruction, under the title of secretary of the State board of education." His office held on through the existence of the State board in this capacity, which terminated in 1863 with the reestablishment of the office of State superintendent of public instruction.

The passage of the law of 1858 was a challenge to the best public spirit in the State. It demanded new effort in the direction of raising school funds. Superintendent Fisher had estimated that no less than $500,000 a year would be required to work the new scheme with success. The office of county superintendent for the examination of teachers, and the general supervision of the schools, was a new departure and its operation let in a great wakening light" upon the dark places of pedagogic ignorance and failure. Its fit administration demanded a wisdom and tact hardly to be expected of the 8,000 officials created by it. In the early years of its operation the country was plunged into a civil war that absorbed all the energy, self-sacrifice, and even property of the patriotic people for the preservation of national unity and universal freedom. Probably no greater effort for the defense of the schools against such an overwhelming flood could have been demanded, than was found in a strong body of able and competent men directly responsible to the people, protecting the schools from the agitations and variations of public opinion inevitable to this perilous season of four years. When Secretary Benton laid down his office in the election of 1863, the crisis had passed, and henceforth the system went on "in full tide of successful experiment." The county superintendency seems to have been more successfully managed than in some of the States; in fact, in too many of them it has almost become the most formidable obstacle to improvement. The superintendents were regarded by the people as a strong body of men, and their first meeting, in convention at Iowa City in 1858 was declared one of the most important occasions in the early educational history of the State. This high pitch seems to have been maintained, and we hear little but good of the working of the county superintendency system in Iowa.

The experiment of the county high school, except in one instance, seems to have failed, and this plan was dropped from the public-school system at an early date. It probably seemed too much like educating the superior children of a county at "arm's length," and in due course of time the more practical scheme of the city and local free high school came in.

Already, in 1860, several denominational colleges had been established in Iowa and were to a greater or less degree in successful operation.

The Baptists had established Burlington University in 1853 and the Central University of Iowa, at Pella, in 1853, and later, in 1865, Des Moines College, at Des Moines. The Christian denomination founded Oskaloosa College in 1858-1861.

Two colleges had been sustained by the Congregationalists. Iowa College was one of the earliest of this class of institutions, having been founded as early as 1843 by a body of theological students from Andover, Mass., first at Davenport and afterwards at Grinnell. President George F. Magoun assumed the presidency in 1862 and held it till 1884, being one of the most notable of the denominational college presidents of the Northwest. Tabor College was a child of the agitation that shook all the churches on the eve of the civil war, and, unlike the majority of institutions of learning that have been thrown up by great popular excitements, exists in a prosperous condition at the present time. In 1859 the Protestant Episcopal body, under the religious leadership of Bishop Perry, established Griswold College at Davenport.

The Methodists, during the past fifty years one of the most persistent and successful educational churches in the land, established Cornell College, organized as Iowa Conference Seminary in 1853, but reconstructed under its present title in 1857. Iowa Wesleyan University dates from 1855. Simpson College was the child of a movement in 1860. Upper Iowa University also was founded by the same religious body. The Presbyterians "set up their Ebenezer" at Cedar Rapids in 1851, at Coe College, and Lenox began as a collegiate institute in 1856. Parsons College, at Fairfield, was provided for in the will of Lewis B. Parsons in 1855, although not put in operation till a later period.

The United Brethren in 1855 planted Washington College at Muscatine. By 1853 Amity College was founded on an undenominational basis at College Springs. All these institutions, with many others of the academical sort, were active competitors with the State university for the patronage of the youth of the State, and doubtless postponed for several years the permanent establishment of that institution. Some efforts have been made, especially by Bishop Perry, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at a union of all colleges with the State university, which would be used chiefly as a university body for examinations and the conferring of degrees. But this plan, although frequently mentioned in the Northwest where the State universities have won their present position through a long contest with private and denominational institutions, has not yet been adopted.

In 1860 a "posting of the educational books" of the new State of Iowa showed a gratifying result of the early and persistent effort of the previous fourteen years of common-school experimenting. There were then 1,013 district townships with 4,656 school districts, 4,929 ungraded, and a large number of graded schools; in average session for three or four months in the year, instructed by 6,374 teachers, receiving $23 and $15 per month. The State had a population of more than 600,000, of whom 245,000 were between the ages of 5 and 21. One hundred and sixty-seven thousand were enrolled, and 77,000 were in average attendance instructed at a cost of $1.06 per month. Of 2,620 schoolhouses, more than half were frame, 220 of brick, 65 of stone, and 844 of logs, valued at $1,206,340. Thirtytwo teachers' institutes were held in the State in 1860. All this was done at the cost of $656,000; on the average attendance, more than $8 per capita. The annual income of the State school fund was $142,000.

With this great record of successful achievement at the end of a good fight of fourteen years, we leave the interesting topic of the development of the commonschool system in Iowa up to the opening of the civil war. The even more remarkable development of education in the Commonwealth during the past generation of thirty-seven years belongs to the history of the common-school system of the Northwest since the close of that memorable conflict.

MINNESOTA.

The romantic history of the immense wilderness now known as the great Commonwealth of Minnesota practically begins with the year 1689, when the adventurer Perot erected a cross, placed thereon the arms of France, and declared the country a portion of the vast domain of Louisiana. Only a few years before, Hennepin, Du Luth, and other enterprising members of several of the great Catholic religious orders had pushed their way up the Mississippi River, and built a fort on the western shore of Lake Pepin. Nearly one hundred years later-1763the Territory of Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota were ceded by France to England. But it was not until the year 1800 that the Government of the United States actually came in possession of the region by the operation of Jay's treaty, which closed the British occupation. By the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803, what is now Minnesota, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa became the Territory of North Louisiana. From this time till 1849 Minnesota was, in turn, a portion of the Territories of Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Although a bill for the organization of the Territory of Minnesota was offered to Congress in 1846, it was not till 1849 that it appeared as a new candidate for the Territorial preparatory school of American statehood. In that year Hon. Alexander Ramsey appeared as the first governor of the Territory. Within another year St. Paul was designated as the capital, the legislature and courts were set up, and the first newspaper, The Pioneer, was established by Mr. Goodhue, a graduate of Amherst College, Massachusetts, who "hove in sight" nine days after the founding of the Territory, with printing press, paper, and type, and inaugurated this great agency of education in the far-off new land.

As late as 1846 the Territory is described as "little better than a wilderness; " best known by the romantic stories of its possibilities as a new Western wonder of the world. In its broad expanse was found the source of the three great rivers-the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, and the Red River of the North-flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and Hudson Bay. The geographer Maury, in an early visit, celebrated "The steel-blue sky, set with diamonds and sparkling with brilliants, and the sublimity of the small hours of the night." The marvelous wealth of waters in its myriad lakes suggested to some of its early discoverers, the name "Undine;" and the remarkable fertility of the lands, with the romance of the Dakota Indians (misnamed Sioux), added to the interest and awakened the imagination of the East and the Old World. In 1848 the Territory still "seemed a wilderness." The white settlers hugged the picturesque shores of the "Father of Waters," although the Territory was named from one of its tributaries, the Minnesota. In 1849 the white population was estimated at 5,000. The first legislature organized nine counties, and American civilization, under the leadership of a remarkable group of men, including Ramsey, Sibley, Rice, and Slater, representing every division of the Union, rose up in its usual attitude beyond the Alleghenies, "claiming the earth."

By 1858 the lusty infant had grown to the stature of a new American Commonwealth, with a population of 136,464 and all the agencies of the American system of universal education on the ground. Up to the formation of the Territory, in 1849, Minnesota had no educational record that would claim the interest of the historian of the common school. Whatever may have been done by the devoted members of the Jesuit and other Catholic explorers of the country, by the British occupants in 1736, or by the wandering companies which succeeded to their function of irregular administration, is only a matter of record in the personal journals and letters and the public documents by which their writers maintained their connection with the mother country.

But the first session of the Territorial legislature, in 1849, was favored with an

elaborate report of the committee on education, prepared by Hon. N. McLeod, and petitions were presented to Congress for immediate action in the usual bestowal of school lands. The Territories of Oregon and Minnesota were especially favored by the new policy of the gift of a double portion of the public domain-the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of every township. There were already a few small schools in St. Paul and St. Anthony, of the private and parochial sort, and St. Anthony reports the possession of a library. The Swedish novelist, Fredreika Bremer, whose very readable books were then translated and widely read in the Eastern States, visited Minnesota in 1850, and reports in her usual enthusiastic vein. By act of Congress the Territory was permitted to lease its school lands four years before sale, thus avoiding the great waste of this sacred public domain that had occurred in some of the older States of the Northwest.

In 1852 the Territorial superintendent of public instruction made a report. It is significant that he insists on the legal prevention of common-school districts giving educational degrees. He enlarges on the defects of the dismal barracks that figured as schoolhouses, and recommends Dr. Henry Barnard's treatise on "School Architecture" as a guide to reform. He suggests that every country district schoolhouse should be located in the center of a lot of at least one acre, and draws a pleasing picture of a crowd of happy children breaking loose from the schoolhouse door and "letting off steam" through the usual juvenile riot on the school-grounds. There were three public schools in St. Paul, two in St. Anthony, and half a dozen besides in the Territory. At once the "burning question" that "never will down" appeared in a plea from several of the larger settlements of the State that public subsidies should be given to the church parochial schools of the French Catholic population. But, although recommended by high political authorities, and even legislative indorsement, the proposition was rejected by a vote of two to one, and the Territory of Minnesota began her great career of common-school education, not to be excelled by any of the group of Commonwealths of the new Northwest and the later States of the mountain and Pacific region. But the legislature of the Territory, in its new zeal for education, seems to have gone beyond the ability or disposition of the people to furnish the "sinews of war." In 1857 the Territory, by permission of Congress, was empowered to form a State constitution, and, after a sharp contention between the two political parties then contesting the administration of national affairs, a compromise was effected, and, in 1858, the State was admitted to the Union by the almost unanimous consent of the powers at Washington. The first constitution contains the following provisions for the establishment and support of a system of public education which, with a few amendments of detail, still remains the fundamental educational law of Minnesota:

FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF MINNESOTA, MAY 11, 1858.

ARTICLE VIII.-SCHOOL FUNDS-EDUCATION AND SCIENCE.

SEC. 1. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools.

SEC. 2. The proceeds of such lands as are, or hereafter may be, granted by the United States for the use of schools within each township in this State, shall remain a perpetual school fund to the State, and not more than one-third of said lands may be sold in two years, one-third in five years, and one-third in ten years; but the lands of the greatest valuation shall be sold first: Provided, That no portion of the said lands shall be sold otherwise than at public sale. The principal of all funds arising from sales, or other disposition of lands, or other property, granted or intrusted to this State, in each township for educational purposes, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished. And the income arising from the lease or sale of said school lands shall be distributed to the different