Preamble.

Board instruc

eighteen hundred and sixty-two, for the endowment of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts," and approved March eighteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three.

ADJUSTMENT OF IRREGULARITIES IN THE SALE OF AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGE LANDS.

§ 5380. 1879, p. 313, May 28, J. R. No. 28. WHEREAS, By an act of the legislature, approved February twenty-fifth, n the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, the State of Michigan accepted a donation of public lands from the United States, to be used for the endowment of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts;

AND WHEREAS, By a further act of the legislature, approved March eighteenth, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, the governor, auditor general, secretary of State, State treasurer, attorney general, and commissioner of the State land office, were constituted and designated as the agricult ural land grant board, with full power and authority to control and dispose of said lands;

AND WHEREAS Said act further provided, that by direction of said land grant board, the commissioner of the State land office might sell said lands in the manner therein provided;

AND WHEREAS, The commissioner of the State land office has sold large quantities of said lands without having obtained the for1.al or official direction of said land grant board to make such sales; AND WHEREAS, It is alleged that all such sales are irregular; AND WHEREAS, The lands thus sold are principally held or occupied by innocent parties, many of whom having made valuable improvements [improvement] thereon, whose rights and interests in the premises demand the protection of the State; therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State ted to investi- of Michigan, That the agricultural land grant board be, and they are hereby authorized and instructed to examine into the matter of said alleged irregular sales of agricultural college lands, and to adjust and determine the same, and to confirm all such sales of said lands as shall appear to said board, to have been made in accordance with the terms and conditions of section number three (3) of said act, the same being section three thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine of the Compiled Laws of eighteen hundred and seventy-one;

gate.

Power of board.

And resolved further, That if the said board shall find that any of such sales of said lands shall have been made at a less price per acre than provided for in the section last referred to, then it is hereby made the duty of said board to elect whether they will receive from the purchaser or purchasers, or other party or parties holding under them, the full purchase price contemplated by the said section, and confirm such sales, or take such further measures as they shall deem proper for the protection of the interests of the State: Provided, however, That if any such sales are canceled, either by the action of said board or by the decree of any court of competent jurisdiction, then the amount of money to be refunded

shall in no case exceed the amount received by the State, as principal, interest, and taxes on the lands described in the particular sale so canceled: Provided further, That all settlers on lands so canceled, shall also have a valid claim against the State for all actual improvements;

Resolved, That this joint resolution shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage.

SWAMP LANDS.

§ 5406 (1858, No. 31 Sec. 16). All of the swamp lands granted to Michigan by act of Congress, approved September 28, 1850, and situate in the township of Lansing and Meridian, in the county of Ingham, and in the townships of Dewitt and Bath, county of Clinton, except such as have been occupied by persons entitled to pre-emption under this act at least thirty days next previous to the passage of this act, shall be reserved from sale by said commissioner, and possession of the same shall be immediately delivered over to the agricultural college for its use, and for the purposes of drainage and reclamation, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress donating the same to the State.

LAWS OF CONGRESS.

By an act approved July 2d, 1862, Congress granted to the several States an amount of public land equal to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative, to which the States were respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860, for the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

Under this grant, owing to certain regulations regarding estimation of fractional sections, Michigan received 235,673.37 acres.

The conditions of this grant are as follows:

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the grant of land and land scrip hereby authorized shall be made on the following conditions, to which as well as to the provisions herein before contained, the previous assent of the several States shall be signified by legislative acts:

First. If any portion of the fund invested, as provided by the foregoing section, or any portion of the interest thereon, shall, by any action or contingency, be diminished or lost, it shall be replaced by the State to which it belongs, so that the capital of the fund shall remain forever undiminished; and the annual interest shall be regularly applied without diminution to the purposes mentioned in the fourth section of this act, except that a sum, not exceeding ten per centum upon the amount received by any State under the provisions of this act, may be expended for the purchase of lands for sites or experimental farms whenever authorized by the respective legislatures of said States;

Second. No portion of said fund, nor the interest thereon, shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation or repair, of any building or buildings;

Third. Any State which may take and claim the benefit of the provisions of this act shall provide, within five years, at least not less than one college, as prescribed in the fourth section of this act, or the grant to such State shall cease; and said State shall be bound to pay the United States the amount received of any lands previously sold, and that the title to purchasers under the State shall be valid;

Fourth. An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of each college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their cost and results, and such other matters, including State industrial and economical statistics, as may be supposed useful; one copy of which shall be transmitted by mail free, by each, to all the other colleges which may be endowed under the provisions of this act, and also one copy to the Secretary of the Interior;

Fifth. When lands shall be selected from those which have been raised to double the minimum price in consequence of railroad grants, they shall be computed to the States at the maximum price, and the number of acres proportionally diminished;

Sixth, No State, while in a condition of rebellion or insurrection against the government of the United States, shall be entitled to the benefit of this act;

Seventh. No State shall be entitled to the benefits of this act, unless it shall express its acceptance thereof by its legislature within two years from the date of its approval by the President.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That land scrip issued under the provisions of this act shall not be subject to location until after the first day of January, 1863.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted. That land officers shall receive the same fees for locating land scrip issued under the provisions of this act as is now allowed for the location of military bounty land warrants under existing laws: Provided, That maximum compensation shall not be thereby increased.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the governors of the several States to which scrip shall be issued under this act shall be required to report annually to Congress all sales made of such scrip until the whole shall be disposed of, the amount received for the same, and what appropriation has been made of the proceeds.

Approved July, 1861.

NOTE. The time for accepting the provisions of this act was subsequently extended and provisions made for new States.

MILITARY OFFICERS.

Thirty-Ninth Congress, Session 1, Chapter 299.

SEC. 26. And be it further enacted, That for the purpose of promoting knowledge of military science among the young men of the United States, the President may, upon the application of an established college or university, within the United States, with sufficient capacity to educate at one time not less than one hundred and fifty male stu lents, detail an officer of the army to act as president, superintendent, or professor of such college or university; that the number of officers so detailed shall not exceed thirty at any time, and shall be apportioned through the United States as nearly as practicable

*As amended Act approved July 5, 1876.

*

according to population, and shall be governed by general rules, to be prescribed from time to time by the President.

Approved July 28, 1866.

Forty-Sixth Congress, Session I, Chapter 81.

Ordnance Department.-That upon the application of any college, university, or institution of learning incorporated under the laws of any State within the United States, having capacity at the same time to educate not less than one hundred and fifty male students, the President may detail an officer of the army in the retired list, to act as president, superintendent, or professor thereof, and such officer may receive from the institution to which he may be detailed the difference between his retired and full pay, and shall not receive any additional pay or allowance from the United States.

Approved May 4, 1880.

DEPARTMENT REPORTS.

REPORT OF PRESIDENT WILLITS.

To the State Board of Agriculture:

GENTLEMEN:-I nominally assumed the duties of my position, July 1st, 1885; hence have but three months of the year to cover by my report. Having accepted the position with the understanding that I should remain at the State Normal School, as its principal, till the close of its school year, I closed up my duties then and reported at the college on the day agreed, my family having preceded me some two weeks. In the meantime I had been appointed by the State Board of Agriculture in conjunction with Mr. Chamberlain of the Board, a delegate to a convention of Agricultural College and Experiment Stations, to be held at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D. C., July 8th, 1885, and for which due preparations had to be made. I was invited by the Commissioner of Agriculture, to read a paper on "Industrial Education," at that Convention. As I had been fully engaged with my duties at the Normal School, I had to take the intervening time to prepare the paper; hence until my return from the convention, I was not able fully to assume my duties.

Your delegates were promptly on hand at the convention and attended all its sessions. Thirty-one States and Territories were represented, and the discussions were of great interest and of mutual benefit. Aside from the general and individual benefits to the delegates themselves, the prime object of the convention received a substantial impulse. This object may be succinctly stated, as an effort to bring all the Agricultural Colleges and experiment stations into harmonious co-operation through the Department of Agriculture, so as to assign and develop more systematically the experiments devised, and to secure a consolidated report of the results. It was found that in nearly all cases the colleges and stations were crippled for means, properly to conduct and report the experiments; that the colleges following the manifest intent of the act of 1862 conferring the land grant upon the States, had devoted the funds in a large degree to instruction, rather than to experiments, and that while all had sought so far as in them lay to pursue a line of scientific investigations and experiment, it had necessarily been sporadic, subject to the prime object of the colleges under the act, and the results of the experiments meagre and unsatisfactory. The great bulk of the funds was exhausted by the pay roll for instructors, and the leavings only were applied to experiments. It was apparent that since the act of 1862, there had grown up in all the States a vigorous demand, that the college work proper should be supplemented with a greater development of experiment, and that in order that this should be successfully accomplished, the United States should supplement the act of 1862, by substan