Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/15



For the purposes of this study the question of education prior to the time of the organization of Arizona into a separate Territory need not be further considered. This organization was effected under an act passed February 24, 1863, “to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Arizona, and for other purposes.” But that was a time of Civil War in the East and of Indian war in the West; and it was not till December 27, 1863, that John N. Goodwin, of Maine, who had been appointed governor, together with the other appointive officers, entered the Territory and formally inaugurated the government at Navajo Springs, 40 miles west of Zuñi, on December 29, 1863. The capital was fixed temporarily at Prescott, and the first session of the Territorial legislature met on September 26, 1964.

The new government was not long in proclaiming its adhesion to the great American ideal. Gov. Goodwin uttered the first formal official expression on the subject of public education in his first message to the first session of the first legislature of the Territory when he said:

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