Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/524



introduced by R. A. Richardson into the House and referred to the committee of ways and means. That committee reported the bill back with a recommendation that it be indefinitely postponed. The friends of the bill hastily conferred together and decided to make a vigorous fight for it and B. F. Gue, of Scott County, was selected to lead in a speech advocating the establishment of such a college. After a warm debate the bill was amended and ordered engrossed, passed both Houses and became a law. An act was passed providing for a loan of $200,000 and the issue of State bonds. Provision was made for the erection of an asylum for the blind at Vinton.

It having become evident that it was impracticable to render the Des Moines River navigable with the proceeds of the grant of land made for that purpose in 1846, the legislature passed an act diverting the grant to the Keokuk, Des Moines and Minnesota Railroad Company, for the purpose of aiding the construction of a railroad up the valley of the Des Moines River. Joint resolutions were also passed providing for a final settlement with the Des Moines Navigation Company by granting to said company a portion of the old land grant.

An act was passed providing for a commission to revise and codify the general laws of the State, to conform all laws to the new Constitution, prepare a code of civil and criminal procedure, all to be published in one volume, “which shall contain all the general laws in force in the State.” William Smyth, W. T. Barker and C. Ben Darwin were the commissioners chosen to do this work.

An entire new school system was enacted; its framing was largely the work of Horace Mann and Amos Dean, who had been employed by the State previous to the meeting of the former General Assembly, but which had not been adopted. This system was a step in advance of former laws and its main features were long retained, resulting in the advance of modern methods in our public schools.