USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
Under these provisions the University, though not then organized so as to be in any way a matter of concern in the war, suffered great loss by some seventy-four thousand eight hundred and four dollars and forty-eight cents having been received in "Confederate notes" in payment for University lands and turned over to the Confederate States' depositary. As to other interests involved in the same way, no estimates appear to have been presented of the loss to the free-school fund and other special trusts resulting from the State being prohibited from paying any debt involving Confederate money, further than appears in a message of Governor Davis, April 29, 1870, stating :---
"The University fund and lands may, I suppose, properly be considered as part of the common-school fund, though not directly included therein by the Con- stitution.
"It will be noticed that in the comptroller's report of assets the accounts bear from year to a'ear the items 'Special school fund, $79,409.50,' 'University land sale, $10, 300.41,' and 'Six-per-cent. manuscript State bonds, for school fund, $320,367. 13.' These items represent State warrants or State bonds issued during the war, and representing obligations which are now void and should no longer be borne on the comptroller's report :. But the comptroller considers it his duty to continue them until the legislature directs otherwise."
VOL. II .- 28
434
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
An act of 1871 amended the general school law by providing that the board of education shall apportion the territory of the State anew into convenient educa- tional districts. The State superintendent was authorized to appoint the district supervisors, the supervisors were to appoint the school directors and could act as examiners of teachers. Thus, the school officers were very numerous and involved an expense that was well calculated to exhaust the school fund, if not to bankrupt the State, if the system were maintained. At all events, it was too extravagant for maintenance by the counties.
Existing Organic Law .- The convention of 1875 adopted the Constitution which was ratified the following year, and is known as the Constitution of 1876. It expresses, among the subjects for which the legislature may "levy taxes and impose burdens upon the people," the "support of public schools, in which shall be in- cluded colleges and universities supported by the State and the Agricultural and Mechanical College."
" ARTICLE 7, SEC. 2 .- All funds, lands, and other property heretofore set apart and appropriated for the support of public schools ; all the alternate sections of · land reserved by the State of grants heretofore made or that may hereafter be made to railroads, or other corporations, of any nature whatsoever ; one-half of the public domain of the State, and all sums of money that may come to the State from the sale of any portion of the same shall constitute a perpetual public-school fund."
Section 3 provides for setting apart annually one-fourth of the State revenue from occupation taxes, one dollar poll-tax, and such an ad valorem State tax, not exceeding twenty cents on the one hundred dollars' valuation, as will suffice, with the available school fund from other sources, for support of the public free schools of the State for six months in the year ; and authorized local taxation by the vote of school districts, not to exceed twenty cents on the one hundred dollars' valuation, the limit on the district-school tax not applying to incorporated cities and towns constituting separate and independent school districts
Section 5 provides that the principal of bonds and other funds and principal of sales of the school lands and the taxes herein authorized shall be the available school fund, to which the legislature may add, not exceeding one per cent. annually of the total value of the permanent school fund.
Section 7 provides that " Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provision shall be made for both."
Other sections regulate the sale of school lands and disposition of school funds to the counties, and the sale of asylum lands and use of the funds.
"SEC. 10 .- The legislature shall, as soon as practicable, establish, organize, and provide for the maintenance, support, and direction of a university of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled 'The University of Texas,' for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences, including an agricultural and mechanical department."
Section 11 confirms all grants of lands and other property heretofore made to the University, provided that the one-tenth of the alternate sections of the lands granted to railroads, which were appropriated for the University of Texas by act
-M
435
LANE-THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
of February 11, 1858, entitled " An Act to Establish the University of Texas," shall not be included in or constitute a part of the permanent University fund.
Section 12 provides for selling the University lands and collections of debts due on account of the University, and against granting relief to purchasers of the University lands.
Section 13 constitutes the Agricultural and Mechanical College a branch of the University of Texas for "instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, and the natural sciences connected therewith."
"SEC. 14 .- The legislature shall also, when deemed practicable, establish and provide for the maintenance of a college or branch university for the instruction of the colored youths of the State, to be located by a vote of the people ; provided, that no tax shall be levied and no money appropriated out of the general revenue, either for this purpose or for the establishment and erection of the buildings of the University of Texas.
"SEC. 15 .- In addition to the lands heretofore granted to the University of Texas, there is hereby set apart and appropriated, for the endowment, maintenance, and support of said University and its branches, one million acres of the unappro- priated public domain of the State, to be designated and surveyed as may be pro- vided by law ; and said lands shall be sold under the same regulations and the proceeds invested in the same manner as is provided for the sale and investment of the permanent University fund ; and the legislature shall not have power to grant any relief to the purchasers of said lands."
Section 10 of Article 11 provides that the legislature may constitute any city or town a separate and independent school district, and prescribes the requirements for authorizing city authorities to levy and colleet a tax for the support and mainte- nance of public institutions of learning.
The provision in Article 7, Section 5, that the legislature may add one per cent. annually of the permanent to the available school fund, is known as the "Jester amendment," adopted in 1891 and put into effect by the twenty-second legislature. It added two hundred and twenty-six thousand four hundred and eighty dollars to the available school fund in 1892.
THE PRESENT SCHOOL SYSTEM.
After the annexation of Texas to the United States, the public-school system of the State was subjected to various important changes. Naturally, at the organization of the government, the management of educationa! interests was largely left to the cities and counties and boards of school trustees, the counties being generally divided, when the population justified, into school districts with respective school commissioners. Eventually subdivisions of school districts were allowed, under what was termed the " community system," where a sufficient number of the people petitioned for it to the school authorities. Cities and towns were allowed to incor- porate as "independent school districts" under separate school boards and city school superintendents, and established "graded" and "high" schools, in addition to the grammar and primary schools. The disposition of free-school funds of the counties, derived from State grants and special appropriations and taxation, was charged to the county officers, subject to legislative regulation.
436
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
At first the State treasurer, and subsequently the State comptroller, was ex officio State superintendent of instruction, with a certain general supervision of the school fund and some direction as to its distribution and use in the several counties, reports of county-school finances and school work being required to be made to him, and he to report to the governor as to the condition of such matters and the general interests of education in the State. This was before the population of Texas had grown so as to require a more thorough system of regulation.
In 1868 the " reconstruction convention" set apart all the proceeds of the sales of public lands, and required that one-fourth of the State revenues and the poll-tax of one dollar on each male citizen between twenty-one and sixty years of age he appropriated for school purposes. The scholastic population entitled to tuition in the free schools was to embrace all educable children between six and eighteen years of age, and the legislature was required to provide for the maintenance of the schools for four months during the year.
The State comptroller was ex officio State superintendent of education till the office of " Superintendent of Public Instruction" was established by the Constitution of 1866, which prescribed four years for the term of service and fixed the salary at two thousand dollars per annum, besides creating a board of education to consist of the governor, comptroller, and the superintendent, and was charged with the " man- agement and control of the perpetual school fund and the common schools, under such regulations as the legislature may prescribe." The first State superintendent of the public schools under these provisions was Pryor Lea, appointed by Governor Throckmorton, November 10, 1866. The existing government and officers, how- ever, were displaced the following year under the " reconstruction acts" of Congress, and E. M. Wheelock, who was appointed superintendent by Provisional Governor Pease, in August, 1867, served the balance of the four years' term, In May, 1871, J. C. de Gress succeeded Wheelock, by appointment of Governor Davis, but was ousted from office before his term expired by the installation of O. N. Hollings- worth, who was elected superintendent December 2, 1873, on the same ticket with Governor Coke.
Under an act of 1871, the salary of the superintendent of public instruction was fixed at three thousand dollars, and the board of education was constituted of the superintendent, the governor, and the attorney-general. An act of 1873. besides keeping the salary at three thousand dollars, gave the superintendent a clerk at one thousand eight hundred dollars, and the same act provided for county-school boards, the president to be ex officio county superintendent, the directors to be allowed four dollars a day, when employed in school work, for not over twenty days, and the county superintendent the same pay for not over thirty days in the year. The school ad valorem tax was fixed at twenty-five cents on the one hundred dollars' valuation of property, and other disposition was made of funds from sales of school lands for sup- port of the schools according to the provisions of the Constitution. An act of 1876 in effect abolished the office of State school superintendent by making no provision for it, but provided for a board of education composed of the governor, comptroller, and secretary of state, and allowed a clerk at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum. The department of education was reorganized in 1884, when the office of superintendent of public instruction was revived and a new board of education was
437
LANE-THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
created, consisting of the governor, comptroller, and secretary of state, with the State school superintendent ex officio secretary of the board, the term of office of the superintendent being two years, and the salary two thousand five hundred dollars a year, as they have since remained fixed.
The secretary of the board of education. B. M. Baker, was appointed State superintendent, May 5, 1884, by Governor Ireland. He was succeeded by O. H. Cooper, who was elected in November, 1886, and re-elected in November, 1888, but, having resigned before his second term expired, Governor Ross appointed to the place H. C. Pritchett, who was elected to the office in November, 1890, but also resigned before his term expired, and was succeeded by Governor Hogg appointing J. M. Carlisle, who was afterwards elected and is the present incumbent of the office. Superintendent Baker, while secretary of the board of education, induced the legis- lature to make the office of State superintendent elective instead of appointive, and very materially systematized the workings and effectiveness of the department of education.
Important economic changes from the expensive school systen of the "period of reconstruction" were found to be necessary following that period. Among those adopted was one recommended by Governor Roberts, classifying the teachers into several grades, so that great saving was effected in the salaries, instead of paying the teachers all alike. The prices of sale of the public lands were reduced, and various measures were taken for the more rapid disposition of them to produce greater funds for the support of the free schools and establishment of the University. What is known as the " fifty cents' act," reducing the price of the public lands to that figure, was suggested by Governor Roberts. The legislature also passed an act setting apart one-half of the public domain of the disputed territory of Greer County for the free schools, and reserving the other half for the public debt'; and some years ago Governor Hogg, while attorney-general, instituted suits for the recovery of several million acres of land, claimed to have been improperly granted to railroad companies, including over a million acres for railroad "sidings and switches." The suits were prosecuted with some success by Attorney-General Cul- berson, as were others to recover school lands originated by the latter officer, and the lands reverting to the State may accrue partly to the benefit of the school fund.
According to statements of the land commissioner, some three hundred and fifty-two thousand acres of the "sidings and switches" lands have so far been re- covered. The larger suits are based on the constitutional requirement that one-half of all the public domain of the State shall be reserved to the free-school fund, but it is a question whether lands recovered in these suits will revert simply to the public domain, or any part to the benefit of the free-school fund, unless the legislature should so direct, and it might possibly do by dividing them between the free schools and the University, as was proposed to be done in an act prepared for the twenty-second legislature, but not introduced, as it was deemed inexpedient to attempt any pro- vision for disposing of the lands in advance of their recovery.
The General School Law .- The result of legislation governing the school system has been the enactment of an elaborate general law, with various modifica- tions and closer adaptations at each biennial session of the legislature. The scope
I Lost by decision of United States Supreme Court in 1896, -EDITOR.
438
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
of the law passed by the twenty-third legislature-that of 1893-is indicated in its comprehensive caption, as follows :-
" An act to provide for a more efficient system of public free schools for the State of Texas ; defining the school funds ; providing for the investment of the per- manent fund and the apportionment of the available fund ; defining the duties of certain State officers in reference to the public free schools ; creating the offices of State and county superintendents ; providing for their election and salary, and pre- scribing their qualifications and duties ; prescribing the duties of other officers in reference to public schools and public-school funds ; making county judges ex officio county superintendents in all counties not having county superintendents, and pro- viding for their compensation ; providing for the election of school trustees and pre- scribing their qualifications and duties ; providing for the creation of school districts in all the counties of this St ite ; providing for the levy and collection of special taxes for the further maintenance of the public free schools and the erection of school- houses ; providing for boards of examiners and the issuance of teachers' certificates; providing compensation and prescribing the duties of teachers employed thereunder, and preventing the altering or changing of teachers' certificates ; regulating the transfer of the school funds ; fixing the scholastic age ; providing for taking the scholastic census ; authorizing trustees to administer oaths ; and providing penalties for refusing to answer questions in regard to the age of children, and other penalties for violations of the provisions of this act ; repealing all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this act ; and declaring an emergency." (General Laws, 1893. Chapter 122. )
The last report of Superintendent Carlisle shows that there are eleven thou- sand seven hundred and twenty-eight public-school teachers and one hundred and sixty-three cities and towns having graded public schools in Texas.
STATE EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENT.
According to the last report of the State comptroller of March 31, 1893, the total amount of county. State, and railroad bonds held by the permanent school fund was $7,675.922, there being also on hand $609,073 cash to the credit of the fund. These items, with some $14,000,000 of interest-bearing land notes and about twenty- three million acres remaining unsold of the school lands, constitute the State's public- school endowment at this time. Some twenty million acres of the unsold lands are leased at four cents an acre per annum, and the rentals are applied to the annual available school fund. The University lands are leased at three cents an acre, and the rentals are added to the available University fund. The price for leasing of both the school and University lands for some years prior to 1887 was as high as six cents an acre per annum, having been reduced since to meet the decreased demand for grazing lands, on account of the reduced value of cattle. Besides the regular State endowment, each county has a separate special grant from the State of four leagues, -seventeen thousand seven hundred and twelve acres. As these lands are sold, the interest on the funds is applied annually to the support of the schools. The lands thus granted to the counties aggregate some five million eight hundred and fifty-six thousand four hundred acres, exclusive of a general reservation from the public domain, from which counties remaining unorganized are to have their four-league grants.
439
LANE -- THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
In addition to the interest on bonds and land notes and rental from leases, the State levies an annual ad valorem school-tax of one and one-fourth mills, and appro- priates it, together with one-fourth of the occupation taxes and an annual poll-tax of one dollar per voter, to the available school fund. The entire amount of available school fund apportioned for 1892 and 1893 for a scholastic population of 453,720 white and 151,685 colored children, from eight to fifteen (since changed to from eight to seventeen) years of age, in the State, was $3,462,890, derived from the school-tax at twelve and a half cents on the one-hundred-dollar property valuation, and from interest on bonds, interest on land notes, leases of school lands, local school taxation, and the annual transfer of one per cent. from the permanent school fund.
The entire educational endowments of the State may be summed as follows :-
FREE-SCHOOL FUND.
Bonds .
$7,675,922
Cash
609,073
$8,234,995
Land, 23,000,000 acres. Value
57,500,000
Total State school fund .
$65,784,995
COUNTY-SCHOOL FUND.
Land, 5,856,400 acres. Value
14,641,000
Total State and county school funds $80,425,995
UNIVERSITY FUND.
Bonds
$575,840
Land, 2,020,040 acres. Value 5,050, 100
5,625,940
Grand total educational endowment $86,051,935
Under the Constitution, funds of the University are limited to investments in bonds of the State and the United States ; but the school funds are not confined to these securities, and are mainly invested in county bonds in amounts proportioned to the property values and constitutional indebtedness of the counties applying for the loans, and in this way the funds operate for local benefits within the State. County bonds thus held by the State in trust for the permanent school fund amount to $3,980,000, payment of which is guaranteed by the State. There are also $2, 162,600 in State bonds held by the school fund, besides over $1,500,000 in railroad bonds belonging to the fund.
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS.
The provision for endowing a State university, as well as for establishing the public free schools in Texas, and the legislation for organizing "one or more uni- versities," or, as the iden came to be modified, "The University of Texas," may be attributed for some measure of influence to the suggestions of President Lamar, who, in his message to the Congress of the republic of Texas in 1838-39. urged liberal appropriations of land, while the domain was vacant and ample. for the pur- poses of education. His message doubtless had great weight in Congress, judging
!
440
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
from the report of the committee on education, and the liberality of the republic is no doubt what stimulated the State to still greater munificence in the endowment of the free schools and the University, -the former with perhaps the grandest school patrimony in the world, and the latter with somewhat princely provision for its sup- port.
As for the free schools, almost any provision for them within the power of the people would have been a matter of no great marvel, so far as the popular dispo- sition was concerned, as the people would have given almost any amount of the public domain necessary for their support, and took every occasion they could, all through the days of the republic as well as of the State, to augment the free-school fund. For the University, however, to secure land donations from the State, ap- propriations of an equal amount for the free schools were generally necessary, so jealous were the people, and the law-makers for them, of the University having
12.
MAIN BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, Austin, Texas.
any favors not accorded to the free schools. While, as Lamar expressed it, "the benefits of education were so universal that all parties could unite in its promotion," still the free schools, as something nearer to the necessities of the settlers of the country, naturally engendered indifference to the carly establishment of the Univer- sity, and, but for the urgent action of Governor Roberts and the University regents appointed by him under the act of 1881, and others subsequently appointed, the Uni- versity would hardly have been put into operation as early as it was, in 1883, nor even then, under such favorable auspices as happened, but for an important ruling of State Comptroller Swain, which made available a large amount of funds of the University which had hitherto been restricted to the principal instead of the interest of the permanent fund. Under the Constitution only the interest of this fund, and no part of the principal in any event, could be used for operating the University; so that, although the institution was finally started as urged by its friends, its resources would have been rather meagre for immediate purposes but for some eighty-six
٠٩٠
441
LANE-THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
thousand dollars which the Swain ruling converted to the direct use of the institu- tion. The previous action, too, of Comptroller Darden, in calling attention to the subject, and thereby inciting the legislature to eventually consider and determine the facts as to the legality of one hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars in bonds which the State had issued to the University, must also be taken into account as material to the interests of the institution. So, also, should be regarded the action of Comptroller Brown in turning the precedent and checking the use of University funds for the Prairie View School.
Naturally there were efforts of many other friends of the University, and, as there had been all along, expressions of most of the executives of the republic and of the State in favor of higher education tending to the same purpose of an early organization of the University ; but the action of the incumbent governor and comptroller, as high State officials with discretion and inclination to act in the matter, and the co-operation with the governor by the State Teachers' Association, and the legislation which resulted from such influences, were material agencies towards consummating the main object desired, of putting the institution at once into effect, and trusting to the people and the legislature for countenance and sup- port. But the objects of the friends of the institution had not been even so far realized, without great opposition, and with no special encouragement from the general public, owing to the still existing indifference to the advantages of the Uni- versity,-"a rich man's school," as it was termed,-as compared with the more universal advantages of the free schools, which in their combination of academies and primarics constituted what was inost, if not all, that was then desired in the way of education by the great mass of the people.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.