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.

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

support of an average of four hundred criminals as for the training and culture of thirty thousand children.

To make the point more forcible, the figures show that she has expended $1,885 on every criminal, and $9 on every child!

He recommended that districts should be required to maintain a school six months, instead of three, to entitle them to apportionment; that the authority of examining teachers should be transferred from Trustees to a County Board; that the maximum county tax should be raised to twenty cents on a hundred dollars; that County Treasurers should not be allowed a percentage for disbursing State school moneys; that County Superintendents, Marshals, and Trustees, should be paid out of the County General Fund; and that Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians, should not be allowed to attend the schools for white children, under penalty of the forfeiture of the public school money by districts admitting such children into school.

He reported that he had prepared a volume of "Commentaries on the School Law," containing suggestions on school architecture and extracts from the best authors on education. He argued at length the policy of consolidating the proceeds of the sales of the 16th and 36th sections into a State Fund.

This report closed by urging a Military Institute, and attached to the tabular statements, which were better arranged than those of any preceding report, were the reports of County Superintendents.

20. NINTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1859.

In this report Mr. Moulder renewed several of the recommendations of his previous report; recommended the establishment of a State Normal School; the organization of State and County Boards for examining teachers; the increase of the maximum county school tax to twenty-five cents on a hundred dollars; an appropriation for paying the expenses of State Institutes; an appropriation for traveling expenses to enable the State Superintendent to deliver lectures and visit schools. throughout the State; that the Township School Funds should be consolidated into one common fund, which question he argued conclusively, supporting his position by letters from Land Commissioners at Washington, and from various State Superintendents, and concluded by an elaborate argument in favor of a Military Institute to be established at Monterey.

21. SCHOOL LEGISLATION, 1860.

Several important amendments were made to the school law by the Legislature of 1860. The maximum rate of county school tax was raised from ten cents to twenty-five cents on a hundred dollars; the State Superintendent was authorized to hold a State Teachers' Institute annually, and an appropriation of $3000 was made for payment of expenses; the State Superintendent was authorized to appoint a State Board of Examination, with power to grant State teachers' certificates, valid for two years, and the School Funds of any one year were required to be used exclusively for that year; County Superintendents were authorized to appoint County Boards of Examination, consisting exclusively of teachers, with power to grant teachers' certificates, valid for one year; the State Board of Education was authorized to adopt a State series of text-books, and to compel their adoption, under penalty of forfeiting the public school moneys, to go into effect in November, 1861; and an appropriation of $30,000 made for building a State Reform School at Marysville.

22. TENTH ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT, 1860.

This report opened as follows:

It is apparent, from an inspection of these statistics, that the amount contributed by the State to the cause of education is wretchedly insufficient. It is a pittance almost beneath contempt. It amounts to about one dollar and forty cents per annum for the education of each schoolable child in the State.

With all the aid derived from local taxes, rate bills, and private subscription, it pays only an average of sixty-six dollars and seventytwo cents per month to each teacher in the State.

A first-class bootblack obtains almost as much.

I am almost disposed to believe that no teacher at all is better than an ignorant or unlettered one; but how can we expect to secure the services of highly educated and accomplished teachers for the pittance of sixty-six dollars and seventy-two cents per month?

He further urged a State Normal School, and a direct State appropriation for common schools; again argued in favor of consolidating Township Funds, and closed by stating that he had already exhausted argument in favor of a Military Institute.