REORGANIZATION OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The record of the State, after twenty years of silence, on the subject of the injudicious investments of the funds of a struggling college, was broken by the event of the Civil War. The college suspended its work from 1862 to 1865, and when it resumed it was upon a new basis-that of a university. The Constitution adopted in 1865 declared expressly that "The General Assembly shall also establish and maintain a State university, with departments for instruction in teaching, in agriculture, and in natural science, as soon as the public school funds will permit." The condition of the university in 1866 was deplorable. The sole endowment consisted of one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars of stock in the old Bank of the State of Missouri and its branch at Chillicothe, the investment of the proceeds of the Congressional grant.

This stock paid, occasionally, small dividends. The number of students in 1866 was one hundred and four, the total income $7,292.98, while a floating debt of twenty thousand dollars harassed the new officers of the institution. A corps of six-a president, three professors, and two tutors-composed the teaching force.

It was evident that this was not the university called for by the Constitution.

Not a dollar had ever been appropriated by the State in any manner whatever toward the support of the university. But the spell was broken in 1866-67 when the Legislature, for the first time, showed a gleam of recognition of its responsibility to higher education by appropriating ten thousand dollars for repairs on buildings. At the same time one and three fourths per cent. of the State revenue, after deducting twenty-five per cent. for the public school fund, was devoted to the support of the institution. By this act its annual income was inincreased from the amount of twelve thousand dollars to fourteen thousand dollars.

THE AGRICULTURAL GRANT.

An attempt to dispose of the Congressional land grant led to an entire reorganization of the university. A committee was appointed on reorganization and enlargement. The normal department had already been organized in 1868, and the university in 1870 consisted of this department and the College of Liberal Arts before referred to.

In accepting the grant of three hundred and thirty thousand acres of land scrip, seventy-five per cent. of the proceeds was devoted to an Agricultural and Mechanical College, and twenty-five per cent. to a School of Mines; the former was organized in 1870, the latter in 1871. This was the beginning of the reorganization recommended by the committee which reported in 1870 and placed the university at the head of the public school system.

Constitution of 1865, Art. IX, sec. 4.

The College of Law was organized in 1872, and in the year following the College of Medicine and the department of analytical and applied chemistry.

The agricultural college was located at Columbia, in Boone County, a farm of six hundred and forty acres and thirty thousand dollars being donated by that county for its location.1

Under the new organization the endowment funds increased from one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars of unproductive bank stock in 1870 to two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars productive funds in 1876, in addition to the income from the Congressional land grant, the State income, and the Rollins fund. The entire income in 1876 was $63,443.69.

The State has since made appropriations at different times. Accord ing to the report of the curators in 1884-85 the whole amount of State appropriations from October 1, 1841, to December 31, 1882, a period of more than forty years, has been $534,343. A comparison with other institutions in the same period shows the entire expenditure for the peni tentiary to be $2,381,052.72; for the insane asylums, $2,071,273.21; deaf and dumb asylums, $1,044,901.37; school for the blind, $661,592.51.2

GIFTS AND APPROPRIATIONS.

Seminary fund from the original grant of two townships of land by Congress in 1820 investment 3..

Gifts from individuals, Boone County, in order to secure the location of the university (1839)........

$108,700

117,500

130, 545

90,000 32,000

Gift of Phelps County to secure the location of the School of Mines (1871) Gift of Boone County and Columbia to secure the location of the Agricultural College......

The Rollin's gift, at present (1882)....

APPROPRIATIONS BY THE STATE.

Upon the reorganization of the university in 1872, the State issued bonds covering the amount of the fund derived, from the agricultural grant of 1862, which, with interest on the same, was one hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars; and the indebtedness of the State bank, on account of the seminary funds held in trust. The entire amount of the bonds issued was one hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars. In addition to this the Legislature authorized that bonds be issued to the amount of thirty-five thousand dollars for the benefit of the School of Mines at Rolla; the proceeds to be used in the erection of build. ings for that institution. From this time on the State has been the

1 Report of Curators, 1884-85, 200.

Ibid., 205.

3 History of the University of Missouri, Franklin B. Hough, 51. 880-No. 1-19

1

CHAPTER VIII.

STATE EDUCATION IN THE WESTERN STATES.

It has become a settled policy among the States of the West to adopt a system of public education that includes a university. While nonState schools are not discouraged by legislative authority, there is a tendency to regard a State university as a sacred trust, essential to the public schools and to be guarded with jealous care. There is also a marked tendency in several States to keep the university near to the people; to make of it a demo cratic institution. For example, the University of Nebraska is governed by a board of regents, six in number, elected by the people for a term of six years. The State of Colorado has wisely adopted the same method. This gives the people an opportunity to prevent the management of the university from falling into the hands of political manipulators. The University of Nebraska is an excellent example of an institution that has been preserved from the toils of politics. It seems to have been established and maintained in the interests of the people. It is rather suggestive of the fact that with an organization of the right kind there is no necessity that any State university should be contaminated through partisan influences.

After a review of the effects of the changeable course of legislative bodies in the disposal of the public school lands, it is very gratifying to turn to the Constitution of Nebraska and find it there enacted that no public lands reserved for school purposes shall be sold for less than seven dollars per acre. Nebraska and California are among the best examples of the profitable disposal of public school lands. A wise policy seems to have dominated the management of the United States grants, while the incomes arising from them have been continually supplemented by generous appropriations by the Legislatures.

It is also notable that the Legislatures of several States are inclined to remove as far as possible the uncertainty of legislation by granting permanent endowments to universities. In this respect they are following the commendable example of Michigan, which gives one-twentieth of a mill on each taxable dollar, and Wisconsin, which gives one-eighth of a mill on each taxable dollar, for the permanent support of their respective universities. Iowa gives a fixed endowment of twenty thousand dollars per annum; Nebraska gives three-eighths of a mill on each taxable dollar for the maintenance of the university; California gives one-tenth of a mill tax for the same purpose; and Colorado gives three

fifths of a mill for the support of three institutions of higher education. These permanent incomes are supplemented by liberal appropriations for current expenses and for buildings.

In these comparatively new States, where provisions for higher education are made while they are yet Territories and with the advantages of the experience of other States in the management of universities and their endowments, there is abundant opportunity to test the principles and the practice of State education to their fullest extent.

MISSOURI.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS.

The first Constitution of Missouri, adopted in 1820, upon the admission of that State into the Union, asserts that "The General Assembly shall take measures for the improvement of such lands as have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State for the support of a seminary of learning; and that the funds accruing from such lands by rent or lease or in any other manner, or which may be obtained from any other source for the purposes aforesaid, shall be and remain a permanent fund to support a university for the promotion of literature and of the arts and sciences." This early obligation taken by the people of the State for the administration of the trust imposed by the General Government granting two townships of land to the State for the purpose of a seminary of learning was, as in many other cases on record, a long time in being fulfilled.

1

Nothing was done towards the organization of a college until the year 1839, when an act was passed "to provide for the institution and support of the State university and colleges."" The bill was very elaborate, authorizing the organization of a central university and a system of colleges and academies in different parts of the State designed to be general educators and supporters of the university. These colleges were to be under the visitorial power of the curators of the university. This plan proved impracticable on account of its cumbrous nature and of the insufficiency of funds to carry out the scheme. In the same year an act was passed authorizing the selection of a site for a university within two miles of the county seat of one of the seven central counties in the State, namely: Cole, Cooper, Callaway, Boone, Howard, or Saline. It was further provided that the site should contain at least fifty acres of land.

A UNIVERSITY FOUNDED.

The commission appointed by the Legislature to select the site accepted the offer of the citizens of Boone County, who pledged to give $117,900 to the university provided that it be located at Columbia. The University of Missouri, Hough.

1 Constitution 1820, Art. VI, sec. 2.