legislature shall provide for the prompt collection, at maturity, of all debts due on account of university lands heretofore sold, or that may hereafter be sold, and shall in neither event have the power to grant relief to the purchasers.

SEC. 13. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, established by an act of the legislature, passed April 17, 1871, located in the county of Brazos, is hereby made and constituted a branch of the University of Texas, for instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, and the natural sciences connected therewith. And the legislature shall, at its next session, make an appropriation, not to exceed $40,000, for the construction and completion of the buildings and improvements, and for providing the furniture necessary to put said college in immediate and successful operation.

SEC. 14. The legislature shall also, when deemed practicable, establish and provide for the maintenance of a college or branch university for the instruction of the colored youths of the State, to be located by a vote of the people: Provided, That no tax shall be levied and no money appropriated out of the general revenue, either for this purpose or for the establishment and erection of the buildings of the University of Texas.

SEC. 15. In addition to the lands heretofore granted to the University of Texas, there is hereby set apart and appropriated, for the endowment, maintenance, and support of said university and its branches, 1,000,000 acres of the unappropriated public domain of the State, to be designated and surveyed as may be provided by law; and said lands shall be sold under the same regulations and the proceeds invested in the same manner as is provided for the sale and investment of the permanent university fund; and the legislature shall not have power to grant any relief to the purchasers of said lands.

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RESULTS OF RELIEF LEGISLATION."

Prior to the adoption of the constitution of 1876 the legislature had repeatedly passed acts granting relief to purchasers of school and university lands by extending time for their payments of interest on their purchases. These were generally parties seeking to acquire the lands under the "actual settlers act," which allowed thirty annual installments and required only one-thirtieth of the amount in cash at the time of the purchase. As one result of this indulgence the State failed to collect a large amount of interest due the free schools, besides from $50,000 to $60,000 due the university, which still remains uncollected, and is probably entirely lost to the institution on account of so many purchasers forfeiting their land, and most of them after making only the cash payment. Many of the State records were destroyed by the burning of the State capitol in 1881, and the writer is not advised of any official statement of the extent to which the general school fund suffered in the same way as did the university fund, but is aware, as existing records of the attorney-general's office show, that thousands of suits had to be brought for forfeiture of the lands on account of nonpayment of interest on the purchase notes.

EDUCATION OF COLORED YOUTHS.

The provision in Article VII of the constitution for tuition and separate schools for colored children, and that impartial provision

shall be made for both, was a necessary result of the requirements of the "reconstruction acts" of the Federal Congress, and has been in the main observed as closely as circumstances and social conditions will admit, delay in the establishment of the colored branch of the State University being the only remaining cause for special complaint. The State, however, has taken some practical steps, gratifying to the colored people, for their better education by establishing some years ago the Prairie View Normal School, at Alta Vista, near Hempstead, for instructing colored teachers, and latterly by the legislature of 1897 granting a special endowment of 100,000 acres for the "colored branch" of the university. It nevertheless remains that the colored people would prefer, and the public generally would like for them to have, a separate university, with teachers of their own selection, instead of a branch of a university which, as already established, is wholly devoted to the education of white youths.

The grant of 100,000 acres for "the Colored University" may, then, mean an independent rather than a branch institution, as, if it was intended to be limited to the "colored branch of the State University," it should have been so expressed. In this way it may lead to other measures in the direction of endowing an independent establishment for the higher education of colored people, such as may naturally occur to the legislature as the best means for accomplishing such purpose. As to the disposition of the white people in such matters, they have certainly been liberal in the promotion of the education of the negroes, and have twice discarded propositions to limit the fund for educating colored children to the amount collected by the State from colored taxpayers. As the law now stands, the colored scholastic population shares per capita in common with the white children the benefits of the entire school fund.

PRESENT SCHOOL ORGANIZATION.

As the State's school system now exists, independent school districts for grammar and primary schools, subject to subdivision of counties for community schools; changing from community to district and from district to community organization; municipal control of schools in cities, towns, or villages organized for school purposes; local taxation to supplement the school fund apportioned by the State to the counties, and the maintenance of State normal schools and the university and its branches, are the main features of the system.

Counties are divided into school districts subject to control of county school boards and county school superintendents, and these are subdivided for the convenience of community schools upon proper petition to the county authorities. Changes from one system to another are effected by local option or exemptions authorized by the legislature. Cities and towns are allowed to incorporate as independ

ent school districts with separate school boards and superintendents, and to establish graded and high schools of their own, in addition to their primary and grammar schools, and to share in the benefits of the State school apportionment. Local taxation is allowed to cover expenditures for longer school terms and desired improvements, for which counties and districts, as well as cities, towns, and villages, may also provide in the same manner. New counties as soon as organized are entitled to 4 leagues (17,712 acres) of land, to be selected from the public domain and controlled by them for their own school purposes. In this way the lands come to be embraced in the territory of subsequently organized counties. They are generally sold to good advantage and the proceeds converted into bonds bearing interest for the benefit of the schools of the county to which the lands belong, though located in another county.

LAND SALES AND LEASES.

All school and university lands are of course exempt from taxation and are subject to sale or lease, the school lands being generally preferred by settlers and the university lands being in better demand than heretofore for leasing on account of their being offered by the regents in large bodies to suit stockmen for pastures. Most of the school lands are also leased in large bodies, mainly at 3 cents an acre per annum, which is the rate for the university lands which the regents are holding for leasing in preference to selling. The school lands are being sold as well as leased in considerable quantities, the prices of sales being from $1 to $2 per acre, except for well-timbered lands, which are sold at $5 per acre and are generally bought for the sake of the timber. All sales of school lands are payable, as stated, in thirty annual installments, and at a nominal rate of interest-3 per cent per annum. Some 20,000,000 acres of the unsold lands, embracing nearly all of them, are leased at 3 to 4 cents an acre per annum, but subject to sale under the actual settlers act. The rentals are added to the annual available school fund. The rentals of the university lands, which are leased at 3 cents an acre, are added to the university available fund.

The price for leasing of both the school and university lands for some years prior to 1887, as fixed by the State land board, which existed but a few years, was as high as 6 cents an acre per annum, having been reduced since to meet the decreased demand for grazing lands resulting from the reduced value of cattle, which has lately risen, however, without increasing the price for the lands to correspond with the enlarged demand for pastures.

COUNTY SCHOOL LANDS.

Besides the regular State endowment to the counties, each county, as has already been stated, has a separate special grant from the State

of 4 leagues-17,712 acres. As these lands are sold the interest on the funds instead of the principal, which latter is kept in the State treasury, is applied annually to the support of the county schools. The lands thus granted to the counties, aggregating some 5,856,400 acres, are exclusive of a general reservation of several million acres from the public domain, from which counties remaining unorganized are to have their 4-league grants, making the county grants aggregate, it is estimated, about 10,000,000 acres.

THE AVAILABLE SCHOOL FUND.

The entire amount of available school fund apportioned by the State and counties for 1898 for a scholastic population of 589,551 white and 187,316 colored children over 8 and under 17 years of age was, for whites, $2,358,204, and for colored children, $749,264; making a total of $3,107,468 for 776,867 school children, derived from the school tax of 12 cents on the $100 property valuation, and from interest on land notes, leases of school lands, local taxation, and the annual transfer of 1 per cent from the permanent school fund, under what is known as the Jester amendment to the constitution. Funds of the university are limited by the organic law to investments in bonds of the State and of the United States; but the school funds are not confined to these securities, and are mainly invested in county bonds, to an extent proportioned to property values, but limited by the constitutional indebtedness of the counties applying for the loans or purchase by the State of their bonds. Payment of county bonds thus held in trust for the permanent school fund is guaranteed by the State to purchasers to whom the State may sell them, and they are generally in demand at a premium. The State invests the funds for the benefit of the respective counties, and in this way they operate for their local advantage.

The State board of education and State superintendent of instruction are charged with the general direction necessary to enforce the school laws and with making the annual per capita distribution of the school fund based on the scholastic census and fixed by the legislature for all public-school children over 8 and under 17 years of age, the children of the white and colored races being required to be taught in separate schools, and impartial provision to be made for both races.

The annual ad valorem State school tax (subject to change by the legislature) is now 18 cents on the $100 assessed value of the taxable property of the State; the proceeds of which tax, together with the proceeds of all occupation taxes and $1 poll tax (exclusive of costs of collection) and the interest from bonds or funds belonging to the permanent school fund, the rentals from leases and sales of school lands, and 1 per cent transferred annually from the permanent school fund, constitute the available resources of the free schools. No part of the public-school fund can be used for the support of any sectarian school.

STATE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.

The office of superintendent of education has been affected several times by political changes. Originally the direction of the schools and distribution of school funds was largely intrusted as ex-officio duties to some State official. The State comptroller was ex officio State superintendent till the office of superintendent of public instruction was provided for by the constitution of 1866, which, besides, created a board of education, composed of the governor, comptroller, and superintendent. The first State superintendent was Pryor Lea, appointed November, 1866, by Governor Throckmorton, who, with the other State officers, was displaced the following year under the reconstruction acts of Congress, and E. M. Wheelock was appointed by Provisional Governor Pease to serve the remainder of the term. In May, 1871, J. C. De Gress was appointed by Governor Davis to succeed Wheelock, and served until O. N. Hollingsworth was elected to the office, in 1870, on the ticket with Governor Coke.

The office of superintendent of instruction was virtually abolished in 1876 by the legislature making no provision for its support, allowing the board of education a clerk instead. The office was revived in 1884, and the department of education established, with a board composed of the governor, comptroller, and secretary of state, the State school superintendent being ex officio secretary of the board. The change creating the department of education was made by the legislature at the suggestion of the secretary of the board. B. M. Baker, who had been appointed superintendent by Governor Ireland in 1883 (the office being subsequently made elective), was in 1884 chosen superintendent of public instruction, as the law designated the position. Baker was succeeded by O. H. Cooper, elected in 1886 and reelected in 1888. Cooper resigned some time before his second term expired, when, after having declined a professor's chair in the State University, he received the appointment of superintendent of the public schools of Galveston. H. C. Pritchett was selected by Governor Ross to fill Cooper's unexpired term, and was elected to the office in 1890, but resigned before his term had expired in order to resume his original position, which he now holds, as principal of the Sam Houston Normal Institute. J. M. Carlisle, president of the State Teachers' Association, was appointed to the vacancy by Governor Hogg, and, after having been twice elected for successive terms, was succeeded by J. M. Kendall, elected in 1898.

THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS.

The public high schools in the State now [1898] number 156, including 26 for colored children. In some of the larger cities the buildings are splendid. The Ball High School, in Galveston, one of the largest and