There remains to be told a tale of hasty legislation and is mismanagement, which ended in the receipt of a sum small parison with the one so confidently expected. Even without ulant to hasty sale and legislation, it is quite probable that Is would not have brought in what the superintendent had ed. The crisis of 1837 caused a general drop in prices for wild nd the speculation that had been rife for some years before disd, to give place to an inactive market and business depression. pondency of the years between 1837 and 1840 was but slowly off, for the disastrous consequences had not been confined to a but depressed the whole country. st immediately after the organization of the State government ere troubles with "squatters" who had settled on the university nd did not desire to give up their claims. The legislature was d to and entered upon a course of unwise legislation by releasuniversity claims to some 16 sections that had been chosen by versity on the Niles and Nottawaspe reserves in 1836.1 This March 20, 1838, contained the provision that Congress should and grant an amount of land in the place of these sections, to be of equal value to those given up. This indicates a state I toward the university fund which may give ground for expecter legislation, even less considerate and wholesome. There be no reason or justice in thus preferring the settler to the ity, and the subsequent legislation shows that the process was of shunting the university from pillar to post in a manner that ir to allow no certain standing ground. Congress seems not to anted the permission, but pressure was brought to bear upon islature by other settlers, and in 1839 an act was passed whereby on the university lands who could prove that they had occud cultivated their farms in accordance with the preëmption law gress before their location by the State were allowed to obtain title by the payment of $1.25 per acre. The remonstrance of rd against this disregard of their rights was without effect at Resolutions were introduced into the board to discontinue work buildings at Ann Arbor and for the curtailment of other expenses. ately, however, Governor Mason vetoed the bill. The grandilonessage of the young governor discloses among its intricate and us sentences that he suspected the land-speculator of attemptnasquerade as a poverty-stricken squatter. This may not have e reason for the passage of the act, but there is good ground picion. time of payment for the university lands was extended in 1838 39. In 1840 4,743.12 acres were sold at an average price of The superintendent of public instruction in 1837 had confidently ee Laws of Mich., 1838, p. 115. 2 Superintendent's Report, 1841. 2 1 reported that $15 per acre was the lowest price for which the lands would be sold, and the price established by the legislature was $20 per acre. But by this sale the fund expected was considerably diminished. Had this land been sold for $15 per acre the university would have received some $40,000 more than it thus received, and a sale at the price first established by the legislature would have yielded nearly $65,000 more than the sale thus ordered. Again and again from this time on sales were made at less than $20, and finally, in 1842, the price was set at $12 per acre, and by a species of retroactive le gisation1 lands heretofore sold at $20 per acre or over might be reappraised, and if the board of appraisement decided that the lands were worth less than the price at which they were sold, the superintendent of public instruction was instructed to give credit for the balance. Of course, the board of appraisement, which was composed of the county judges and the county surveyor, must have been influenced often by personal and local considerations, and the result was very much the same as if all the lands had been sold at $13.42 per acre.2 The report of the superintendent for 1843 shows that $34,651 had thus been deducted from the funds of the university. Up to this time sales had been made to the amount of $220,000. But by such untoward legislation as this the sum was reduced to about $137,000-a loss of $83,000. Although the legislature in 1837 had directed that the lands should be sold for not less than $20 per acre, there seems no just reason for considering this a contract, morally inviolable by that body. The board of regents were doubtless induced by this action of the legislature, as well as by the high price obtained for the first land placed on the market, to take steps at once for the broad and liberal establishment of the university. But the inevitable decline in values throughout the West was not due to legislative action, and to argue that a legislature by a mere act of a directive nature restricts its own action for the future under all circumstances, and in spite of all exigencies and popular needs, is to argue that a legislature is morally powerless to exercise its authority, and is bound perpetually by its every action. Much of this legislation was unfortunate, possibly some of it was due to unworthy motive. But the burden of the difficulty came not so much from the fact that the price was lowered, as that special legislative action continually interfered in an apparently thoughtless manner with the wise and conservative management of the superintendent. The various acts of reappraisal gave opportunity for the reduction of the price because of the testimony of prejudiced witnesses and interested judges. One instance is given us of the sale of land at $2 an acre. The judgment of President Angell in this matter is entirely just: We can see now that it would have been far better for the university and perfectly just to the purchasers to extend the time of payment, but not to reduce the price. The general result of the management of our lands has been that instead of obtaining for 27 1,000, which at $20 an acre Mr. Pierce in his first report showed they would ey have yielded $547,817.51, and 125 acres remain unsold. It is not easy to w much more the Toledo lands would have added to our fund if they had ined for some years, but certainly some hundreds of thousands of dollars. may at least temper our regret at the sacrifice which was made by rememhat no other one of the five States formed out of the Northwest Territory ⇒ land grant of the United States yield so much to its university as Michigan 538, the board of regents of the university, desiring to proceed - with the buildings, and relying upon the large funds still cony expected, obtained from the legislature a loan of $100,000. The of the whole transaction is a curious one, and a rare example of ects of disorganization. The loan was negotiated July 1, 1838. gislature soon exhibited its interest in the university by relieving ard from the direct payment of the interest and in other ways ng the institution. The message of Governor Felch, in 1846, shows ethod of relief and how the principal of the loan was rapidly shed. niversity fund, at an early day of its existence, became indebted to the State an of $100,000, and the interest of this debt has been liquidated from the ineceived annually on the fund. The acts of the legislature, approved February =, and March 11, 1844, authorized the State treasurer to receive certain propd State warrants belonging to the university fund, and to credit the same on n, and also authorized the sale of university lands for internal improvement ts, which were to be paid into the State treasury and credited in like manner. ect of these provisions has been materially to aid in relieving the fund from arrassments. The amount received from the State under these provisions and d to the university fund is $56,774.15, leaving due to the State from that fund cipal $43,222.60.2 vernor Ransome, in a message two years later, stated that the debt een reduced to about $20,000. In 1850, the finance committee of pard announced that the debt had been practically liquidated in this er. For some years following there was discussion about the er, and it has resolved itself into a question of bookkeeping on which ent experts have had differing opinions. Doubtless the system of ion in office, put into full career by the constitution of 1851, had ffect of obscuring matters of detail in the financial status of the ersity. Information was not inheritable, and the anomalous govent of the university before the adoption of the new constitution any matters in a somewhat unintelligible plight. There is no need scussing the arithmetical problem as to how much was gained or by the university in the transaction. That the debt was obliterated he university seems tolerably clear. In 1855 President Tappan orialized the legislature in his own vigorous fashion and pleaded a ssion of the debt. Governor Bingham in his message, 1857, recomniversity of Michigan, Semicentennial, p. 166. int documents, 1846, p. 15; see, also, Ten Brook, Am. State Uni., etc.; Knight, of the State officer. mended that the principal then becoming due be paid by the State "so that the noble institution, in the prosperity of which every citizen of Michigan feels a deep interest and pride, shall be entirely relieved from embarrassment and debt." The course of legislation in regard to this somewhat obscure matter can be traced through the State laws. February 12, 1853, the auditor-general was required to credit the university fund with the entire interest upon the whole amount of university land sold the act to be limited in operation to two years.1 Like measures were passed in 1855 and 1857, and in 18592 the limitation of 2 years was omitted from a similar act. The result is that at the present time the university receives interest from the State upon a fund equal to the whole amount received from the sale of the university land. Michigan Laws, 1853, p. 85. 2 Ibid., 1855, p. 139; 1857, p. 154; 1859, p. 397. CHAPTER III. NIZATION AND PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY IN TERRITORIAL PERIOD. s suggested in the first chapter that the people of Michigan suddenly to awaken to their educational necessities about 1817. s articles in the Gazette called the attention of American and men to the subject of schools and colleges. The Territory then hin its limits some six or seven thousand people; but the imon of Judge Woodward was at no time limited by present appearr restrained by present necessities. It was he who devised the us cobweb arrangement of the Detroit streets, a plan that ariness to the feet of the stranger and a perplexing problem to d; and of like wondrous formation was his plan for a university. ious nature certainly caused him to give utterance to the vaof apparent aberration. But no one who looks into his career re can see aught but a stubborn and arrogant disposition, lighted flashes of a too brilliant imagination. And yet, in spite of a sness which was often untimely, he had, withal, a grasp of and a dignity and pose in his position which made him at times. ble in the history of the Territory. No one but sturdy, stubnciful and wise old Judge Woodward could have maintained much persistence the rights of the citizens during Proctor's nd of Detroit in the dreary days of the War of 1812, and no he, on the other hand, could have continued the disgraceful igs of Governor Hull's administration. And so the man, with ous combination of wisdom and folly, proposed the following ling scheme for a university. One sometimes thinks that his drollery must have proved too much for his discretion. But tedly he presented the plan in good faith, and on the 26th of , 1817, the governor and judges, in the plenitude of their wisdom, > the following pitch of legislation. AN ACT to establish the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania. acted by the Governor and Judges of the Territory of Michigan, That there in the said Territory a catholepistemiad, or university, denominated the istemiad, or university of Michigania. The catholepistemiad, or university |