development of these Commonwealths; and the sketch shows that from the earliest Territorial days until the present time the relation of the State to education, both elementary and higher, has been close and constant. At no time has the State acknowledged that any department of education, from the elementary schools to the university, was beyond its province.

When Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Samuel H. Parsons, and their co-adjutors of Revolutionary days were planning the foundation for a free State beyond the Alleghanies, they held it to be the duty of the Government to give encouragement and support to religion and common schools. The West gained its first Puritan colony on the basis of this idea. Congressional endowments for schools and colleges were a part of the agreement asserted in the grant and settlement of western lands. Though the pressing financial straits of the old Confederacy may have been the decisive factor in securing the early land endowment, and though the policy of higher education by the State was not asserted by the Continental Congress, yet it is evident that no doubt existed in the minds of the Puritan colony who first settled the Ohio Valley, as to the duty and province of the State in education. They began their first State on the basis of Government aid for higher learning. This was to be like the first written line of their fundamental charter. The people have never departed from that principle. Though the principle of American republicanism, asserted by the Continental Congress as a part of the earliest law of these Territories, namely, that special favors should be shown to no particular sects or modes of worship, and that no orderly and peaceable person should be molested, either on account of his religious sentiments, or for the lack of them, yet it was none the less a part of that fundamental law that religion, morality, and knowledge are to be forever encouraged.

Religious people of various names, encouraged by the assurance of Government support in providing schools for their children, sought homes in the West. While they were yet pioneers upon the frontiers of civilization they began casting about them for ways and means to establish academies and colleges for the higher education. In the early years of Indiana history various religious denominations within her borders, with a spirit of zeal, courage, and self-sacrifice, founded institutions for the college training of young men. The Methodists established "Asbury," which has developed into the De Pauw University; the Presbyterians founded "Wabash" and "Hanover"; "Earlham" became a seat of learning for the Friends; Franklin College for the Baptists; and Butler University, founded under the name of the North-Western Christian University, became the literary care of the followers of Alexander Campbell. All these institutions from small beginnings have grown into prosperous condition. This sketch contains an account of their origin, their early conditions, and their development. The influence which they have exerted for good, in extending knowledge, and in training men and women for worthy citizenship, is beyond estimate. No one who appreciates the importance of education in a government by the people will fail to recognize the great services of these institutions to the State.

The direct work of the State in higher learning is to be especially noticed.

The most interesting phase in the history and development of education in the West is to be seen in the attitude of the State. There never has been a time when the right of government to provide for education of some kind has been called in question by any considerable body of thinking people. Both the elementary and the higher education were provided for by many of the early colonies, especially by those of New England. And from the time of the first land grant for common school pur. poses by the Congress of 1785, State aid to education has been an acknowledged principle of the American people, even those of the most conservative individualism conceding in some measure the right and duty of the State to educate.

As to the extent to which State aid may be carried, and in what provinces it may operate, there is to be noticed a very wide difference of opinion. The discussion on

that subject runs back at least to Plato. Between the state of the public mind on this theme a hundred years ago, and the prevailing opinion of to-day, a wide and significant difference is to be distinguished. In the public conception of the relation of the State to education there have been many changes and much growth. The evolution of the State university, one of the most recent of educational phenomena, and also one of the most interesting, is the outcome of these changing opinions. It is the origin and history of State institutions for higher learning to which this sketch directs especial attention. For this study the States of the North-West offer a productive and peculiar field. Those who are interested in studying the principle of State control of education will find in such a sketch as this some interesting illustrations and some useful experience. The educational history of Indiana will serve to show how dominant is the idea that all functions of education have come to be vested in the State.

At the time these western Territories were settled, and the first of their States was admitted to the Union, it was a dominant idea in the public mind that primary education might well be promoted by the State, but that the higher education should be left to the control of religious denominations, or to private benevolence. It was generally understood that most of the great universities of the world had been established by the church or by the king as the kind parental guardian of his people. It was forgotten that whatever church or prince had to give was derived for the most part from the people at large. Says President Charles Kendall Adams, of Cornell University: "Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Prague, Salamanca, and Cambridge were endowed in some cases by the church, in others by kings and princes, but in all cases with moneys which came directly or indirectly from the masses of the people. A peculiarity of the situation at the beginning of our national era was the fact that, while the State was inclined to keep its hold on the education of children, it appeared to be not unwilling to abandon its direction of the education of youth. In colonial and provincial days, the State, as we have seen, had all grades of education under its fostering care; but now that the churches began to contend with one another for the occupancy of the field in higher education, the State showed an unmistakable tendency to leave the endowment of the higher grades of schools to the churches. The doctrine was often put forward, and soon came to be very generally held, that the moral and religious character of students in the higher schools of learning would be unsafe unless such schools were under the direct control of the religious denominations—a doctrine built upon the singular postulate that children, so long as they are at an age that is peculiarly susceptible to religious impressions, may safely be left under the guidance of State schools, while at the moment they emerge from that age and enter upon a period less susceptible to such impressions, they must be under a more careful religious guidance than any which schools established by the State can afford."

This condition of the public mind at the time of the earliest organization of States in the North-West Territory led in large measure to decentralization of effort in the establishing and the fostering of colleges. A generation later, in the newer States, there was a tendency toward centralization in a single university. The result of the differing policies may be seen in the numerous colleges of Ohio on the one hand, and the development of the University of Michigan upon the other. Indiana illustrates the effects of these conflicting ideas. In the first part of the century her people were influenced largely by the early opinions. The tendency to-day is toward more vigorous State support and toward centralization of effort. A study of such an educational history can not fail to be profitable to the student of educational problems. President Adams points out the significant fact that there were two great statesmen of those early days who, above all, appreciated the paramount importance of the establishment by the State of institutions for higher learning; who looked forward to an education of the people, for the people, and by the people. One of these statesmen was the founder of the University of Virginia, the other entertained the loftier idea of a National University at the National Capital.

In the history of institutions for higher learning there are three phases to be easily distinguished. In the first place they may be established, endowed, and controlled by religious denominations. This has been the case with most of the great institutions of the past. The second phase is to be seen as the result of private benevolence. Clark, Cornell, Vassar, and Johns Hopkins are examples. In the third phase we see the college and the university founded and maintained by the State. President Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins University, in a recent lecture at that institution on "The Relation of the State to Education," called attention to the pertinent fact that one tendency in higher education is very largely toward State maintenance and control; and he asserted that the North-Western States offered the best field for the study of the operation of this principle. More than twenty years ago, while then a professor in Yale College, in a discussion of the question, "What sort of schools ought the State to keep," President Gilman said: "The State may say to private parties, you may maintain the schools and we will inspect them; you shall have the responsibility, and we will bestow encouragement and bounties. This would give us universal private schools. Or the State may say to the churches, you may do this work in your own religious way, and we will oversee and assist your efforts. This would give us universal parish schools. Neither of these plans stands any chance of adoption among us, at least in this generation. Again, the State may say, we will maintain schools for the destitute and neglected only, and all who can afford to pay must look out for themselves. This would establish pauper-schools-like pauper homes in the almshouses. Or, finally, the State may establish public schools adapted to the wants of all. The discussion is practically narrowed to a choice between these two conflicting theories."

The essay from which I have quoted related, chiefly, if not entirely, to the subject of common public schools for training in the elementary branches. But the same question pertained as well to schools of higher grades. Since then, we think the discussion has closed and the question, "What sort of schools ought the State to keep," is answered in the States of the North-West by the unquestioned establishment of public schools of all grades open to all the people. The history of this establishment includes the origin and development of the State university, the State normal school, and the State agricultural and mechanical institute. This sketch is a study along these lines of thought.

It calls attention also to the development and value of the common school system. A writer in the English Westminster Review, for January, 1887, says: "The distinguishing feature of public education in America is that it is free. Tuition in all public schools, whether elementary or high, is essentially gratuitous; in no other country has it been so clearly recognized that it is the duty of the State to provide free instruction for all the children of its people."

Emile de Laveleye, in speaking of the United States some years ago, said: "It is not simply true that every one knows how to read, but every one does read for purposes of instruction, entertainment, participation in public affairs, direction of labor, gaining of money, or investigation of religious truth. The American Union, in consequence, uses up as much paper as France and England combined. Free to all, open to all, receiving upon its benches children of all classes, and all religious denominations, the public school obliterates social distinctions, deadens religious animosities, roots out prejudices and antipathies, and inspires in all a love of their common country, and a respect for free institutions. It is the American public school which enables their people to assimilate so great a number of foreigners every year into their nationality."

The writer of this monograph believes that in no State is the American common school system to be seen to better advantage than in Indiana. The school law of the State and its practical service have attracted favorable comment from various States of the Union, and professional educators frequently accord to it precedence over the laws of all other States. The scheme upon which the Indiana system operates and, its official machinery are here presented.

The monograph also traces the early struggles of pioneers to establish a public in

stitution for classical learning, even before the State became a member of the Union. Gen. William Henry Harrison, at the "Boro of Vincennes," in 1807, became the president of the first board of trustees of the first institution of learning founded in Indiana Territory. This was the same year that Fulton's steam-boat made its trial trip on the Hudson; it was but three years after Jefferson had.completed his purchase of Louisiana, an event so freighted with future consequences to the Nation; scarcely a decade had elapsed since Great Britain had withdrawn her forces from north-western soil; nearly a quarter of a century was to elapse before the opening of the National Road offered easy immigration to the West; and it was longer still till the railway and the locomotive should appear. Along the banks of the Ohio and the Wabash, and on the larger interior streams lived a few thousand whites, while many Indian tribes lived in rude huts on the river banks, or roamed the forests of the Territory. Tecumseh and the Prophet were yet to reach the fulness of their power.

In these days, as this sketch shows, with the howl of the wolf within hearing of their homes and the smoke of the wigwam within sight, the boys of the hardy settlers were learning to read "arma virumque cano." The story of these times is surely not uninteresting in the history of education.

I respectfully recommend that this valuable monograph be published at the earliest possible day.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
N. H. R. DAWSON,
Commissioner.

History of Education in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin monograph was executed under the supervision of Prof. William F. Allen, of the University of Wisconsin, by one of his advanced graduate students, Mr. David Spencer, who, amid the rich historical collections of Madison, had excellent materials for his constructive work. The accompanying letter, submitted when the monograph was officially approved for publication by the Secretary of the Interior, will suggest the general interest and character of the work:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C., October 25, 1883.

The Honorable THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR,

Washington, D. C.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith the manuscript of the History of Highor Education in Wisconsin. The preface will explain the nature of this work, which was prepared under the supervision of the most accomplished historian of the West, Prof. William F. Allen, of the University of Wisconsin, aided by Mr. David Spencer, one of the instructors in that institution.

This is the first of a series of monographs relating to higher education in the group of north-western States composed of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and was undertaken with the approval and by the direction of the Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, late Secretary of the Interior. It will prove a very valuable addition to the educational history of the country.

I respectfully recommend that the same be printed as a Circular of Information of this Office.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

N. H. R. DAWSON,
Commissioner.

Object of this Series of Monographs.

The foregoing abstracts and illustrations of completed monographs will show the nature of the work now in progress. A third block of States in the South-West and along the Gulf of Mexico has been distributed among competent educational specialists, resident in or native of that region. A fourth and larger group is that beyond the Mississippi and including all the States between that river and the Pacific Ocean.

The educational history of each State has been intrusted to competent hands, and the returns already promise a rich harvest of interesting experience. Whoever writes the history of schools, colleges, and universities in any of the States of the American Union necessarily writes, to a considerable extent, the history of culture and social progress in that State; for with educational institutions is bound up more of the intellectual and moral interests of the Commonwealth than with any other class of public institutions, excepting perhaps the church. Among all the peculiar and splendid provisions of that justly celebrated Ordinance of 1787, passed by the aid of Southern votes in the interest of north-western colonization, there is nothing grander than the words, "Schools and the means of Education shall forever be encouraged" (Journal of Congress, IV, 753). Educational and moral forces were extended across a continent by the instrumentality of good laws, and by the efficient service of pioneers in the church and state. This movement forms a chapter of American history not yet fully written, but it is worthy of a special investigation and literary treatment.

The aim of this series of documents is to present the educational history of the several States in such a manner as to awaken or revive among our citizens an interest in the great work of education, while affording suggestions of practical value to those actually engaged therein. The monographs thus far published have been received with singular favor by all real friends of popular education, whether in its rudimentary or higher forms. Particular pains have always been taken to show the intimate and necessary relation between the higher sources of learning and the broadening rivers of popular instruction. Although the special object of the series is to trace out the history of colleges and universities in regions where such a task has never before been systematically attempted, nevertheless considerable attention has been given to common schools and secondary education. Some day, perhaps, these latter veins of popular interest will be worked more fully, although there can hardly be such picturesque variety of interest as is afforded by our American colleges and universities.

If the history of higher education in the West and South is almost unknown, because it is not yet written, the colleges of New England and of the States along the Northern Atlantic sea-board have, in most cases, an established fame and, in some cases, an extensive literature. In fact, the materials are so rich and voluminous that there is au em