Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. SEMINARY LAND GRANT. No other government in the world has been possessed of so large a public domain as the United States. Nor has any other government in the disposition of its public lands been so generous in its favors to education. We are accustomed to think that the general government in its first encouragement of education thought of elementary schools only. Such was not the case. Contemporary with its donation of the 16th section for common schools came its land grants for universities. In the mind of our Revolutionary fathers higher education was as worthy an object of federal bounty as elementary education. This fact is emphasized by some of the early ordinances. May 20, 1785, Congress passed an "ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the western country," in which it set apart the 16th section of every township for the maintenance of public schools within said township. This is the beginning of that magnificent system of federal land grants for education. Two years later it was enlarged and took the form of a great national policy, which has been consistently carried out ever since. The famous ordinance of July 13, 1787, stated this policy as follows: "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." This declaration was a pledge of faith that the general government would foster education. Subsequent history shows that the pledge has been faithfully kept. It is the glory of our country that she had in her infancy a broad statesmanship big enough to lay broad and deep the foundations of the young republic in the intelligence and character of the people. Ten days after the immortal ordinance was passed, its companion, a b...