land and landless, received a proportionate share of the distribution for educational purposes. The main provisions of this act," entitled, "An act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts," are as follows:

Sec. I. Each State is to receive an amount of land in quantity equal to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative to which such State is entitled by apportionment under the census of 1860.

Sec. 2. States containing public lands subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 per acre, shall select their quota from such lands within their limits. Other States shall be entitled to land" scrip" to the amount of their distributive shares.

Sec. 3. All expenses incident to the sale and management of these lands shall be paid by the respective States, so that the proceeds may be applied to the specified purpose without any diminution.

Sec. 4. All moneys derived from the grant shall be invested in stocks of the United States, of the States, or other safe stocks paying not less than five per cent. The interest shall be inviolably appropriated by each State "to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life."

Sec. 5. Each State shall replace so much of its fund as may be diminished or lost, so that the capital of the fund shall forever remain undiminished; but a sum not exceeding ten per centum of the amount received by any State may be expended for the purchase of lands for sites or experimental farms.

17 12 S., c. 130, p. 503; July 2, 1862.

Each college shall send an annual report concerning its gress to all the other similar colleges and to the Secretary of the Interior.

Sections 6, 7, and 8 are of minor interest.

About twenty-five other acts of varying degrees of importance, subsidiary to the act of 1862, and either of local or of general application, have been passed by Congress. An act of March 3, 1883, however, is worth singling out. This act amended the fourth section of the act of 1862 so as to authorize the States having no State stocks, to invest the agricultural college funds " in any other manner after the Legislatures of such States shall have assented thereto, and engaged that such funds shall yield not less than five per cent. upon the amount so invested."

9918

The act of 1862 has been extended to States admitted since that time on the basis of the number of Senators and Representatives to which such States were entitled on admission. Accordingly, at the present time every State in the Union contains an institution for higher education founded on this Government endowment.

The Agricultural Experiment Station Act of 1887

The object of this law19 is stated in the first section to be "to aid in acquiring and diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects connected with agriculture, and to promote scientific investigation and experiment respecting the principles and applications of agricultural science." The law accordingly authorizes agricultural experiment stations to be established under the direction of the agricultural colleges founded on the endowment of the act of 1862.

Sec. 2. The scope and general nature of the researches and experiments to be undertaken by the stations, are outlined.

18 22 S., c. 102, p. 484.

19 24 S., c. 314, p. 440. March 2, 1887.

Sec. 3. The United States Commissioner of Agriculture is to render such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes of the act. Furthermore, each station is to send a detailed report of its operations to every other station, to the Commissioner of Agriculture, and to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

Sec. 5. For the purpose of defraying the expenses of the experiment stations, the sum of $15,000 per annum is appropriated to each State and to each Territory entitled thereto, to be specially provided for by Congress in the appropriations from year to year, out of any money in the Treasury proceeding from the sales of public lands. Out of the first annual appropriation, one-fifth may be expended for building purposes, and thereafter an amount not exceeding five per centum of the annual appropriations may be so expended.

Sec. 6. However, the amount of money appropriated to any station shall not exceed the amount actually and necessarily required for its maintenance and support.

Sec. 10. This act shall not be construed as binding the United States to continue the payments herein provided for; but Congress may at any time suspend, amend, or repeal any or all the provisions of this act.

The forty-five States, and the Territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, have established agricultural experiment stations deriving their support in whole or in part from this Government Endowment. During 1894, for example, the total income of the Stations was $996,157, of which $719,830 was received from the National Government.20

The Agricultural and Mechanical College Endowment of 1890 As early as the second session of the forty-second Congress (1871-72), Senator Morrill, of Vermont, the father of the act of 1862, introduced a bill (Senate bill 693) to provide for the

20 Year-Book, U. S. Dept. Agric. 1894, 113.

further endowment and support of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts." During the years succeeding, similar measures frequently appear; but it was not until 1890 that Senator Morrill succeeded in having passed "An act" to apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to the more complete endowment and support of the colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts established under the provisions of an act of Congress approved July 2, 1852."

Sec. I provides that the sum of $15,000 shall be paid for the year ending June 30, 1890; that the sum so paid shall be annually increased by an additional sum of $1,000 for each succeeding year during a period of ten years, and that "the annual amount to be paid thereafter to each State and Territory shall be $25,000, to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural, and economic science, with special reference to their applications in the industries of life." Furthermore, no money shall be paid any State or Territory in which race distinctions are drawn in the admission of students to such colleges; but separate institutions for the races may be provided by the States or Territories, and in certain cases a just and equitable division of the moneys received under this act may be made between the institution for white students and the institution for colored students.

Sec. 2. The Treasurers of the institutions entitled to receive these moneys are required to report to the Secretary of Agriculture and to the Secretary of the Interior, on or before September 1st, of each year, a detailed statement of the

amount so received and of its disbursement.

Sec. 3. Any portion of the moneys received by any State or Territory for institutions for colored students, which may

21 Globe, 42 C., 2 S., 1177.

22 26 S., c. 841, p. 417.

be diminished, lost, or misapplied, shall be replaced by such State or Territory, and until so replaced, no subsequent appropriation shall be granted such State or Territory. No portion of the moneys shall be used for building purposes. An annual report by the president of each of the beneficiary institutions regarding the condition and progress of each such institution shall be transmitted to the Secretary of Agriculture and to the Secretary of the Interior.

Sec. 4. On or before July 1st of each year, the Secretary of the Interior shall certify to the Secretary of the Treasury what colleges are entitled to recive their share of the annual appropriations, and the amounts to which each is entitled. If the share of any State or Territory should be withheld, such State or Territory has the right of appeal to Congress.

Sec. 5. The Secretary of the Interior shall annually report to Congress the disbursements which have been made in all the States and Territories.

Sec. 6. Congress reserves the right to amend, suspend, or repeal any or all of the provisions of this act.

Sixty-four institutions 23 for higher education are to be found in the forty-five States, and in the Territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, partially supported by the funds accruing from this Endowment. Fourteen of these institutions exist exclusively for the education of the colored race.

The Surplus Revenue Distribution Act of 1836

In a preceding chapter there have been outlined the events of the decade preceding 1836, leading to the distribution of the surplus revenue by virtue of an act to regulate the deposit of the public moneys, approved June 23, 1836." The surplus in the United States Treasury thus disposed of had been, in the main, derived from public land sales. And in order to provide for an equitable distribution of the moneys among the States

"Rep. U. S. Com. Education, 1896-'97, 1766–1771.

245 S., c. 115, p. 52.