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 of eight and fourteen for sixteen weeks each year by a state law is optional with each county. A state library commission was established in 1909.

At the head of the state system of education is the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chartered in 1789 and opened in 1795, one of the oldest state universities in the country and one of the oldest universities in the South; it consists of the college, the graduate department, the law department, the department of medicine (1890, part of whose work is done at Raleigh) and the department of pharmacy (1897). In 1907–1908 it had 75 instructors and 775 students. Other state educational institutions are the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (1889) at West Raleigh, which in 1907–1908 had 42 instructors and 436 students; the State Normal and Industrial College (1892) for women, at Greensboro; and the East Carolina Teachers' Training School (1907), at Greenville. For the higher education of the negroes the state supports an Agricultural and Mechanical College (1891) at Greensboro, and normal and industrial schools at Fayetteville, Elizabeth City and Winston. The more important sectarian schools are Wake Forest College (Baptist, opened 1834 as a “manual labour and classical institute”; as a college, 1838) at Wake Forest, 16 m. north of Raleigh, with 371 students in 1907–1908; Davidson College (Presbyterian, 1837) at Davidson, with 308 students (1907–1908); Biddle University (Presbyterian) at Charlotte, for negroes; Greensboro Female College (Methodist Episcopal, South; 1846); Guilford College (coeducational; Society of Friends, 1837) near Greensboro; Trinity College (coeducational; Methodist, 1852) at Durham; Lenoir College (Lutheran, 1890) at Hickory; Catawba College (Reformed, 1851) at Newton; Weaverville College (Methodist Episcopal, 1873) at Weaverville; Elon College (Christian, 1890) at Elon; St Mary’s College (Roman Catholic, 1877), under the charge of Benedictines, at Belmont; Shaw University (Baptist, 1865), for negroes, at Raleigh; and Livingston College (Methodist, 1879), for negroes, at Salisbury.

Finance.—The revenues of the state come from two sources; about two-thirds from taxation and about one-third in all from the earnings of the penitentiary, from the fees collected by state officials, from the proceeds from the sale of state publications, and from the dividends from stock and bonds. The state owned, in 1909, 30,002 shares of stock in the North Carolina Railroad Company, with a market value (1907) of $5,580,372 (the stock being quoted at 186), and an annual income of $210,014 and 12,666 shares of stock in the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad Company, from which the annual income is $31,665. In addition to the ordinary general property tax, licences and polls, there are a tax on corporations and an income tax. North Carolina is one of the few states to experiment with the inheritance tax, but the last law dealing with that subject was repealed in 1899. The total receipts of the general fund for the fiscal year 1907 were $2,603,293, and the total disbursements for the same year were $2,655,282.

The state debt at the close of the fiscal year 1907 amounted to $6,880,950 It may be divided into three parts: that contracted between 1848 and 1861 for the construction of roads, railways and canals; that contracted during the Civil War for other than war purposes; and that contracted during the Reconstruction era, nominally in the form of loans to railway companies. In their impoverished condition it was impossible for the people to bear the burden, so an act was passed in 1879 scaling part of the debt 60%, part of it 75% and part of it 85%. The remainder, $12,805,000, and all arrears of interest were repudiated outright. This of course impaired the obligation of a contract, but under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States the bondholders could not bring suit against the state in the Federal courts. Another state could do so, however, and in 1904, certain creditors having given ten of their bonds to South Dakota, the case of South Dakota versus North Carolina came before the Supreme Court. The court decided, four judges dissenting, that North Carolina must pay the amount due or suffer her railway bonds to be seized and sold to satisfy the judgment (192 U.S. Reports, 286. See also 108 U.S. 76).

History.—The history of North Carolina may be divided into four main periods: the period of discovery and early colonization (1520–1663); the period of proprietary rule (1663–1729); the period of royal rule (1729–1776); and the period of statehood (from 1776).

It is possible that some of the early French and Spanish explorers visited the coast of North Carolina, but no serious attempt was made by Europeans to establish a settlement until near the close of the 16th century. After receiving from Queen Elizabeth a patent for colonization in the New World, Sir Walter Raleigh, in April 1584, sent Philip Amadas, or Amidas (1550–1618), and Arthur Barlowe (c. 1550–c. 1620) to discover in the region bordering on Florida a suitable location for a colony. They returned in September with a, glowing account of what is now the coast of North Carolina, and on the 9th of April 1585 a colony of about 108 men under Ralph Lane (c. 1530–1603) sailed from Plymouth in a fleet of seven small vessels commanded by Sir Richard Grenville. The colony was established at the north end of Roanoke Island on the 17th of August, and about a week later Grenville returned to England. Threatened with famine and with destruction from hostile Indians, the entire colony left for England on the 19th of June 1586 on Sir Francis Drake’s fleet. Only a few days after their departure Sir Richard Grenville arrived with supplies and more colonists, fifteen of whom remained when he sailed away. Although greatly disappointed at the return of the first colony, Raleigh despatched another company, consisting of 121 persons under John White, with instructions to remove the plantation to the shore of Chesapeake Bay. They arrived at Roanoke Island on the 22nd of July 1587 and were forced to remain there by the refusal of the sailors to carry them farther. Of the fifteen persons left by Grenville not one was found alive. White’s grand-daughter, Virginia Dare (b. 18th August 1587), was the first English child born in America. White soon returned to England for supplies, and having been detained there until 1591 he found upon his return no trace of the colony except the word “Croatan” carved on a tree; hence the colony was supposed to have gone away with some friendly Indians, possibly the Hatteras tribe, and proof of the assumption that these whites mingled with Indians is sought in the presence in Robeson county of a mixed people with Indian habits and occasional English names, calling themselves Croatans. In 1629 Charles I. granted to his attorney-general, Sir Robert Heath, all the territory lying between the 31st and 36th parallels and extending through from sea to sea, but the patent was in time vacated, and in 1663 the same territory was granted to the earl of Clarendon (1609–1674), the duke of Albemarle (1608–1670), and six other favourites of Charles II. By a second charter issued in 1665 the limits were extended to 29° and 36° 30′.

The proprietors had all the powers of a county palatine and proposed to establish a feudal and aristocratic form of government. To this end John Locke drafted for them in 1669 the famous Fundamental Constitutions providing for the division of the province into eight counties and each county into seigniories, baronies, precincts and colonies, and the division of the land among hereditary nobles who were to grant three-fifths of it to their freemen and govern through an elaborate system of feudal courts. But these constitutions, several times revised, actually served only as a theoretical standard for the proprietors and were abrogated altogether in 1693, and the colonists were governed by instructions which granted them much greater privileges. From the very beginning the territory tended to divide into two distinct sections, a northern and a southern. The northern section was first called Albemarle, then “that part of our province of Carolina that lies north and east of Cape Fear,” and about 1689 North Carolina. Settled largely by people from Pennsylvania, this section came to be closely associated with the continental colonies. The southern section, influenced by its location, by the early settlers from Barbados, and by its trade connexions, was brought into rather more intimate relations with the island colonies and with the mother country. The proprietors struggled in vain to bring about a closer union. In 1691