Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/633

 of others. Our citizens have already displayed much zeal and enterprise in rearing up in our midst institutions which are accomplishing great good. To sustain these is difficult, and as the benefits arising from these are to be felt in the general prosperity of the State, and the intelligence of its entire people, a proper encouragement at the hands of the Legislature should be extended. Surrounded by proper guards, a measure of this character would be productive of great good.

The establishment of a university is, in my opinion, a matter alone for the future. At this time it is neither expedient nor is it good policy to provide for the sale of those lands set apart for the university fund. If at some future period it should be deemed expedient or in keeping with a more enlarged policy to devote our entire energies to a more general diffusion of knowledge than a university would afford, or even if the voice of the State should demand the establishment of one, these lands will then provide the means of advancing the cause of education. When that period arrives their value will be greatly increased. If sold now but little will be realized from them, and before the expiration of twenty years, the time upon which over fifty thousand acres have already been sold, the lands will be worth more than three-fold the amount they should bring now, with accumulated interest.

So far as the one hundred thousand dollars of bonds and their interest, taken from the general and applied to the university fund by the last Legislature, are concerned, I believe the condition of the Treasury and our immediate necessities demand that the act be repealed, and the money again placed subject to appropriation. We need money for the protection of our frontier, and to save us from taxation; more than for a fund which promises no immediate benefit. Our common school fund already provides for the education contemplated by the Constitution; and if this amount, thus unnecessarily withdrawn from the general fund, will reduce the burthens of taxation, the people will be better able in the future to bear taxation to support a university, if one should be necessary. I have long regarded our present land system as defective; and believe with the framers of the Constitution of the Republic, that our public domain should be sectionized. The Federal Government has adopted this system with reference to its public lands; and all of the difficulties which surround our titles are obviated. We can not redeem the past, but we can provide for the future. If all of our public domain were surveyed by competent persons, who would be willing to take a portion of our lands as compensation for their labor, it would greatly facilitate the settlement of the country, and give security to our whole land operations. It would also furnish some data upon which to base conclusions as to the value of our lands, and if accompanied by the researches of a geological and agricultural bureau, would vastly tend to the development of the resources of our State. Our lands, if divided into sections, half and quarter sections, would meet a ready sale; whereas, at present, the difficulty attending our land titles makes many persons loth to file their certificates, lest they may conflict with private locations; but if their metes and bounds were declared by the State none of this apprehension would exist.

I believe that the policy of extending our frontier too rapidly has already resulted in great loss of life, owing to the sparse settlements being an easy prey to savages. If a base line were run at the extreme edge of our present settlements, and the territory beyond withdrawn from location and settlement, we