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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
Gc 976.4 W88c v. 2 pt.2 1755089
M. G.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02430 9632
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/comprehensivehis22woot
A COMPREHENSIVE
HISTORY OF TEXAS
1685 to 1897 V. 2,pt + 21
1845-1897
EDITED BY DUDLEY G. WOOTEN
PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED
IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II. -
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM G. SCARFF DALLAS 1898
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1755089 A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
dollars per annum for each of their children, while learning the " first rudiments," till they commenced to write, and eighteen dollars for the rest of their attendance. Each student educated in "the establishment" was required, on leaving, to pay ten dollars "gratitude money" for rewarding the teacher at the end of the teacher's contract.
In April, 1830, another decree was made providing that until the Lancastrian schools can be established in the State the executive shall cause six primary schools to be established on the basis designated in the previous decree, with some modifica- tions, which were specified, reducing the pay of the teacher to five hundred dollars per annum and gratitude money to six dollars per pupil.
These efforts of the government, however, were not satisfactory,-at least, to the Texanos,-largely, perhaps, on account of the preference allowed Spanish over English in the tuition ; and at a convention in 1832 at San Felipe de Austin, from
DALLAS HIGH SCHOOL.
which the Castilian population held aloof, as if it were a disloyal assemblage of " Texanes Americanos," as the Mexicans termed them, a committee was appointed to petition the State government for a donation of land for the purpose of creating a fund for the future establishment of primary schools. Little or no attention seems to have been paid to such petition, if presented, but other provision was made, of a limited character, to produce school funds. This was under a general decree of April, 1833, whereby also Juntas were established, charged to take special care that the funds destined for the schools be used expressly for that object, and that they be not separated therefrom for any cause whatever. These Juntas were further required to provide schools and teachers, and to see that the teachers "do not render useless by their example the lessons it is their duty to give on morality and good breeding."
. So far nothing of note was accomplished by the government towards establish- ing free schools, much less a definite system of public education ; and, as officially
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reported by a commission of the government in 1834, while Texas was still a Mexican province, there were only three private schools then in operation in the province, -- one on the Brazos, one on the Red River, and the other in San Antonio, where the teacher got twenty-five dollars per month for his services. (Report of Almonte. )
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In 1844 a committee of the city council of San Antonio concluded that the charter of the city made it obligatory upon the council to encourage the opening of a public school, and recommended that the old court be so repaired as to serve for both court and school purposes ; and certain lots were to be appropriated for this object as soon as they would realize a fair price, but for some reason the land was not ordered to be sold till August, 1849, and in accordance with the recommenda- tion of the council, a building was constructed for the double purpose of a court and school-house, but does not appear to have been used for a school.
There were no free schools, established as such, by direct provision of the State government till, in 1854, long after the annexation of Texas to the United States.
The period during which the Spaniards occupied Texas territory,-until the Mexican Revolution in 1821, -known as the " mission period," was remarkable on account of the efforts of the missionaries to establish their settlements for the conver- sion and education of the Indians. The chapels of the missions were generally built of stone, and strengthened like fortresses, to serve for the purposes of defence from the hostile natives, as well as for habitations, churches, and schools. The most impor- tant of these missions at the time, and one of great historic interest, is the " Alamo,"1 still standing in a prominent degree of preservation in the heart of the city, and known in history as the Thermopyla of Texas, where Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Bonham, and other heroic spirits fell in clefence of the American settlers ; and " La Concepcion," near the city, the walls of which, according to church traditions, were cemented with mortar made up with milk furnished as a sacred contribution by Indian converts, and partly from thé breasts of Indian women.
Action of the Republic of Texas .- Following the expressions of the Con- stitution of Coahuila and Texas and the action of the government on the subject of education came the declaration of independence of the republic of Texas, adopted in 1836, at Washington, Texas, wherein, among other causes of complaint, it was declared that the Mexican government had "failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources (the public domain) ; and although it is an axiom in political science that unless a people are educated it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty or the capacity of self-government."
Nothing was said about "teaching the church catechism," or anything to con- nect education with the church as a matter of government, as had been incorporated in the Constitution of Coahuila and Texas ; but it is notable that at the very forma- tion of the organic law of the young republic attention was fixed upon the general domain, instead of direct taxation, as a means of providing for public education. Ilow grandly the "axiom in political science," as it was expressed in the new declaration of the sovereignty of the people, worked in the promotion of education will be seen as the history progresses. The new Constitution made it the duty of the Congress of the republic, as soon as circumstances permitted, to provide by
" The Alamo was never an important mission, except for the siege of the same in 1836 .-- EDITOR.
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
law a general system of education. Schools were soon developed by the impetus of increased population, academies and other educational institutions sought char- ters from the government, and, as the public records show, as early as June 5, 1837, the President of the republic, Sam Houston, approved " An Act to Incorpo- rate the Trustees of Independence Academy and the University of San Augustine," which were separate institutions, but were embraced in the same act of the first Congress of the republic of Texas. The institutions were located at San Augustine. in San Augustine County. The same day, June 5, President Houston approved "An Act Incorporating the Trustees of Washington College," to be located at or near the town of Washington, on the Brazos River. These acts of incorporation provided in effect, as do nearly all the charters granted by the republic, as well as by the State of Texas, for educational institutions, that they shall be accessible to all students without regard to religious or political opinions. Such institutions were generally maintained by subscriptions to their respective funds, or by tuition, or both, or in some way by private enterprise. The amount of property which they were to hold was generally expressed in the respective acts of incorporation, and the property was generally, but not always, exempted from taxation. Very often, too, upon application to the legislature, special acts were passed prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors near the premises. Special qualification was made as to the Bible in two instances, -one in an act incorporating the "Texas Christian Col- lege," to be located where the largest subscription may induce, and providing that "the Bible may be fully taught, but no partisan, sectional, sectarian, or denomina- tional peculiarity shall be taught or encouraged in the college," and the other in an act incorporating " Mckenzie Male and Female College," in Red River County, which provided that "the Bible may be publicly read and used as a text-book."
The idea of projecting a University to be supported by the government took some shape in an act introduced in the Congress of the republic, entitled " An Act to Establish the University of Texas," which, on April 13, 1838, was referred to a special committee (page 7, " House Journal"' ), but, as far so the records show, was not further considered during that session of Congress.
In his message of December 20, 1838, to the third Congress of the republic, convened at Houston, President Lamar thus expressed his views as to the impor- tance of liberal landed provision for the promotion of public education, while the general domain was ample for the purpose : "The present is a propitious moment to lay the foundation of a great moral and intellectual edifice, which will in after ages be hailed as the chief ornament and blessing of Texas. A suitable appropria- tion of lands to the purpose of general education can be made at this time without inconvenience to the government or the people ; but defer it till the public domain shall have passed from our hands, and the uneducated youths of Texas will consti- tute the living monuments of our neglect and remissness. A liberal endowment which will be adequate to the general diffusion of a good rudimental education in every clistrict of the republic and to the establishment of a University where the highest branches of science may be taught can now be effected without the expen- .diture of a single dollar. Postpone it a few years, and millions will be necessary to accomplish the great design."
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GROUP OF DALLAS SCHOOLS.
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Up to this time, however, Congress had been too much engaged with the work of political rehabilitation to admit of proper attention to any but the more pressing demands of the government incident to the war for independence from Mexico and for protecting the people from Indian depredations. The permanent location of the capital of the republic even had not been determined, nor was the question settled till some time afterwards, when Lamar himself, acting with the special com- missioners, selected the site at Austin.
Following and in line with Lamar's suggestions, Mr. Cullen, from the commit- tee on education, to which was referred that part of the President's message re- lating to education, reported and strongly recommended the adoption of a bill entitled " An Act to Appropriate Certain Lands for the Purpose of Establishing a General System of Education," and proposing a grant of three leagues (thirteen thousand two hundred and eighty-four acres) of the public domain to each county for establishing a primary school or academy in the county ; and authorizing the President of the republic to have surveyed from any of its vacant domain twenty leagues of land, which are to be set apart and appropriated for the establishment and endowment of two colleges or universities, one in the eastern and the other in the western part of Texas.
The act passed with fifty leagues substituted for twenty leagues, and was ap- proved January 26, 1839. The same day President Lamar approved an act estab- lishing and incorporating the "College of De Kalb" at De Kalb, in Red River County, the act naming a board of "superintendents," exempting the property of the college from taxation, and authorizing the board, in addition to selecting teachers and providing for the educational and financial management of the school, to "suppress and abate nuisances within half a mile in any direction from the premises," and to levy and exact a fine of from twenty-five to one hundred dol- lars from all retailers of spirituous liquors sold within the prescribed limits. The Congress also granted four leagues of land in fee simple for buildings and apparatus, and "for promotion of arts, literature, and science." An act of 1840, "Estab- lishing Rutersville College in Fayette County," named a board of trustees, with usual powers, provided that pupils of all denominations shall have like advantages, exempted the college property from taxation, provided against selling liquor near the college, and granted four leagues of land for " college buildings and apparatus, and to promote arts, literature, and science,"-all with the proviso that the college property shall not at any time exceed twenty-five thousand dollars in value. The act was subsequently amended to extend the property limitation to one hundred thousand dollars, and requiring the trustees to apply to the District Court to abate the liquor nuisance in the college neighborhood.
An early effort of the government for promoting public free schools in the counties was an act of February 5, 1840, "In relation to common schools and academies and to provide for securing the lands formerly appropriated for purposes of education." It made the chief justice and two associate justices (then existing officers) of each county ex officio a board of school commissioners, with full power in their respective counties to receive, lease, and sell all property appropriated for the schools, and required them to have located and surveyed the three leagues of land appropriated under the act of January 26, 1839, and granted an additional
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
league (four thousand four hundred and twenty-eight acres) for the purpose of necessary scientific endowment, one-half of it for an academic school and the re- mainder to be distributed among the various common-school districts in the county. It provided that school districts be organized in the county when the population or interests of education required.
Numerous private as well as denominational institutions of learning were char- tered by direct acts of the republic and subsequent State legislation, till a law was
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PRAIRIE VIEW STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.
enacted by the State prescribing a general mode for such incorporations, under which the charter articles, when framed accordingly, have only to be accepted and filed in the State department at Austin.
THE STATE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION.
The Congress of the United States having passed resolutions providing for the annexation of Texas to the American Union, resolutions of annexation were adopted by the convention of the people of the republic of Texas, held July 4, 1845, at Austin, and, among other things, it was mutually provided that the Texas republic should retain as a State of the Union all its vacant and unappropriated public domain. The Constitution which was adopted made an exception restricting State appropriations by declaring ( Article 7, Section 8) that appropriations for money should not be made for a longer term than two years, "except for purposes of education." . Article 10 required the State to make "suitable provisions for the support and maintenance of public schools," and further provided as follows :--
"SEC. 2 .- The legislature shall, as early as practicable, establish free schools throughout the State, and shall furnish means for their support by taxation on property. And it shall be the duty of the legislature to set apart not less than one- tenth of the annual revenue of the State derivable from taxation as a perpetual fund, which fund shall be appropriated to the support of free public schools, and no law shall ever be made diverting said fund to any other use ; and until such time as the legislature shall provide for the establishment of such schools in the several districts
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of the State, the fund thus created shall remain as a charge against the State passed to the credit of the free common-school fund."
The precedent of municipal taxation for the support of free schools was set by an act of the legislature, in 1846, authorizing the corporation of Galveston to levy a tax for such purpose, limited to one-half per cent. on the value of the real estate of the corporation.
An act of 1849 exempted from taxation all buildings with furniture and library used solely for purposes of education, together with the lands owned by educational institutions, on which they are situated, not exceeding ten acres.
An act of January 31, 1854, appropriated two million dollars of the five-per- cent. bonds of the United States remaining in the State treasury as a school fund for the support and maintenance of public schools, to be called the "special school fund ;" the interest therefrom to be distributed for the benefit of the school fund.
An act of January 30, 1854, "to encourage the construction of railroads in Texas," and the act of February 11, 1854, relative to the Galveston and Brazos Navigation Company, appropriated "alternate sections" of lands in large quantities to the railroads and navigation companies and to the free-school fund, the corpora- tions being required to survey the school sections for the State, as well as their own lands. These grants aggregated many millions of acres, including about thirty-two million acres to the railroads.
An act of 1856 provided that " no statute of limitations shall run in favor of any one who has heretofore settled or may hereafter settle upon or occupy any of the lands that have heretofore been granted, or may hereafter be granted, by the State for purposes of education." Other acts of 1856 provided for "investment of the special school fund in the bonds of railroad companies incorporated by the State," and for the " disposition and sale of the fifty leagues of University lands."
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What was known as the "University Act of 1858" granted the University of Texas one hundred thousand dollars in United States bonds, then in the State treasury ; transferred to it the fifty leagues of land originally set apart by the repub- lic of Texas for the "endowment of two colleges or universities," and further set apart to it "one section of land out of every ten sections which have heretofore been or may be hereafter surveyed and reserved for the use of the State, under the act of January 30, 1854, to encourage the construction of railroads in Texas," and the act of February 11, 1854, granting lands to the Galveston and Brazos Navi- gation Company. The Constitution of 1876 annulled the proposition as to the alternate sections, converting the lands to the free-school fund, and substituting to the University but one million acres of far less valuable lands, in lieu of some three million two hundred thousand acres to which the University was entitled under the aet of 1858.
The War and Reconstruction .- The constitutional convention of 1861, held during the secession of the Southern States, adopted the Constitution of 1845, with various amendments, simply adapted to the new order of things, but without any change of Article 10, on "education," or the two years' provision as to ap- propriations for educational purposes. This provision was maintained till the ex- ception was dropped from the Constitution of 1876.
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
After the war resulting from secession, commonly known as the "war of the re- bellion," came the Constitution as amended and adopted by the convention of 1866, and some ordinances of the convention affecting previous action of the legislature as to the disposition of school funds, and an ordinance which further affected the funds, those of the University especially, on account of some of the proceeds of sales of the school and University lands having been received in "Confederate money" during the war, the ordinance declaring the " war debt null and void." The other (Ordi- nance 12) was for "securing the common school and University fund," merging the funds in one title, as were the accounts of them subsequently kept by the State comptroller, so that afterwards, when it was proposed to establish the Univer- sity, it was difficult to designate to what amount of the funds the University was entitled.
The legislature had all along proceeded by statute, under the existing organic law, to establish free schools, and had incorporated the idea of providing for one or more State universities as part of the State system of education or free-school sys- tem of the State. The Constitution of 1866 amended the provisions of Article 10 on "education" by declaring that the legislature shall, as early as practicable, estab- lish a system of free public schools throughout the State ; and as a basis for the endowment and support of said system all the funds, lands, and other property heretofore set apart, or that may hereafter be set apart and appropriated for the support and maintenance of public schools, shall constitute the public-school fund ; and said fund and the income derived therefrom shall be a perpetual fund for the education of all the white scholastic inhabitants of this State, and no law shall ever be made appropriating said fund to any other use or purpose. It further provided that all the alternate sections of land reserved by the State out of previous or future grants to railroad companies or other corporations for internal improvements, or for the development of the wealth or resources of the State, shall be set apart as the per- petual school fund of the State ; that the legislature shall hereafter appropriate one- half of the proceeds of sales of public lands to the perpetual school fund, and shall provide for the levying of a tax for educational purposes, and that the sum arising from said tax which may be collected from Africans or persons of African descent shall be exclusively appropriated for the maintenance of a system of public schools for Africans and their children ; that the University funds shall be invested in like manner provided for the public-school funds, and the legislature shall have no power to appropriate the University fund for any other purpose than that of the maintenance of universities, and shall at an early day make such provisions by law as will organize and put into operation the University.
Next came the period of "reconstruction," for restoring to the Union the " rebel states," as they were called, during which a State Constitution was adopted in convention held under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, and it was finally ratified by the people in July, 1869. This Constitution reaffirmed the section of that of 1866, fixing the basis of the public-school endowment, except the clause confining its use to the education of white children, which had to be changed under the reconstruction provisions against " race discriminations," and was so changed as to provide that " the perpetual school fund shall be applied, as needed, exclusively for the education of all the scholastic inhabitants of the State, and no law shall ever
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be made appropriating such fund for any other use or purpose." It was also pro- vided that
" All sums of money that may come to this State from the sale of any portion of the public domain of the State shall also constitute a part of the public-school fund. And the legislature shall appropriate all the proceeds resulting from sales of public lands of this State to such public-school fund, and shall set apart for the benefit of public schools one-fourth of the annual revenue derivable from general taxation ; and shall also cause to be levied and collected an annual poll-tax of one dollar on all male persons in this State between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years, for the benefit of public schools." "And said fund and the income there- from and the taxes herein provided for school purposes shall be a perpetual fund to be applied" as above stated.
The Constitution secures these provisions by annulling the "Ordinance of Secession" of 1861 and all legislation based thereon ; and declares, in effect, that the legislatures which sat in the State from March, 1861, to August, 1866, were unconstitutional and their enactments not binding, except as to such regulations as were not violative of the Constitution and laws of the United States or in aid of the rebellion against the United States. The legislature which assembled in Austin on August 6, 1866, is declared to have been provisional only, and its acts were to be respected only so far as they were not violative of the Constitution and laws of the United States, or were not intended to reward those who participated in the late rebellion, or to discriminate between citizens on account of race or color, or to operate prejudicially to any class of citizens. It is further declared that " All debts created by the so-called State of Texas from and after the 28th day of January, 1861, and prior to the 5th day of August, 1865, were and are null and void, and the legislature is prohibited from making any provision for the acknowledgment or payment of such debts."
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