EDUCATIONAL HISTORY.

BY PROF. EDWARD SEARING, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

From the time of the earliest advent of the families of French traders into the region now known as Wisconsin, to the year 1818, when that region became part of Michigan territory, education was mostly confined to private instruction, or was sought by the children of the wealthier in the distant cities of Quebec, Montreal, and Detroit. The early Jesuit missionaries, and-subsequently to 1816, when it came under the military control of the United Statesrepresentatives of various other religious denominations, sought to teach the Indian tribes of this section. In 1823, Rev. Eleazar Williams, well known for his subsequent claim to be the Dauphin of France, and who was in the employ of the Episcopal Missionary Society, started a school of white and half-breed children on the west side of Fox river, opposite "Shanty-Town." A Catholic mission school for Indians was organized by an Italian priest near Green Bay, in 1830. A clause of the treaty with the Winnebago Indians, in 1832, bound the United States to maintain a school for their children near Prairie du Chien for a period of twenty-seven years.

THE ORIGINAL SCHOOL CODE.

From 1818 to 1836, Wisconsin formed part of Michigan territory. In the year 1837, Michigan was admitted into the Union as a state, and Wisconsin, embracing what is now Minnesota, Iowa, and a considerable region still further westward, was, by act of congress approved April 20th of the year previous, established as a separate territory. The act provided that the existing laws of the territory of Michigan should be extended over the new territory so far as compatible with the provisions of the act, subject to alteration or repeal by the new government created. Thus with the other statutes, the school code of Michigan became the original code of Wisconsin, and it was soon formally adopted, with almost no change, by the first territorial legislature, which met at Belmont. Although modified in some of its provisions almost every year, this imperfect code continued in force until the adoption of the state constitution in 1848. The first material changes in the code were made by the territorial legislature at its second session, in 1837, by the passage of a bill "to regulate the sale of school lands, and to provide for organizing, regulating, and perfecting common schools." It was provided in this act that as soon as twenty electors should reside in a surveyed township, they should elect a board of three commissioners, holding office three years, to lay off districts, to apply the proceeds of the leases of school lands to the payment of teachers' wages, and to call school meetings. It was also provided that each district should elect a board of three directors, holding office one year, to locate school-houses, hire teachers for at least three months in the year, and levy taxes for the support of schools. It was further provided that a third board of five inspectors should be elected annually in each town to examine and license teachers and inspect the schools. Two years subsequently (1839) the law was revised and the family, instead of the electors, was made the basis of the town organization. Every town with not less than ten families was made a school district and required to provide a competent teacher. More populous towns were divided into two or more districts. The office of town commissioner was abolished, its duties with certain others being transferred to the inspectors. The rate-bill system of taxation, previously in existence, was repealed, and a tax on the whole county for building school-houses and support

ing schools was provided for. One or two years later the office of town commissioners was restored, and the duties of the inspectors were assigned to the same. Other somewhat important amendments were made at the same time.

In 1840, a memorial to congress from the legislature represented that the people were anxious to establish a common-school system, with suitable resources for its support. From lack of sufficient funds many of the schools were poorly organized. The rate-bill tax or private subscription was often necessary to supplement the scanty results of county taxation. Until a state government should be organized, the fund accruing from the sale of school lands could not be available. Congress had made to Wisconsin, as to other new states, for educational purposes, a donation of lands. These lands embraced the sixteenth section in every township in the state, the 500,000 acres to which the state was entitled by the provisions of an act of congress passed in 1841, and any grant of lands from the United States, the purposes of which were not specified. To obtain the benefits of this large fund was a leading object in forming the state constitution.

AGITATION FOR FREE SCHOOLS.

Shortly before the admission of the state the subject of free schools began to be quite widely discussed. In February, 1845, Col. M. Frank, of Kenosha, a member of the territorial legislature, introduced a bill, which became a law, authorizing the legal voters of his own town to vote taxes on all the assessed property for the full support of its schools. A provision of the act required its submission to the people of the town before it could take effect. It met with strenuous opposition, but after many public meetings and lectures held in the interests of public enlightenment, the act was ratified by a small majority in the fall of 1845, and thus the first free school in the state was legally organized. Subsequently, in the legislature, in the two constitutional conventions, and in educational assemblies, the question of a free-school system for the new state soon to be organized provoked much interest and discussion. In the constitution framed by the convention of 1846, was provided the basis of a free-school system similar to that in our present constitution. The question of establishing the office of state superintendent, more than any other feature of the proposed school system, elicited discussion in that body. The necessity of this office, and the advantages of free schools supported by taxation, were ably presented to the convention by Hon. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, in an evening address. He afterward prepared, by request, a draft of a free-school system, with a state superintendent at its head, which was accepted and subsequently embodied in the constitution and the school law. In the second constitutional convention, in 1848, the same questions again received careful attention, and the article on education previously prepared, was, after a few changes, brought into the shape in which we now find it. Immediately after the ratification by the people, of the constitution prepared by the second convention, three commissioners were appointed to revise the statutes. To one of these, Col. Frank, the needed revision of the school laws was assigned. The work was acceptably performed, and the new school code of 1849, largely the same as the present one, went into operation May first of that year.

THE SCHOOL SYSTEM UNDER THE STATE GOVERNMENT.

In the state constitution was laid the broad foundation of our present school system. The four corner stones were: (1) The guaranteed freedom of the schools; (2) the school fund created; (3) the system of supervision; (4) a state university for higher instruction. The school fund has five distinct sources for its creation indicated in the constitution: (1) Proceeds from the sale of lands granted to the state by the United States for educational purposes; (2)

all moneys accruing from forfeiture or escheat; (3) all fines collected in the several counties for breach of the penal laws; (4) all moneys paid for exemption from military duty; (5) five per cent. of the sale of government lands within the state. In addition to these constitutional sources of the school fund, another and sixth source was open from 1856 to 1870. By an act of the state legislature in the former year, three-fourths of the net proceeds of the sales of the swamp and overflowed lands, granted to the state by congress, Sept. 28, 1850, were added to the commonschool fund, the other fourth going into a fund for drainage, under certain circumstances; but if not paid over to any town for that purpose within two years, to become a part of the school fund. The following year one of these fourths was converted into the normal-school fund, leaving one-half for the common-school fund. In 1858, another fourth was given to the drainage fund, thus providing for the latter one-half the income from the sales, and leaving for the school fund, until the year 1865, only the remaining one-fourth. In the latter year this was transferred to the normal-school fund, with the provision, however, that one-fourth of the income of this fund should be transferred to the common-school fund until the annual income of the latter fund should reach $200,000. In 1870 this provision was repealed, and the whole income of the normal fund left applicable to the support of normal schools and teachers' institutes.

At the first session of the state legislature in 1848, several acts were passed which carried out in some degree the educational provisions of the constitution. A law was enacted to provide for the election, and to define the duties, of a state superintendent of public instruction. A district board was created, consisting of a moderator, director, and treasurer; the office of town superintendent was established, and provision was made for the creation of town libraries, and for the distribution of the school fund. The present school code of Wisconsin is substantially that passed by the legislature of 1848, and which went into operation May 1, 1849. The most important change since made was the abolition of the office of town superintendent, and the substitution therefor of the county superintendency. This change took effect January 1, 1862.

THE SCHOOL-FUND INCOME.

The first annual report of the state superintendent, for the year 1849, gives the income of the school fund for that year as $588, or eight and three-tenth mills per child. Milwaukee county received the largest amount, $69.63, and St. Croix county the smallest, twenty-four cents. The average in the state was forty-seven cents per district. The following table will show at a glance the quinquennial increase in the income of the fund, the corresponding increase in the number of school children, and the apportionment per child, from 1849 to 1875, inclusive; also, the last published apportionment, that for 1878. It will be seen that since 1855 the increase of the fund has not kept pace with the increase of school population :

The amount of productive school fund reported September 30, 1878, was $2,680,703.27. The portion of the fund not invested at that date, was $58,823.70.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY.

In his message to the first territorial legislature, in 1836, Governor Dodge recommended asking from congress aid for the establishment of a state educational institution, to be governed by the legislature. This was the first official action looking to the establishment of a state university. The same legislature passed an act to establish and locate the Wisconsin university at Belmont, in the county of Iowa. At its second session, the following year, the legislature passed an act, which was approved January 19, 1838, establishing "at or near Madison, the seat of government, a university for the purpose of educating youth, the name whereof shall be 'The University of the Territory of Wisconsin. " A resolution was passed at the same session, directing the territorial delegate in congress to ask of that body an appropriation of $20,000 for the erection of the buildings of said university, and also to appropriate two townships of vacant land for its endowment. Congress accordingly appropriated, in 1838, seventy-two sections, or two townships, for the support of a "seminary of learning in the territory of Wisconsin," and this was afterward confirmed to the state for the use of the university. No effectual provision, however, was made for the establishment of the university until ten years later, when the state was organized. Congress, as has been said, had made a donation of lands to the territory for the support of such an institution. but these lands could not be made available for that purpose until the territory should become a state. The state constitution, adopted in 1848, declared that provision should be made for the establishment of a state university, and that the proceeds of all lands donated by the United States to the state for the support of a university should remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which should be appropriated to its support

The state legislature, at its first session, passed an act, approved July 26, 1848, establishing the University of Wisconsin, defining its location, its government, and its various departments, and authorizing the regents to purchase a suitable site for the buildings, and to proceed to the erection of the same, after having obtained from the legislature the approval of plans. This act repealed the previous act of 1838. The regents were soon after appointed, and their first annual report was presented to the legislature, January 30, 1849. This report announced the selection of a site, subject to the approval of the legislature, announced the organization of a preparatory department, and the election of a chancellor or president. The university was thus organized, with John H. Lathrop, president of the University of Missouri, as its first chancellor, and John W. Sterling as principal of the preparatory department, which was opened February 5, 1849. Chancellor Lathrop was not formally inaugurated until January 16, 1850.

Owing to the short-sighted policy of the state in locating without due care, and in appraising and selling so low the lands of the original grant, the fund produced was entirely inadequate to the support of the institution. Congress, therefore, made, in 1854, an additional grant of seventy-two sections of land for its use. These, however, were located and sold in the same inconsiderate and unfortunate manner, for so low a price as to be a means of inducing immigration, indeed, but not of producing a fund adequate for the support of a successful state university. Of the 92,160 acres comprised in the two grants, there had been sold prior to September 30, 1866, 74,178 acres for the sum of $264,570.13, or at an average price of but little more than * Besides this, the state had allowed the university to anticipate its income to the extent of over $100,000 for the erection of buildings. By a law of 1862 the sum of $104,339.43 was taken from its fund (already too small) to pay for these buildings. The resulting embarrassment made necessary the re-organization of 1866, which added to the slender resources of the institution the agricultural college fund, arising from the sale of lands donated to the state by the congressional act of 1862.

*Compare the price obtained for the lands of the University of Michigan. The first sale of those lands averaged $22.85 per acre, and brought in a single year (1837) $150,447.90. Sales were made in succeeding years at $15, $17. and $19 per acre.

The first university building erected was the north dormitory, which was completed in 1851. This is 110 feet in length by 40 in breadth, and four stories in height. The south dormitory, of the same size, was completed in 1855. The main central edifice, known as University Hall, was finished in 1859. The Ladies' College was completed in 1872. This latter was built with an appropriation of $50,000, made by the legislature in 1870-the first actual donation the university had ever received from the state. The legislature of 1875 appropriated $80,000 for the erection of Science Hall, a building to be devoted to instruction in the physical sciences. This was completed and ready for occupancy at the opening of the fall term of 1877.

The growth of this institution during the past fourteen years, and especially since its reorganization in 1866, has been rapid and substantial. Its productive fund on the 30th day of September, 1877, aside from the agricultural college fund, was $223,240 32. The combined university and agricultural funds amounted, at the same date, to $464,032 22. An act of the legislature in 1867 appropriated to the university income for that year, and annually for the next ten years, the sum of $7,303.76, being the interest upon the sum taken from the university fund by the law of 1862 for the erection of buildings, as before mentioned. Chapter 100 of the general laws of 1872 also provided for an annual state tax of $10,000 to increase the income of the university. Chapter 119 of the laws of 1876 provides for an annual state tax of one-tenth of one mill on the taxable property of the state for the increase of the university fund income, this tax to be "in lieu of all other appropriations before provided for the benefit of said fund income," and to be "deemed a full compensation for all deficiencies in said income arising from the disposition of the lands donated to the state by congress, in trust, for the benefit of said income." The entire income of the university from all sources, including this tax (which was $42,359.62), was, for the year ending September 30, 1878, $81,442.63. The university has a faculty of over thirty professors and instructors, and during the past year-1877-8-it had in its various departments 388 students. The law department, organized in 1868, has since been in successful operaation. Ladies are admitted into all the departments and classes of the university.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

The agricultural college fund, granted to the state by the congressional act of 1862, was by a subsequent legislative enactment (1866) applied to the support, not of a separate agricultural college, but of a department of agriculture in the existing university, thus rendering it unnecessary for the state to erect separate buildings elsewhere. Under the provisions of chapter 114,

laws of 1866, the county of Dane issued to the state, for the purpose of purchasing an experimental farm, bonds to the amount of $40,000. A farm of about 200 acres, adjoining the university grounds, was purchased, and a four years' course of study provided, designed to be thorough and extensive in the branches that relate to agriculture, in connection with its practical application upon the experimental farm.

The productive agricultural college fund has increased from $8,061.86, in 1866, to $244,263,18, in 1878.

NORMAL SCHOOLS.

The propriety of making some special provision for the instruction of teachers was acknowledged in the very organization of the state, a provision for normal schools having been embodied in the constitution itself, which ordains that after the support and maintenance of the