important safeguards to individual liberty and individual rights. The Constitutions of 1846 and 1857 were closely modeled upon that of 1844, and so it is that the present Constitution of the Commonwealth still guarantees to its citizenry that no standing army shall be kept up in time of peace; that the military shall be subordinate to the civil power; and that soldiers shall not be quartered in any house in time of peace without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war except in the manner prescribed by law.35

Two of the seven sections in the Article on Suffrage of the Constitution have to do with the militia. Section three provides that "No elector shall be obliged to perform military duty on the day of election, except in time of war or public danger." The object of this section was to prevent the Governor or those clothed with authority from calling portions of the reserve militia into service on election day in order to hinder them from casting their vote at the polls. In case of a close contest in an election, it was feared that the Governor might resort to such methods in order to prevent the opposition from casting their ballots, yet there is nothing in the history of Iowa to lend support to such suspicion. This provision had found expression in a State Constitution long before the Iowa constitution makers met at Iowa City in 1844. Indeed, it may not only be traced to the early American Commonwealth Constitutions, but to the famous charters of England. No discussion of this section took place in the Convention of 1844, and it has been handed down from one Constitution to another in practically the form adopted then and remains today a part of the supreme law of the Commonwealth.36

Section four of the Article on Suffrage provides that "No person in the military, naval, or marine service of the

35 Constitution of Iowa, 1857, Art. I, Secs. 14, 15.

36 Constitution of Iowa, 1857, Art. II, Sec. 3.

United States shall be considered a resident of this State by being stationed in any garrison, barrack or military or naval place or station within this State." The object of this section is to prevent Federal troops stationed within the State from enjoying the privileges of voting, although they may have been in Iowa long enough to possess all of the requisites of qualified voters. This constitutional provision does not, however, prohibit soldiers or marines in the Federal service, whose legal residence was in Iowa at the time they entered such service, from casting their vote in the Iowa elections, regardless of whether they are stationed within the State or not. To meet the requirements of the suffrage in Iowa, the vote must be cast in the precinct or voting district in which legal residence has been established. During the World War many of Iowa's citizens who were then serving in the military or naval forces of the Federal government, cast their votes as provided by the absentee voter's law. Even during the Civil War a great number of Iowa soldiers were permitted to vote, for the General Assembly passed an act on September 11, 1862, which provided for a poll of the Iowa soldiers wherever a regiment, battalion, battery, or company was stationed.38

PRESENT STATUS OF THE MILITIA

According to the provisions of the Iowa Constitution all able bodied male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years are members of the militia. This provision, however, has been enlarged by statutory law to include alien male residents who have declared their intention of becoming citizens. The unorganized militia constitutes the great body of male residents who are liable to perform mili

87 Constitution of Iowa, 1857, Art. II, Sec. 4.

38 Horack's The Government of Iowa, pp. 46, 47; Aldrich's Voting with the Soldiers in the Annals of Iowa (Third Series), Vol. VI, pp. 618-623.

tary duty, or in other words the potential military reserve, whereas the organized militia as defined by statutory regulation is designated as the "national guard of the United States and of the State of Iowa",39 and is recruited by voluntary enlistments.

The Governor is the commander-in-chief of the militia. All commissioned officers, except staff officers, are elected by the persons liable to perform military duty, and are then commissioned by the Governor. Officers of the militia who receive an annual salary are disqualified from holding a seat in the General Assembly during the period for which such salary is received. The power to make rules governing the arming, equipping, and training of the militia is given to the General Assembly, but these rules and regulations must be in conformity with the regulations prescribed by Congress. The Constitution forbids the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the consent of the owner, both in time of peace and in time of war, but the legislature may by law prescribe regulations whereby soldiers may be so quartered in time of war. Furthermore the Constitution provides that residence within the State while on duty in the military, naval, or marine service of the United States does not give a person the right to vote. Electors, who are liable to perform military duty, are not required to do so on election day except in time of war or public danger. The Constitution also provides that the military shall be subordinate to the civil power, and that a standing army shall not be kept up by the State in time of peace; and that in time of war appropriations for a standing army shall not be made for a longer period than two years.

CARL HERMAN ERBE

THE STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE

CEDAR FALLS IOWA

39 Compiled Code of 1919, Title III, Ch. 1, Sec. 300.

THE WITTEMBERG MANUAL LABOR COLLEGE

Students of early mid-western immigration tell us that before 1850 the number of New England people among the residents of Iowa was comparatively small.1 But even from the first New England influence in the State was strong, and this was especially true in matters of religion and education: these two things loomed so large in the Puritan mind and were carried so persistently to his new community by the migrating New Englander that we are justified in giving him credit out of all proportion to his numbers for the founding of churches and schools on the Middle Border.2

Certainly this New England passion for church and school sent many thin but potent lines of influence into Iowa. Sometimes it was a direct contribution of leaders or of money, sometimes it was but an inspiration caught by persons who themselves had never been east of the Hudson River. At least a few Iowa educational ventures were inspired by the old passion but were undertaken in a new manner, and among these was Wittemberg Manual Labor College, founded in 1855 some five miles north of the present city of Newton. This daring and in some respects revolutionary undertaking has its own interest as a story of adventure, and it has a certain historical interest, too, as an illustration of mid-western educational development and progress.

Educational undertakings in new countries must borrow the materials and many of the methods developed by school men in older communities, but pioneer teachers usually deal with these materials in a new spirit. They undertake the

1 Douglass's The Pilgrims of Iowa, p. 292.

2 Douglass's The Pilgrims of Iowa, pp. 291-294.

task in an amateur and practical way. Education, like all difficult undertakings, of necessity becomes professionalized as it tries to meet the greater and greater demands made upon it. Educators must decide not only how to practice their art but also what things will help produce a liberally educated mind. This process of decision and accomplishment is long and intricate.

At its best the resulting education makes for liberation and fulness of life; but at its worst, when the process falls into less inspired keeping, it becomes hidebound and steeped in a stubborn tradition, a thing of old formulae and old shibboleths, satisfying only to professionals who live in an academic atmosphere created in their own likeness. When educational process and content fail to change with the civilization of which they are a part, when earnest and capable students find themselves unable to see the forest for the trees, when their training fits them only for a world that has largely disappeared, the time is ripe for an infusion of new vigor from the soil.

This revolutionary spirit which desires a new vigor and a new alignment is nearly always present in the educational world, but it sometimes needs a new combination of circumstances to set it in motion. Such a spirit entered into the founding of the Wittemberg Manual Labor College and gave to that undertaking a certain amount of lasting importance, though the college itself lived for less than a quarter of a century. It drew this amateur and progressive spirit from the very atmosphere of the Middle Border. So while the college was in one sense an offshoot of the parent New England stem, in another sense it was a true product of its own time and place.

The community of Wittemberg was founded in 1853,8 on the line of pioneer settlement that was slowly advancing to

3 Weaver's Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa, Vol. I, p. 177.