The passage of this act was the first step in the creation of Minnesota. No part of the country had ever before borne that name. The word is composed of two Sioux words, "Minne," which means water, and "Sota," which means the condition of the sky when fleecy white clouds are seen floating slowly and quietly over it. It has been translated, "sky tinted," giving to the word Minnesota the meaning of sky-tinted water. The name originated in the fact that, in the early days, the river now called Minnesota used to rise very rapidly in the spring, and there was constantly a caving in of the banks, which disturbed its otherwise pellucid waters, and gave them the appearance of the sky when covered with the light clouds I have mentioned. The similarity was heightened by the current keeping the disturbing element constantly in motion. There is a town just above St. Peter, called Kasota, which means "cloudy sky;" not stormy or threatening, but a sky dotted with fleecy white clouds. The best conception of this word can be found by pouring a few drops of milk into a glass of clear water, and observing the cloudy disturbance.
The principal river in the territory was then called the St. Peters river, but the name was changed to the Minnesota.
EDUCATION.
An act organizing a territory simply creates a government for its inhabitants, limiting and regulating its powers, executive, legislative and judicial, and in our country they generally resemble each other in all essential features. But the organic act of Minnesota contained one provision never before found in any that preceded it. It had been customary to donate to the territory and future state, one section of land in each surveyed township for school purposes, and section 16 had been selected as the one, but in the Minnesota act, the donation was doubled, and sections 16 and 36 in each township were reserved for the schools, which amounted to one-eighteenth of all the lands in the territory; and when it is understood that the state as now constituted contains 84,287 square miles, or about 53,943,379 acres of land, it will be seen that the grant was princely in extent and incalculable in value. No other state in the Union has been endowed with such a magnificent educational foundation. I may except Texas, which came into the Union, not as a part of the United States' public domain, but as an independent republic, owning all its lands, amounting to 237,504 square miles, or 152,002,560 acres, a vast empire in itself. I remember hearing a distinguished senator, in the course of the debate on its admission into the Union, describe its immensity by saying, "A pigeon could not fly across it in a week."
It affords every citizen of Minnesota great pride to know that, under all phases and conditions of our territory and state, whether in prosperity or adversity, the school fund has always been held sacred, and neither extravagance, neglect nor peculation has ever assailed it, but it has been husbanded with jealous care from time to time since the first dollar was realized from it until the present, and has accumulated until the principal is estimated at $20,000,000. The state auditor, in his last report of it, says:
"The extent of the school land grant should ultimately be about three million acres, and as the average price of this land heretofore sold is $5.96 per acre, the amount of principal alone should yield the school fund not less than $17,000,000. To this must be added the amount received from sales of timber, and for lease and royalty of mineral lands, which will not be less than $3,000,000 more. It is not probable that the average sale price of this land will be reduced in the future, but it may increase, especially in view of the improved method of sale inaugurated by the new land law."
The general method of administering the school fund is to invest the proceeds arising from the sale of the lands, and distribute the interest among the counties of the state according to the number of children attending school; the principal always to remain untouched and inviolate.
Generous grants of land have also been made for a state university, amounting to 92,558 acres; also, for an agricultural college to the extent of one hundred thousand acres, which two funds have been consolidated, and together they have accumulated to the sum of $1,159,790.73, all of which is securely invested.