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SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FREE SCHOOL POLICY 
 
 FOR v''^^:^-^^" — "-<*'?>> 
 
 UNITED STATES LAND GRANTEES. 
 
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SUGGESTIONS FOR A FREE SCHOOL POLICY FOR 
 U. S. LAND GRANTEES. 
 
 l^EPARTMENT OF THE INTEIIIOR, 
 
 Washington, January 27, 1872. 
 Siu: I have the houor to ackuowledge the receii)t of your letter of the 
 17th instaut, relative to the donation of lands and towu-lots by railroad 
 companies out of their land subsidies for educational purposes, and in- 
 closing a letter from Eev. George H. Atkinson, D.D., of Portland, Oregon, 
 on the same subject. 
 
 Such a project is one which cannot fail to commend itself to any one 
 desirous of promoting the cause of education in the new States to be 
 built up within the next quarter of a century upon our public domain, 
 and receives my cordial approval. 
 
 With the hope that the proposition may meet with the success its 
 great importance merits, I remain, 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 C. DELANO, 
 Secretary of the Interior. 
 General John Eaton, 
 
 Commissioner of Education, Washington, J). C. 
 
 Department of the Interior, 
 
 Bureau of Education, 
 
 , Washington, January 17, 1872. 
 
 Sir : I have the honor herewith to submit for your consideration the 
 accipmpanying interesting statements and suggestions from Eev. George 
 H. Atkinson, D. D., of Portland, Oregon. 
 
 As a pioneer on the Pacific coast, he has had peculiar opportunities 
 for knowing the importance of the points to which he here calls atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The setting apart of lots and lands for school purposes by many of the 
 early eastern colonists is well known. The consequences of this provident 
 care for general education are manifest in every desirable phase of so- 
 ciety, as developed in that section of the country. The location and 
 procuring of the site for the school-house is often a difficult problem for 
 the early settlers to determine. Give them the site wherever they are 
 invited to concentrate in towns, and the establishment of the school is 
 likely to follow speedily. Add to this, if possible, the strong and em- 
 phatic leadership in this direction of the proprietors, and the wise and 
 successful introduction of the American graded school system of educa- 
 tion in the English language may be considered as assured. 
 
 If these settlers come from those older communities where public 
 schools have prevailed, they may have the strength of conviction and 
 the good judgment to undertake and successfully carry out such a pur- 
 pose at any sacrifice on their j)art without aid, and even in spite of the 
 indifference of the proprietors. If the settlers should not have had the 
 antecedents which prompt them thus to go forward of themselves ; if 
 they come from those countries where education has been neglected, or 
 
2 
 
 wliero it has been controlled exelusively by a distant government with- 
 out tlitir individual action, further than that of sending their children 
 to school ; or if they speak a language other than the English, it is only 
 natural that they should either neglect to take such action, or that they 
 should, in any private ways that may suggest themselves, instruct their 
 children in the language of their fathers, and thus, in a measure, con- 
 tinue and perpetuate the diversities of their origin. In. what an embar- 
 rassing position this would leave the youth of such a community, with 
 reference to their entering upon the responsibilities of American citi- 
 zens, it is easy to see. Mr. J. Frederick Meyers, a commissioner of emi- 
 gration, sent abroad by the Secretary of the Treasury to make investi- 
 gations on this subject in Germany, himself a German, in a late commu- 
 nication to me, emphatically suggests that " for the next thirty years 
 at least one hundred and fifty thousand Germans will immigrate to our 
 shores annually, and finally share with us the governing power." * * 
 " The law ought to provide," he thinks, " that all the children of these 
 foreigners shall be instructed in the English language." He further 
 observes that " there are thousands of German youth to-day compelled 
 to fill subordinate and menial stations because their English education 
 was neglected" in the common schools. It should be, i^erhaps, kept in 
 mind that our immigration can be by no means limited in the future to 
 populations speaking any one language, or even several, but must con- 
 tinue to be of Yery diverse origin. The opportunities, therefore, which 
 are to be afforded for assimilation to the language spoken, the ideas 
 entertained, and the customs practiced in America, must be assured 
 from other influences. No parties are more deeply interested than the 
 owners of property where these settlers locate. However ignorant some 
 of them may be when they come, others, and in many instances a large 
 proportion, are well taught, and many have skill in special industries. 
 These better informed classes seek for their children opportunities equal 
 to or greater than those they themselves enjoyed. Large numbers come 
 for the special object of enjoying opportunities for larger liberty and cul- 
 ture, understood to be afforded in America. All that is needed is to put 
 in the way of these immigrants a knowledge of what to do and how to do 
 it, in order to lead to the establishment of the highest order of institu- 
 tions thoroughly Americanized. Yet even these classes, neglected, may 
 soon allow their children to grow up in that ignorance which is fatal to 
 productive industry, and which becomes the cause of pauperism, vice, 
 and crime, and those accumulations of evils which will turn away from 
 their localities the tide of valuable immigration. But these same new- 
 comers, slightly aided, would, on the other hand, preserve to the com- 
 munities where they are located those features which would render them 
 desirable for places of settlement to the best classes. Institutions would 
 be established which would assure the opportunities for education to 
 every child, and none of the demarkations of a diverse language would 
 interrupt the flow of commerce and trade, or hamper individual effort 
 with the disabilities of a foreign tonguco These communities, moreover, 
 would not only be congenial to the best settlers from the most intelli- 
 gent portions of our country, but they would become the center of a 
 spontaneous growth in virtue and wealth. 
 
 All property in their midst would be more secure, the sources of in- 
 dustry multiplied, and their i)roductiveness advanced. 
 
 The General Government, in its policy of granting the sixteenth section 
 for common schools and the thirty-sixth for university purposes, gives its 
 general influence in aid of universal education, and secures to the people 
 a fund which operates as a valuable aid to the introduction of the best 
 
systems of culture. If the proiirietors of tlie great railroad grants could 
 see the rightuess, as well as the pecuniary advantage to themselves, of 
 adopting the suggestions made by Dr. Atkinson, and in connection with 
 every town-site set apart blocks or lots especially for the occupation of 
 school-houses for common schools ; and if they and their agents and the 
 officers of their organizations could lead in the Avork of establishing the 
 most approved sy .stems of free, common, graded schools, I am coutident 
 there would follow results most favorable to their enterprises, as well as 
 to the highest welfare of the communities to be connected with them, 
 and to the civil organizations which they are to form. 
 
 I therefore most respectfully and earnestly recommend to your in- 
 dorsement the proposition made in the accompanying letter from Dr. 
 Atkinson. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHX EATOK^, JE., 
 
 Commissio^ier. 
 Hon. C. Delano, 
 
 Secretary of the Interior. 
 
 Washington, December 15, 1871. 
 
 Dear Sir : As we are in the era of rapid settlement, town and city 
 building, it is of prime importance to impress the American system of 
 free schools upon these forming communities. 
 
 Your office extends beyond local or State lines, and comprehends the 
 entire territory of our nation. It gives you, as its head, the opportunity 
 to suggest and to guide the proper action of the people, especially in 
 their earlier educational movements. 
 
 We have some exami)les of the wisdom of proprietors in laying out 
 their towns ; especially those of Portland, Oregon, who twenty three years 
 ago, set apart several blocks, very eligible sites, in different parts of 
 the city, for schools, as well as half blocks for different churches. 
 
 Prominent citizens moved early in the work of organizing the district, 
 erecting the school-house, and establishing the free school. The result 
 is a graded system of primary, grammar, and high schools, annu- 
 ally extending and improving with the growth of our city. Our citi- 
 zens of all classes — and we are natives of many States and countries — 
 vote a tax every year to buy new blocks — we never buy less for a school- 
 house and play-grounds — or to erect new buildings, or improve old 
 ones, besides supporting the teachers. 
 
 It is the judgment of our leading citizens that this expenditure for 
 free graded schools is the best pecuniary investment which the city 
 makes or has ever made ; while it is also the best possible agency to 
 teach the English language correctly, antl to mould our multifarious 
 population into one of homogeneous and truly American sentiment. 
 
 San Francisco, on a much larger scale, is working out the same social 
 problem. The early proprietors aud citizens took care to provide very 
 liberally for free-school sites all over the city and in all the additions 
 thereto, and to establish first-class graded schools, with primary, gram- 
 mar, and higher departments. They havel^ursued this policy with such 
 vigor and generous taxation that their schools rank with the best of 
 Eastern cities. 
 
 Their enterprise in this direction has drawn to them a permanent and 
 most valuable population, whicjh is rapidly becoming sympnthetic aud 
 homogeneous under the action of this quiet but powerful force excited 
 
in the scliool-room. This system is considerably extended in every one 
 of the Pacific States with similar results, but the rapid changes in pro- 
 cess there and across the continent, caused by the great railroad enter- 
 prises, make it desirable and important that the national Commissioner 
 of Education should help inaugurate the same system and i^olicy in all 
 the new settlements and towns, and especially the railroad cities of the 
 coast and the interior. It would have been well had Government 
 land-grants for railroads provided blocks for school-sites in every 
 town and city established, by such corporations, with the require- 
 ment to incorporate the free graded school as a leading element of their 
 policy. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted that the intelligent gentlemen usually com- 
 posing those corporations will readily adopt this policy if their atten- 
 tion shall be called to it by yourself and by others connected with our 
 National Government. As a large proportion of the new cities and set- 
 tlements are their enterprises, established and stimulated by their plans 
 for immigration, and for development of the new regions of the West, 
 they can more promptly begin and efficiently carry out this American 
 free-school sj^stem in such new regions than any other persons can do 
 it. Besides, it Avill inure largely to their pecuniary interest, and to the 
 intelligence, good character, and attractiveness of their several towns. 
 The school-house, open to all, gives a large economic value to every other 
 interest of a community. The same rule applies to existing cities and 
 settlements that are in process of formation away from railroad centers, 
 by the great rivers, bays, and sea-coast of the Pacific, and also in the 
 farming and even mining towns among the mountains. Provision should 
 be made in the beginning for the free education in English, the language 
 of America, of every child, of every race and of every color, who is 
 native, or who becomes an inhabitant, and who is to be a citizen of 
 the American Eepublic, in fact or in form, by the claims or the operation 
 of our laws. 
 
 In no way can the public sentiment and habits of the people be so 
 easily and surely unified. An early impress upon plastic materials will 
 be found j)ermanent when those materials shall have become fixed and 
 hardened. 
 
 Ten or twenty years now, seals the character of future centuries. 
 
 The American educational culture ought to lead and guide these form- 
 ing communities. 
 
 It is well to recall what vast regions of our national domain are to be 
 impressed by the formative forces now so soon to be in o})eration, and 
 what care is needed that right and good forces, not evil ones, be em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Taking Johnson's Atlas for authority, our domain east of the Missis- 
 sippi, as ceded by England in 1783, was 815,615 square miles. Louisiana, 
 as acquired from France in 1803, comprised 930,938 square miles, mostly 
 between the Mississippi and the Eocky Mountains. Florida, acquired 
 from Spain in 1821, has 54,208 square miles. Texas, admitted in 1845, 
 contains 237,504 square miles. Oregon, as acquired by discovery in 
 1772, and settled by treaty in 184G, added to the national domain 
 280,425 square miles. California, as gained in 1848, increased our area 
 649,702 square miles. Arizona, purchased of Mexico in 1854, extended 
 our sway over 27,500 square miles more. 
 
 The Alaska purchase magnified our country 577,390 square miles. 
 
 Our whole area almost equals the continent of Europe, with all its 
 northern islands. Great Britain, Iceland, and Nova Zembla. ' The sum 
 of all Europe, with those extremely north, is 3,700,000 square miles. 
 
The sum of the United States of America, iucliuling- Alaska, is 3,573,402 
 square miles, or 120,598 square miles less area. 
 
 It will be seen that less than one-third of our national domain lies 
 east of the Mississippi, viz : 
 
 Sc^uarc luilcs. 
 
 Original territ.orv of 1783 815, Glf) 
 
 FloricLi, purchase of 1821 54, 268 
 
 Total 869,883 
 
 More than one-third lies between the Mississippi and the Eoclcy 
 Mountains, viz : 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 The Louisiana purchase of 1803 930,938 
 
 The Texas actiuisition of 1845 237,504 
 
 Total 1,168,442 
 
 The largest portion lies west of the Eocky Mountains, viz : 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 Oregon, as originally settled in 184G , 280, 425 
 
 California, as originally settled in 1848 649, 762 
 
 Arizona, as originally purchased in 1854 27, 500 
 
 Alaska, as originally purchased in 1866 577, 390 
 
 Total ., 1,535,077 
 
 The Pacitic coast, west of the liocky Mountains, without Alaska, 
 contains 957,087 square miles. 
 
 It is to be noted that the extreme northern region of Alaska is inhab- 
 ited, and that many productions conducive to life abound in that Terri- 
 tory, making" it possibly a habitable abode for the white race. 
 
 Moreover, the greater portion of our country is within the temperate 
 zone, and within the thermal lines of abundant vegetable x>roduction 
 and of various animal life. We therefore hold out invitations, and 
 offer gTand inducements to the crowded x>opulations of other lands to 
 seek for homes on our western prairies, mountains, and shores. They 
 heed our call, and hasten hither in ranks of thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands. Is it fancy to suppose that their children, mingling with ours, 
 will in future centuries comprise more than half, perhaps two-thirds the 
 population of the United States of America, and that west of the Mis- 
 sissippi ? 
 
 Only a little more than one-fourth of our area lies east of that ri^er, 
 or, excluding Alaska, less than one-third of it. Is it improbable that 
 one-half or even two-thirds of the population will live west of that 
 river, or fully one-third of the whole on the Pacific slope? Estimate 
 that population in the year 1900 at 100,000,000, and in 1950 at 150,000,000 
 thus located, and you must be impressed with the imperative duty 
 to guide their sentiments and form their habits upon the best models of 
 American mental and moral culture. 
 
 The history of the world has never presented an opportunity so grand 
 or an exigency so commanding — unless it was that of saving our Union 
 on the field of battle — as now occurs to save our Eepublic, in all its 
 parts, with more than its present prestige, and power, and glory, by the 
 impress of its ideas upon the rising generations. 
 
 Immigrant populations are plastic. Children are plastic also. Soon 
 both classes become settled, rigid, and immovable. Two-thirds of our 
 
6 
 
 great coimtry calls for true educators with au earnestness and a rapidity 
 which it wilf be difficult even for the combined power of the State and 
 Cleneral Government to meet and supply. 
 
 But the occasion and the opportunity are upon us to do to our utmost 
 what the voice of patriotism and the voice of Providence clearly indi- 
 cate. 
 
 With much respect and esteem, I subscribe myself your friend in the 
 work of popular education, 
 
 G. H. ATKINSOK 
 
 General John Eaton, 
 
 United States Commissioner of Education. 
 
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