taught in any public school under penalty of forfeiting the public funds. The stringent provision settled then, and probably forever, the question of an American system of public schools in this State, free from the bitterness of sectarian strife and the intolerance of religious bigotry. The public schools are free to the children of the people, and free from the influence of church

or sect.

This law of 1855 also provided that Controller's warrants paid into the Treasury for school lands should draw the same rate of interest as civil bonds, and that the State Treasurer should indorse on such warrants, "Common School Fund," and that no portion of such securities should be sold or exchanged, except by special act of the Legislature; it authorized counties to raise a school tax not exceeding ten cents on a hundred dollars, to apportion the same on the same basis as the State Fund, and to appropriate the moneys so derived for building houses, purchasing libraries, or for salaries. This law contained many excellent provisions, and was a very great advance on all previous school bills. Its main features are retained in the school law of the present day.

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15. FIFTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1856. Superintendent Hubbs renewed his recommendations for the sale of school lands, and put in a special plea for Township Funds; recommended that all school lands and School Funds be placed under the control of the State Board of Education; asked a direct appropriation of $100,000; considered the new school law behind the age; recommended that the office of County Superintendent be abolished, and that the district township system be adopted; that the School Fund be apportioned according to the average daily attendance.

This report was accompanied by inaccurate statistical tables.

16. SIXTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1856.

The last report of Superintendent Hubbs was a brief one, without any statistical table whatever—not even the number of census children in the State.

He urged all his previous recommendations concerning school lands, and township lands in particular, the establishment of a grand university, with an agricultural department, and

a military school; a legislative requirement that a uniform series of elementary books be used in all the public schools; entered his protest against certain "partisan and sectional" text-books sent him from the East; and closed by a eulogy on the English language and the Anglo-Saxon race.

17. SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1857.

Paul K. Hubbs was succeeded in office, in 1857, by Andrew J. Moulder.

Mr. Moulder's first report opened as follows:

The number of schools has increased, in four years, from 53 to 367-nearly sevenfold; the number of teachers, from 50 to 486nearly ninefold; the number of children reported by census, from 11,242 to 35,722-more than threefold; whilst the semi-annual contribution by the State has dwindled from $53,511.11 to $28,342.16, or nearly one half; and the average paid each teacher, from $955 to $58.32 that is to say, to less than one sixteenth of the average under the first apportionment.

I will not waste words on such an exhibit. If it be not convincing that the support derived from the State is altogether insufficient, and ought to be augmented, no appeal of mine could enforce it.

But this I may be permitted to say, that we have no such thing as public schools, in the full acceptation of the term-that is to say, schools at which all the children of the State may be educated, free of expense. That $9.72 per month, to each teacher, contributed by the State, never can maintain a public school; that the contributions by parents and guardians to keep up the schools are onerous, oftentimes unequal, and must, in time, damp their ardor in the cause of education; that our 367 schools are comparatively in their infancy, and now, above all other times, should be cherished and encouraged by the State. Lacking such fostering care and encouragement, it is to be feared they will languish, and gradually lose their hold upon the popular favor. Is it not worth more than an ordinary effort to avert such a calamity?

He recommended that the maximum rate of county school tax be increased from ten cents to twenty cents on a hundred dollars; that no warrants should be issued by Trustees on the District Funds, unless there was cash in the Treasury to pay them; and that all funds coming into the Treasury during one school year should be used exclusively for the payment of expenses of that year; asked an appropriation of $3000 for Teachers' Institutes; favored the establishment of a State Industrial School; recommended that all school lands be placed under the

immediate charge of the State Board of Education, with power to locate and sell at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; that the proceeds of the sales of the 16th and 36th sections of township lands be consolidated into one general school fund, and that a State Military Institute be established.

The following extract will illustrate his views on a State University:

Ours is eminently a practical age. We want no pale and sickly scholars, profound in their knowledge of the dead or other languages and customs. We need energetic citizens, skilled in the arts of the living, and capable of instructing their less favored fellows in the pursuits that contribute to the material prosperity of our State. For what useful occupation are the graduates of most of our old colleges fit? and not of ours alone, but of the timehonored universities of England. Many of them are bright scholars, ornaments to their alma mater—they are perhaps all that the system under which they have been instructed could make them; they are learned in the antiquities of nations long since gone; they are eloquent in Latin; they may write a dissertation on the Greek particle; be masters of the rules of logic and the dogmas of ethics -all valuable acquirements, it is true; but when, after years of toil, they have received their diploma, their education for practical life has just commenced. They have still to study for a profession -are still dependent upon their parents.

This may do for old settled communities, but it will never answer for California. A young man at seventeen, eighteen, or twenty years of age, in this State, must expect to start in life for himself. He must have some occupation that will maintain him. Longer dependence is not to be tolerated or expected.

To fit our youth for such occupations, to end this dependence, must be the object of our university.

I would, therefore, urge that such professorships only shall be established at first as will turn out practical and scientific civil engineers; mining engineers; surveyors; metallurgists; smelters; assayers; geologists, or scientific prospectors; chemists, both manufacturing and agricultural; architects; builders; and last, but not least, school teachers.

Let me call your attention, however, to the necessity of educating a class of our young men in mining engineering.

The character of mining has undergone great changes since eighteen hundred and forty-nine and eighteen hundred and fifty. Enterprises are now conducted on an extensive scale. Tunnels of great magnitude, with labyrinthine galleries, are run into the mountains; deep shafts, with far-stretching drifts, are sunk; quartz works and mills are multiplying. In all these enterprises a skillful engineer would be a valuable acquisition; and, as they progress in magnitude, his services would become indispensable. It is from the want of such directing intelligence that we so often hear of accidents in the mines. Our State has scarcely started in the work of internal improvements. None offers more inducements--in

none will more be needed. For these we shall require civil engineers and surveyors, and all such will, in a few years, find employment.

The statistical tables accompanying the report were very brief, embracing only the number of census children and the average daily attendance.

18. SCHOOL LEGISLATION, 1858.

The Legislatures of 1856 and 1857 did not trouble themselves about the school law, and no amendments worth mentioning were made.

The Legislature of 1858 made an advance in school legislation by providing that school districts, by a vote of the people, could levy a district tax for the support of schools or for building schoolhouses, under the restrictions that the district must have maintained a school four months; that the public money must be insufficient to defray one half the expense of another term; that a tax for supporting a school and for building a schoolhouse could not both be levied the same year, and that the trustees considered the tax advisable. This law was not well drawn, and great difficulty was experienced in collecting the taxes voted under it, the heavy taxpayers who chose to resist it generally escaping without payment. As a necessary result, comparatively few taxes were voted under it, and not till 1863 was a liberal and effective law passed whose provisions were as binding as those regulating the collection of State or county taxes.

The Legislature of 1856 passed a concurrent resolution instructing their representatives in Congress to use their influence to secure the surveys of the 16th and 36th sections of township school lands, and also to secure a law authorizing townships in the mineral districts to locate two sections in lieu thereof on the agricultural lands of the State.

The Legislature of 1858 passed a similar concurrent resolution.

A law was passed providing for the sale of the remainder of the 500,000 acre grant, and the 72 sections for a State university, which provided that the Governor should appoint a land locating agent in each land district of the State, who should locate in tracts not exceeding 320 acres; that purchasers should

pay $1.25 per acre, or, if they preferred, twenty per cent. down, and interest on the remainder at ten per cent. per annum, in advance; that said agents should also locate lands in lieu of occupied 16th and 36th sections, at the request of the County Supervisors; that the State Board of Examiners, whenever it should appear that more than $10,000 had been received by the State Treasurer as purchase-money for such lands, should purchase bonds of the civil funded debt of the State, after advertising, at their lowest values; that such bonds should be marked "School Fund," and held in custody of the State Treasurer; that at the expiration of one year the State Board of Examiners should take and use $57,600 of any money belonging to the School Fund and purchase bonds, which should be marked Seminary Fund," and that all interest on said fund should also be invested in bonds.

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An act was also passed repealing that of 1855, and providing for the sale of the 16th and 36th sections of township lands by the Boards of Supervisors.

19. EIGHTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1858.

This was one of the longest and ablest of Mr. Moulder's reports. He opened with the statement that the schools of California were not creditable to the State, and showed the necessity of an immediate appropriation by the State of $100,000. Concerning this, he goes on to say:

A classification and analysis of the reports of full 2000 school officers to this department show that there are 40,530 children in the State between 4 and 18 years of age; that the whole number attending school during the year 1858 was 19,822, and that the daily average attendance was but 11,183. It follows that 20,708 children have not been inside of a public schoolhouse, and that 29,347 have, in effect, received no instruction during the year.

If this state of things is "very good for California," and we do not take instant and effective means to remedy it, these 29,347 neglected children will grow up into 29,347 benighted men and women; a number nearly sufficient, at ordinary times, to control the vote of the State, and, in consequence, to shape its legislation and its destiny!

Damning as the record is, it is yet lamentably true, that during the last five years the State of California has paid $754,193.80 for the support of criminals, and but $284,183.69 for the education of the young!

In other words, she has paid nearly three times as much for the