Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/464

 CHAPTER XXXII PUBLIC SCHOOLS Foundation of Public System — The State Commission — Sale op Lands — Laws of 1853 — • Provisions op 1874 — Growth op the System — Southeast Missouri Teachers' Associa- tion — First Schools in Various Counties. Jefferson's idea that the state, in order to presence itself, must provide for the educa- tion of all of its children was brought to Mis- souri by immigrants from Virginia. It found expression in the act which provided for the transfer of Louisiana to the United States. In that act it was said that the government of the United States would care for the educa- tion of the people. When the dissatisfied settlers in the district of Louisiana assembled at St. Louis soon after the transfer and drew up a memorial of grievances to Congress, one of the things included in that memorial was a request that Congress should provide means of support for the public schools. The estab- lishment of the academy at Ste. Genevieve in 1808 by the governor and territorial judges, while not a provision for public education, expressed in part the desire of the people for schools which should be, to a certain extent at least, under public supervision. Foundation op Public System In 1812 the Congress of the United States created Missouri a special territory of the second class and in the act it was said "that schools and the means of education shall be encouraged and provided for from the public lands of the LTnited States within the terri- tory as Congress may direct." Missouri re- mained a territory for eight years after this time but there was very little accomplished in the way of provision for the support of schools; some things, however, were done looking in the direction of public education. In 1817 the territorial legislature incor- porated the city of St. Louis as a special school district with seven trustees to manage affairs, and to this special school district Con- gress donated some valuable tracts of land which lay within and near the town and was known as United States common lands. This donation should have been of very great value in supporting the schools, but the lands were badly managed so that the income derived from them was very small. When the Missouri Compromise was framed in 1820 and the state was authorized to frame a constitution it was declared in the act of Congress that schools should be forever en- couraged in the new state and the legislature of the state was directed to take steps to pre- serve from waste or damage such lands as have been or should hereafter be granted for the use of schools. A further provision of this act was "one or more schools shall be established in each congressional township as •104