USA > Mississippi > History of the upper Mississippi Valley, pt 1 > Part 36
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The State Constitution is in full harmony with the National Goverment in the distinctive outlines laid down in the extracts above made. And the Territorial and State Goverments, within ' these limits, have consecutively appropriated by legis- lation, sufficient to carry forward the State School System. In the Territorial act, establishing the University, the people of the state mnouneed in advance of the establishment of a Stato Govern- ment, "that the proceeds of the land that may hereafter be granted by the United States to the
Territory for the support of a University, shall be and remain a perpetual fund to be called " The University Fund," " the interest of which shall be appropriated to the support of a University, and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed in such University !". This organization of the University was confirmed by the State Constitution, and the congressional land grants severally passed to that corporation, and the use of the funds arising therefrom were subjected to the restrictions named. So that both the common seliool and University were dedicated to State School purposes, and ex- pressly exeluded from sectarian control or sectar- ian instruction.
In this respect the state organization corres- ponds with the demands of the general Govern- ment; and has organized the school system reach- ing from the common school to the University, so that it may be said, the state student may, if he chooses, in the state of Minnesota, pass from grade to grade, through common school, high school, and State University free of charge for tuition. Without referring specially to the pro- gressive legislative enactments, the united system may be referred to as made up of units of ditler- ent orders, and successively, in its aseending grades, governed by separate boards, rising in the scale of importance, from the local trustec, dirce- tors, and treasurer, in the common school, to the higher board of education, of six members in the independent school districts, and more or less than that number in districts and large cities under special charter, until we reach the climax in the dignified Board of Regents; a board created by law and known as the Regents of the State Uni- versity. This honorable body consists of seven mon nomimted by the Governor und confirmed by the senate of the state legislature, each hokling his office for three years; and besides these there are three ex-officio members consisting of the President of the State Univerity, the Superinten- dent of Public Instruction, and the Governor of the State. This body of ten men are in reality the legal head of the State University, and indi- rectly the effective head of the State School Sys- tem of Minnesota, and are themselves subject only to the control of the State Legislature. These various officers, throughont this series, ure severally trustees of legal duties which cannot be delegated. They fall under the legal maxim "that n trustee cannot make a trustee." These are the legal bodies to whom the several series of
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MINNESOTA STATE SYSTEM.
employees and servitors owe obedience. These various trustees determine the courses of study and the rules of transfer from grade to grade until the last grade is reached at the head of the state system, or the scholar has perhaps completed a post-graduate course in a polytechnic school, inaugurated by the state for greater perfection, it may be in chemistry, agriculture, the mechanic arts, or other specialty, required by the state or national government.
This system, let it be understood, differs from all private, practical, denominational, or sectarian schools. The State organismn and all the sectarian elements of the church are in this department of labor entirely distinct. The state protects and encourages, but does not control either the schools or the faith of the church. The church supports and approves, but does not yield its teuets or its creed to the curriculum of the schools of the state. The State and the Church are in this respect, en- tirely distinct and different organizations. State Education, however, and the education of the adhe- rents of the church are in harmony throughont a great portion of the state curriculum. Indeed there seems to be no reason why the greater por- tion of denominational teaching so far as the same is in harmony with the schools of the state, should not be relegated to the state, that the church throughout all its sectarian element might be the better able to direct its energies and economize its benevolence in the cultivation of its own fields of choseu labor. But, however this may be, and wherever these two organizations choose to divide their labors, they are still harmonious even in their rivalry.
The organismi as a State system has, in Minne- sota, so matured that through all the grades to the University, the steps are defined and the gradients passed without any conflict of authority. The only check to the regular order of ascending grades was first met in the State University. These schools, in older countries, had at one time, an independ- out position, and in their origin had their own scholars of all grades, from the preparatory depart- ment to the Senior Class in the finished course; but in our State system, when the counnon schools became graded, and the High School had grown np as a part of the organism of a completed sys- tem, the University naturally took its place ut the head of the State system, having the same relation to the High School as the High School had to the Common School. There was no longer any reason
why the same rule should not apply in the trans- fer from the High School to the University, that applied in the transfer from the Common School to the High School, and to this conclusion the people of the state have already fully arrived. The rules of the board of Regents of the State Univers- ity now allow students, with the Principal's cer- tilicate of qualification, to enter the Freshman class, on examination in sub-Freshman studies only. But even this is not satisfactory to the friends of the State School system. They demand, for High School graduates, an entrance into the University, when the grade below is passed, on the examina- tion of the school below for graduation therein. If, on the one hand, the High Schools of the state, under the law for the encouragement of higher education, are required to prepare students so that they shall be qualified to cuter some one of the classes of the University, on the other hand the University should be required to admit the stu- dents tlms qualified without further examination. The rule should work in either direction. The rights of students under the law are as sacred, and should be as inalienable, as the rights of teachers or faculties in state institutions. The day of un- limited, irresponsible discretion, a relie of absolute autocracy, a despotic power, has no place in sys- tems of free schools under constitutional and statu- tary limitations, and these presidents and facnl- ties who contiune to exercise this power in the absence of right, should be reminded by Boards of Regents at the head of American State systems, that their resignations would be acceptable. They belong to an antiquated system, ontgrown by the age in which we live.
The spirit of the people of our state was fully intimated in the legislature of 1881, in the House Bill, introduced as an amendment to the law of 1878-9, for the encouragement of higher educa- tion, but finally laid aside for the law then in force, slightly amended, and quite in harmony with the House Bill. Sections two and five allud- ed to, read as follows:
"Any publie, graded, or high school in any city or incorporated village or township organized into a district under the so-called towuship sys- tem, which shall have regular classes and courses of study, nrtienlaling with some course of study optional or required, in the State University, and shall raise animally for the expense of said school double the amount of state aid allowed by this aet, and shull admit students of either sex into the
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HISTORY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
higher classes thereof from any part of the state, without charge for tuition, shall receive state aid, as specified in section four of this act. Pro- vided, that non-resident pupils shall in all cases be qualified to enter the highest department of said sehool at the eutranee examination for resi- dent pupils."
" The High School Board shall have power, and it is hereby made their duty to provide uni- form questions to test the qualifications of the scholars of said graded or high schools for en- tranee and graduation, and especially conduct the examinations of seholars in said sehools, when de- sired and notified, and award diplomas to gradu- ates, who shall npon examination be found to have completed any course of study, either optional or required, entitling the holder to enter any elass in the University of Minnesota named therein, any time within one year from the date thereof, without further examination; said diploma to be executed by the several members of the High School Board."
THE RELATED SYSTEM.
We have now seen the position of the Univer- sity in our system of Public Schools. In its po- sition only at the head of the series it differs from the grades below. The rights of the scholar fol- low him throughout the series. When he has completed and received the certificate or diploma in the prescribed course in the High School, ar- ticulating with any course, opitional or required, in the University, he has the same right, un- conditioned, to pass to the higher class in that course, as he had to pass on examination, from one elass to the other in any of the grades below. So it follows, that the University faculty or teucher who assumes the right to reject, condi- tion, or re-examine such student, would exercise au abuse of power, unwarranted in law, arbitrary in spirit, and not republican in character. This rule is better and better understood in all State Universities, as free state educational organisms are more crystalized into forms, analogous to our state and national governments. The arbitrary will of the intermediate, or head master, no longer pre- vails. llis will must yield to more certain legal rights, as the learner passes on, under prescribed rules, from infancy to manhood through all the grades of school life. And no legislation framed on any other theory of educational promotion in republican states con stand against this American
consciousness of equality existing between all the members of the body politic. In this conscious- ness is embraced the inalienable rights of the child or the youth to an education free in all our public schools. In Minnesota it is guaranteed in the constitution that the legislature shall make sneh provisions, by taxation or otherwise, as with the ineome arising from the school fund, will se- cure a thorough and efficient system of public schools in each township in the state." Who shall say that the people have no right to secure sueh thorough and efficient system, even should that "thorough and efficient system " extend to direet taxation for a course extending to gradua- tion from a University? Should such a course exeeed the constitutional limitation of a thorough and efficient system of publie schools?
INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.
The people, through the medium of the law- making power, have given on three several occa- sions, in 1878, 1879 and 1881, an intimation of the scope and measuring of our state constitution on educational extension to higher edneation than the common sehool. In the first section of the act of 1881, the legislature ereated a High School Board, consisting of the Governor of the state, Superintendent of Publie Instruetion, and the President of the University of Minnesota, who are charged with certain duties and granted certain powers contained in the act. And this High School Board are required to grant state aid to the amount of $400 during the school year to any public graded school, in any city or incorporated village, or township organized into a district, which shall give preparatory instruction, extend- ing to and artienlating with the University course in some one of its classes, and shall admit students of either sex, from any part of the State, without charge for tuition. Provided only that non-resident pupils shall be qualified to enter some one of the organized classes of such graded or high school. To carry ont this act, giving State aid directly ont of the State treas- ury to a course of education reaching upward from the common school, through the high school to the University, the legislature ap- propriated the entire sum of $20,000. In this manner we have the interpretation of the people of Minnesota as to the meaning of " a thorough and efficient system of public schools, operative alike in each township in the .State." And this
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RESULTS OF THE RELATED SYSTEM.
intepretation of our legislature is in harmony with the several aets of Congress, and partienlarly the act of July the second, 1862, granting lands to the several States of the Union, known as the Agricultural College Grant. The States receiving said lands are required, in their colleges or nni- versities, to " teach such brauches of learning as are related to Agriculture and the Mechanic arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, aud including military tacties, in such manner as the Legislatures of the States may re- speetively preseribe, in order to promote the lib- eral and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."
And the Legislature of Minnesota has already established in its University, optional or required courses of study fully meeting the limitations in the congressional act of 1862. In its elementary department, it has three courses, known as classical, scientific, and modern .. In the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts, the courses of study are an extension of those of the elementary depart- ments, aud lead directly to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Lit- erature. In the College of Mechanic Arts the several courses of studies are principally limited to Civil Engineering, Mcehanical Engineering, and Architecture. lu the College of Agrienlture are : (1) The regular University course, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture. (2) The Ele- mentary course, in part coineiding with the Sejeu- tifie course of the Elementary Department. (3) A Farmer's Lecture conrse. (4) Three special courses for the year 1880-81. Law and Medicine have not yet been opened in the State University for want of means to carry forward the so depart- me uts, now so much needed.
Our State constitution has therefore been prac- tically interpreted by the people, by a test that cammot be misconstrued. They have fortified their opinion by the payment of the necessary tax to insure the success of a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the State. This proof of the people's interest in these schools appears in the amounts paid for expenses and instruction. From the school fund the State of Minnesota received, in 1879, the full sum of $232,187.43. The State paid ont, that same year, the smm of #,394,737.71. The difference is $162,- 650.28, which was paid out by the State more than was derived from the government endow-
ment fund. And it is not at all likely that the endowment fund, geuerons as it is, will ever pro- duce an amount equal to the cost of instruction. The ratio of the increase of scholars, it is believed, will always be in advance of the endowment Iund. The cost of instruction cannot fall much below an average, for all grades of scholars, of eight dol- lars per ammun to each pupil. Our present 180,000 seholars enrolled would, at this rate, re- quire $1,440,000, and in ten years, and long be- fore the sale of the school lands of the State shall have been made, this 180,000 will have increased a hundred per cent., amounting to 360,000 scholars. These, at $8.00 per scholar for tuition, would equal $2,880,000 per annum, while the interest from the school lund in the same time cannot exceed $2,000,000, even should the land average the price of $6.00 per aere, and the interest realized be always equal to 6 per cent.
SOME OF THE RESULTS.
In these infant steps taken by on State, we can discern the tendeney of our organism towards a completed State system, as an element of a still wider union embracing the nation. To know what is yet to be done in this direction we must know what has already been done. We have, in the twenty years of our State history, built 3,693 school houses, varying in cost from $400 to $90,- 000; total value of all, $3,156,210; three Normal School buildings at a cost of (1872) #215,231.52; a State University at an expenditure for buildings alone of $70,000, and au allowance by a late act of the Legislature of an additional $100,000, in three yearly appropriations, for additional build- ings to be erceted, in all $170,000, allowed by the State for the University. Add these to the cost of counnon school structures, and we have al- ready expended in school buildings over $4,800,- 000 for the simple purpose of housing the infant organism, our common school system here planted. We have scen a movement in cities like St. Panl, Minneapolis, Stillwater, and Winona, towards the local organization of a completed system of home schools, carrying instruction free to the University course, with a total enrollment of 13,500 scholars and 265 teachers, daily seated in buildings, all in the modern style of school architecture and school furniture, costing to these cities the sum of #850,000 for buildings, and for instruction the sum of $118,000 aumnally.
We have, in addition to these schools in the
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HISTORY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
cities named, other home and fitting schools, to whom have been paid $400 each, under the law for the "Encouragement of Higher Education," passed in 1878, and amended in 1879, as follows: Anoka, Austin, Blue Earth City, Chatfield, Can- non Falls, Crookston, Duluth, Detroit, Eyota, Faribault, Garden City, Glencoe, Howard Lake, Hastings, Henderson, Kasson, Litchfield, Lanes- boro, Le Sueur, Lake City, Monticello, Moorhead, Mankato, Northfield, Owatonna, Osseo, Plainview, Red Wing, Rushford, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Peter, Sauk Centre, Spring Valley, Wells, Waterville, Waseca, Wabasha, Wilmar, Winnebago City, Zum- brota, and Mantorville.
These forty-two State aid schools have paid in all for buildings and furniture the gross sum of $642,700; some of these buildings are superior in all that constitutes superiority in school arch- itecture. The Rochester building and grounds cost the sum of $90,000. Several others, such as the Anstin, Owatonna, Faribault, Hastings, Red Wing, Rushford, St. Cloud, and St. Peter school- houses, exceed in valne the sum of $25,000; and others of these buildings are estimated at $6,000, $8,000, $10,000, and $15,000. In all they have an enrollment of scholars in attendance on classes graded up to the University course, numbering 13,000, under 301 tenchers, at an ammal salary amounting in all to $123,569, and having in their A, B, C, D) classes 1,704 scholars, of whom 126 were prepared to enter the sub-freshman class of the State University in 1880, and the number on- tering these grades in the year 1879-80 was 934, of whom 400 were non-residents of the districts. And in all these forty-two home schools of the people, the fitting schools of the State University, one miforni course of study, arlicunding with some course in The University, was observed. As many other courses as the local boards desired were also carried on in these schools. This, in short, is a part of what we have done.
CHAPTER XLV.
ยท
TIME SAVED BY THE GRADED SCHOOL SYSTEM -- DI- VISION OF LABOR THE GREATEST CAUSE OF GROWTHI LOCAL TAXATION IN DIFFERENT STATES STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM KNOWS NO SEOT -IGNORANCE IN- HRUITED, THE COMMON FOE OF MANKIND - THE NATURAL AND NATIONAL RIGHTS OF PUPILS.
The organic elements that, regularly combine to
form governments, are similar to those organic ele- ments that combine to form systems of mental enl- ture. The primitive type of government is the family. This is the lowest organic form. If no improvement is ever made upon this primitive ele- ment, by other combinations of an artificial nature, human governments would never rise higher than the family. If society is to advance, this organ- ism widens into the clan, and in like manner the clan into the village, and the village into the more dignified province, and the province into the State. All these artificial conditions above the family are the evidences of growth in pursuance of the laws of artificial life. In like manner the growth of in- tellectual organisms proceeds from the family in- struction to the common school. Here the arti- ficial organism would cease to advance, and would remain stationary, as the clan in the organism of government, unless the common school should pass on to the wider and still higher unit of a graded system reaching upwards to the high school. Now this was the condition of the com- mon school in America during the Colonial state, and even down to the national organization. Soon after this period, the intellectual life of the nation began to be aroused, and within the last fifty years, the State common school had culminated in the higher organism of the high school, and it is of very recent date that the high school has reached up to and articulated in any State with the State University. On this eontinent, both Gov- ernment and State schools started into life, freed from the domination of institutions grown effete from age and loss of vital energy. Here, both en- tered into wider combinations, reaching higher results than the ages of the pust. And yet, in od- uentional organizing, we are far below the stand- ard of perfection we shall nttuin in the rapidly advancing future. Not until our system of edu- cation has attained n national character as com- plete in its related articulation as the civil organ- izalions of towns, counties, mid states in the national Union, can onr educational institutions do the work required of this age. And in Minnesota, one of the leading states in connected school organic relations, we live, us yet, some 4,000 common school districts, with an enrollment of some 100,_ 000 schohrs of different ages, from five to twenty- one years; no higher in the scale than the com- mon school, prior to the first high school on the Americmm continent. These chaotic elements, ont- side of the systems of graded schools now aided
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DIVISION OF LABOR A CAUSE OF GROWTH.
by the State, must be redneed to the same organ- ized graded system as those that now artienlate in their course with the State Univ. isity.
Our complete organization us u state system for educationd purposes, equal lo The demands of the state, and required by the spirit of The uge, will not be consummated until our four thonsand school districts shall reap the full benefits of a graded system reaching to the high school course, artien- lating with some course in the State University, and a course in common with every other high school in the State. The system thus organized might be required to report to the Board of Re- gents, as the legal head of the organization, of the State School system, not only the numerical sta- tisties, but the number and standing of the elasses in each of the high schools in the several studies of the uniform course, established by the Board of Regents, under the direction of the State Legisla- ture. To this system must finally belong the ecr- titieate of standing and graduation, entitling the holder to enter the designated elass in any grade of the state sehools, named therein, whether High School or Universety. But this system is not and ean never be a skeleton merely, made up of life- less materials, as an anatomical specimen in the office of the student of The practice of the healing art. Within this organism there must preside the living teacher, bringing into this organie struc- ture, not the debris of the etfete systems of the past, not the mental exuvia of dwarfed intellectual powers of this or any former age, but the teacher inspired by nature to feel und appreciate her meth- ods, and ever moved by her divine afflatns.
Every living organism has its own laws of growth; and the one we have under consideration may in its most important foalure be compared to the growth of the forest tree. In its ourlier years the forest tree strikes its roots deep into the earth and matures its growing rootlets, the support of its future trink, to stand against the storms and winds to which it is at all times exposed. When fully rooted in the ground, with a trunk matured by the growth of years, it puts forth its infant branches and leaflets, suited to its immature but maturing nature; finally it gives evidence of stal- wart powers, and now its widespreading top tow- ers aloft among its compeers rearing its head high among the loftiest denizens of the woods. In like manner is the growth of the maturing state school organism. In the common school, the foundation is laid for the rising structure, but here is no
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