Public education made notable progress in Minnesota during the half decade beginning with Governor Austin’s administration. The services of Horace B. Wilson as superintendent of public instruction during the period advanced the good work begun by his predecessor. Both felt obliged to argue the cause of public schools to be kept free from ecclesiastical meddling. It was not, however, till 1877 that the amendment to the state constitution, forbidding the use of any public funds or property for the support of sectarian schools was adopted by the electors. Spite of much unreasoning prejudice against the state normal schools, they prospered, but were inadequate to supply the demands of over three thousand common schools for trained teachers.
The faculty of the University of Minnesota, who in September, 1869, enrolled a small handful of freshmen, saw that dwindling till but two survived at the end of the four-year course, to be graduated as bachelors in June, 1873. The time of the teachers was spent and well spent on the preparatory students who were later to fill the college classes. The first commencement was celebrated with no little circumstance, and had its effect on a public not yet certain that the state had any concern with college education. That question was much debated in those years, and there were plentiful outpourings of orthodox denunciation of the state university as hopelessly and necessarily “infidel” and “godless.” The regents were affected by this respectable opposition, and unduly moderated their requisitions for appropriations.
Upon the advice of the president of the university (the author of this book), the regents in 1870 prematurely adopted a novel plan of organization. The underlying principle was the fact that the work of the first two years in American colleges is “secondary” in its nature, and according to any scientific arrangement should be performed in secondary institutions. They therefore merged the studies and exercises of the freshman and sophomore years with those of the preparatory years into a so-called “Collegiate Department.” The plan was approved by the highest educational authorities of the country, but the faculty, conservative and indisposed to break away from tradition, could not give it a united support. There were but trifling difficulties of operation, but when a new administration came in, with its differing interests, the plan was allowed to lapse. The principle has since been recognized by two leading American universities.
Account has already been taken of the first congressional land grant, that of February 19, 1851, “reserving” for the support of a territorial university seventy-two sections of public lands. When the enabling act of 1857 was before the House of Representatives, Delegate Henry M. Rice secured a modification of the traditional tender of lands for university purposes. The enabling acts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa had provided that the lands for university support previously reserved from sale should be granted and conveyed to the respective states. Delegate Rice quickly saw to it that the corresponding section of the Minnesota act should read, “that seventy-two sections of land shall be set apart and reserved for the use and support of a STATE university to be selected by the governor of the state....” Why no claim was presented for the additional university reservation, apparently authorized by the enabling act of 1857, till 1860 is not known, but when then made, it met with no hospitality. No secretary of the interior or commissioner of the general land office would construe the paragraph as having any other intent than to guarantee to the state the reservation of 1851 made to the territory. The correspondence revealed the fact that the original reservation had not been “granted and conveyed” to the state. The mortgages placed on the lands and the devastations permitted had therefore been illegal. It took an act of Congress, that of March 2, 1861, donating the lands reserved in 1851, to remedy this omission.
Ten years ran by after the passage of the enabling act, and Minnesota’s claim for a double portion of university lands had not been allowed. On February 8, 1867, the legislature authorized the special board of regents to employ counsel to prosecute the claim on “a contingent compensation in land or money.” The person employed rendered such effective aid to the member from the university district that Congress was moved to direct the commissioner of the general land office, by an act approved July 8, 1870, to ignore the reservation of 1851 and allow Minnesota to take the seventy-two sections mentioned in the enabling act of 1857. The successful counsel was voted by the regents a compensation of 1950 acres of land. As these acres were promptly located in the pine region of Itasca County it may be assumed that the remuneration was satisfactory.
Upon the initiative of the president of the university the legislature of 1872 authorized a geological and natural history survey of the state, and placed the same in charge of the board of regents. In a later year the twelve sections of land donated by Congress in the enabling act of 1857 for the development of possible salt springs or deposits, less some deductions for fruitless exploitations, were turned over to defray the costs of the survey. Professor Newton H. Winchell was appointed state geologist, and remained in office for twenty-four years. The geological results of the operations conducted by himself and assistants may be found in twenty-four annual reports, ten bulletins, and a final report in seven quarto volumes. Two additional volumes of botany and one of zoölogy were published. Much remains to be done on the natural history branch, and important geological investigations of scientific interest were left incomplete when that work was suspended. The survey has been economically worth to the state far more than it cost, and the reports will remain as a noble monument to their authors.
CHAPTER XVII
CLEARING UP
When the Republican state convention assembled on July 28, 1875, its first informal ballot virtually selected the successor of Cushman K. Davis in the governorship. The distinction fell on John Sargent Pillsbury, who had proved his capacity for public affairs by ten years’ service in the state senate and on the board of regents of the university. A successful business career, a reputation for inflexible integrity, a power to select from varied propositions the one which could be carried and worked, and a keen insight into human nature gave him an influence with legislatures and the people rarely equaled. Two reëlections were accorded him as by common consent. The varied events and incidents of his six years’ service are so related that, while forming a whole, they may be thrown into convenient groups.
After the harvest of 1875 Governor Davis appointed a commission to investigate the locust devastations, and placed on it Allan Whitman of St. Paul, a man of science. The report, by giving in simple language an account of the vermin, their manner of propagation, and the stages of their growth, suggested the principles upon which their ravages might be restricted, and, when new invasions did not take place, actually repressed. Early in the season of 1876 Governor Pillsbury issued a proclamation commending to the farmers of the infested districts the advice of the commission to attack the “hoppers” immediately after hatching. By digging ditches around fields and gardens not infested, the vegetation could be protected. For the rescue of crops somewhat grown he recommended a simple apparatus which got the popular name of “hopperdozer.” It consisted of a piece of sheet-iron twelve feet long or more, turned up on the back edge and ends. By means of ropes attached to the front edge, at or near the ends, it could be hauled by men or animals over the surface of the field. The upper surface of the pan, smeared with coal tar, imprisoned the insects till they could be scraped out at convenient intervals. By such simple devices considerable areas of crops were rescued from total destruction. They were of course useless after the appearance of wings on the creatures; and the havoc of the previous season was repeated, particularly in the southwestern counties. These Governor Pillsbury visited in person, and, after witnessing the ruin and distress going on, called for contributions in relief. The response was immediate and generous, and with the aid of his wife the governor attended personally to the distribution. The damage extended in this year to twenty-nine counties south of Otter Tail Lake and west of the watershed of the Mississippi. The worst of all was that at the close of the season these counties were “literally peppered” with locust eggs. The outlook for the coming season caused deep anxiety. The legislature of 1877 authorized a loan of $75,000 to be advanced to farmers for seed, and empowered county commissioners to levy a tax for the destruction of locusts and their eggs. In the spring the hatching began in alarming volume. Governor Pillsbury, in the expectation that the expense would be reimbursed, distributed 56,000 pounds of sheet iron and 3000 barrels of coal tar for “dozers.” Where these were diligently operated the damage to crops was reduced.
On April 10, 1877, in response to an expressed desire of various religious bodies, Governor Pillsbury appointed the 26th of that month as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer: “In the shadow of the locust plague,” said he, “whose impending renewal threatens the desolation of the land, let us humbly invoke for the efforts we make in our defense the guidance of that hand which alone is adequate to stay the pestilence.” The day was observed in a goodly number of congregations, but there was no great and general humiliation of the people, and there was no immediate evidence of supernatural interference. The infernal brood grew wings and began their aerial excursions in various directions. In the last days of June the swarms began rising high in the air and taking flight on different bearings. In the course of sixty days all had so risen and flown out of the state to unknown destinations. Although they had wrought damage equal at least to that of any previous year of their residence in Minnesota, the state as a whole harvested the greatest wheat crop in her history,—30,000,000 bushels, of sixty-three pounds to the bushel.