subject to re-valuation every fifteen years, and to lease the same for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, in such lots as the Trustees might direct, at rents not less than six per cent. on such valuation.

At this session, the first measures were taken for the creation of a fund from the proceeds of the lands granted for the use of schools in the Virginia Military District. The first section of the act of February 16, 1809, directed the legislative appointment of a Surveyor, Register, and Treasurer, for terms of three years, under bond, respectively, of $10,000; the Surveyor to run off the lands into quarter sections, receiving the compensation allowed by the United States for similar services; the Register, as soon as the plat of said surveys was deposited with him, to give public notice of sale, for at least six weeks, in newspapers at Pittsburg and Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, Virginia, to attend said sales, offering first the north-east quarter section, thence west, on the same parallel, and so on, with successive tiers of quarter sections; provided that no part thereof was sold for less than two dollars per acre, besides its proportion of the cost of surveying, advertising, and offering for sale; to require as conditions of sale, a first payment of the sum chargeable on each quarter section, for the expenses of survey and sale, and yearly payments thereafter, forever, at the rate of six per cent. per year, subject to such commutation as future Legislatures might prescribe; to execute deeds of lease for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, to the purchasers, recording the same in a book provided for that purpose; to audit and settle Surveyor's and other accounts; to renew sales, as aforesaid, from year to year; and to hold his office at Mansfield, Richland county, (in the vicinity of the lands granted by Congress, in 1807, for the use of schools in the Virginia District,) with a salary of $150, payable out of the avails of lands sold, and one and a half per cent. on the amount of sales; while it was made the duty of the Treasurer to attend said sales, receive and keep the payments of money, collect rents due, and re-enter and sell the same for

non-payment, keeping his office likewise at Mansfield, and receiving the same compensation as the Register.

This legislation was important, as a title was conveyed, as fully advantageous to the permanent lessee as a fee-simple, unincumbered by a condition of re-valuation, and with a prospect of commutation by the Legislature. Indeed, at the ensuing session, the act of February 16, 1810, fixed the first or contingent payment at ten dollars for each quarter section, and instead of yearly payments, immediately thereafter, of six per cent., such payments were postponed for five years; but in consideration of this indulgence, purchasers were required, within three years, to "build a good, comfortable cabin, and clear at least three acres of ground on each quarter section,' with the usual penalties for non-compliance with said amendatory act, of re-entry and forced sale.

In his second annual message, December, 1809, Governor Huntington held the following language:

"Suffer me, in this place, to call your attention to the state of our seminaries and schools of education, and to recommend them to the patronage and encouragement of the State; it is in a public as well as in a private point of view that the State is interested in the diffusion of learning and useful knowledge; where the means of education are extended, and the great body of the people are enlightened, the arts of designing and ambitious characters can never succeed in undermining the liberties of the country."

At the eighth session of the General Assembly, 1809-10, besides the act amendatory to the act for the disposition of Virginia Military School lands, already cited, a series of local acts were passed: 1. Appointing Eleazer Hickcox and Peter Hitchcock, Trustees of the "Erie Literary Society." 2. Incorporating Clement Vallandigham, John Stough, Resin Beall, John Thompson, Thomas Rowland, Alexander Snodgrass, Rudolph Blair, Joseph Stibbs, David Hostetter, and John Hindman, of Columbiana county, John Sloan of Stark county, and Thomas G. Jones, of Trumbull county, as the "New Lisbon Academy." 3. Incorporating the shareholders of the "Poland Library Society," and appointing Thirkand

rectors.

Kirtland, James Duncan and John Strothers its first di4. Incorporating Edmund Munger, Daniel Bradstreet, Noah Tibbals, John Harris, Israel Harris, Benjamin Maltbie, Amoni Maltbie, Ethal Kellogg, Jeremiah Hole, Elihu Kellogg, Freeman Munger, Edmund K. Munger, Reuben Munger, Ezra Kellogg, Jonathan Munger, and Henry Munger, and their successors, as the "Washington Social Library Company," in Montgomery county.

Governor Huntington, in his last annual message to the General Assembly, December 3, 1810, thus alluded to the subject of education:

"The utility of institutions for the promotion of education is too obvious to need illustration. In a free government, where the rights of the people are in their own keeping, it is peculiarly necessary they should have a correct knowledge of their rights, to guard, on the one hand, against the encroachment of power, and on the other hand, against the evils of anarchy; and no means are so well adapted to this purpose, as a general diffusion of knowledge and information, the foundation of which must be laid in schools, and seminaries of learning.

"I am well aware that the state of our funds will not permit much assistance to be given them, in the way that would be most effectual; but if any legislative aid can be devised, within the resources of the State, it would undoubtedly be a measure of sound policy to extend it to so useful an object. Nor will it be an unimportant inquiry, whether the most effectual measures have been taken, to render the lands appropriated by Congress, for the use of schools, in this State, subservient to the purposes for which they were granted."

CHAPTER VIII.

ADMINISTRATION OF RETURN J. MEIGS-1810-14.

In the inaugural address, December 8, 1810, of Governor Meigs, he thus expressed himself:

"The Constitution of the State has wisely declared, that 'religion, morality, and knowledge, being essentially necessary to a good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision."

"Correct education is the auxiliary of virtue-moral science will exalt the mind, while ignorance, the badge of mental slavery, debases it.

"Where the structure of government rests on public opinion, knowledge is of vital interest; public opinion, to be correct, must be enlightened, and the culture of the understanding is the preserver of republican principles. Man informed of his political rights becomes reluctant to renounce them. Tyrants govern the ignorant. Intelligence alone is capable of self-government.

Respect for religion, purity of morals, and love of country, comprise the substance of civic obligations.

"As with individuals, so is it with nations, that vice is the precursor of ruin; and taken in its extensive sense, it is permanently true, that righteousness exalteth a nation.'

"Public excellence ascends from domestic purity; and just principles, extending from families to communities, enlarge the sphere of utility, and give to patriotism its proudest devotion.

"A fervent attachment to our country and its free institutions, is a principal of predominant obligation. Foreign influence is the harbinger of destruction to States which are free. It was the gold-dividing influence of Macedon which demolished the fairest temples of Grecian freedom; and Rome saw, in the corruption of her citizens, her liberties entombed forever. With us, were every good citizen to cast

his mite into the stock of public virtue, the fund would be inexhaustible.

"Happily for us, our State is endowed with liberal grants and reservations of land for the use of schools, and universities, and we should be unfaithful to ourselves, and unjust to posterity, were we to fail to regulate them in a manner most beneficial to these important objects. Our schools and academies are advancing in improvement, and promise to sanction the hopes entertained of their utility."

The legislation of the ninth session of the General Assembly, 1810-11, upon educational subjects, was mostly local. It consisted, 1. Of the incorporation of Elias Gilman, Timothy Rose, Silas Winchel, Daniel Baker, and Grove Case, as Trustees of the "Granville Religious and Literary Society," with power to dispose of two lots in the town of Granville, Licking county, donated by the New England Licking Land Company, for the support of a school in the town of Granville; 2. Of the incorporation of Lyman Potter, James Snodgrass, John Rea, Bazaleel Wells, John McDowell, Benjamin Tappan, David Hoge, Obadiah Jennings, Thomas McKean Thompson, James Larrimore, John C. Bayless, Thomas Henderson, Thomas Scott, Samuel Hunter, and Jesse Edginton, of Jefferson county, as President and Trustees of "Steubenville Academy;" 3. Of two acts transferring from the town Council of Marietta, and the Trustees and Treasurer elected in fractional township, number four, second fractional range of the townships in the Miami Purchase, under an act of January 24, 1809, the powers possessed by those bodies respectively to the Trustees and Treasurer, elected under the act of February 6, 1810, incorporating original surveyed townships; and, 4. Incorporating the following persons as the "Gallia Academy" in Gallipolis, to-wit: Claud R. Menager, Henry Due, Joseph W. V. Vacht, Edward W. Tupper, Thomas Rodgers, John Miller, Luther Shepard, Calvin Shepard, Elnathan Barlow, Gustavus Keys, Francis Leclerc, William Harvey, Phineas Mathews, Adam Long, Lewis V. Vonschrittz, Lewis Newsom, Stephen Monnat, Peter Ferrard, John B. Le Tailleur, John Cantrell,