of August 31, 1896, 6,656,752; total acres leased from September 1, 1896, to August 31, 1896, 9,700,780. Grand total acres leased 16,357,532. Leases terminated by cancellation, expiration, and sales amount to 5,071,097 acres. Total under lease August 31, 1898, 11,286,435 acres. For the university 2,221,400 acres have been surveyed, of which 211,085 acres have been sold, embracing mainly nearly all the land of the 50 leagues originally granted by the Republic of Texas. SUMMARY OF EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS. According to the annual report of Hon. R. W. Finley, State comptroller, for the fiscal year ending August 31, 1898, and the report recently rendered by Land Commissioner Baker, the total educational endowments of Texas may be summed as follows: Permanent school fund: State bonds.... County bonds. Railroad bonds.. Cash balance.... Value of land unsold, 20,554,365 acres, say Interest-bearing land sale and notes (estimated). Total value of permanent fund Cash balance available school fund Total permanent and available funds.... County school fund: Value of land, 5,856,400 acres, say.. Total value State and county school funds.. Permanent university fund: Bonds held in trust by the State..... Interest-bearing land sales and notes, say Federal endowment Agricultural and Mechanical College .......... Grand total educational endowments $2, 173, 100 3, 186, 115 1,262, 340 967, 157 41, 108, 730 17, 000, 000 65, 697, 442 97, 790 65, 795, 232 11, 712, 800 6, 000, 000 83, 508, 032 578, 540 2,374 4,020, 630 500,000 209,000 88,818, 576 August 31, 1898, there was a cash balance of $22,477 to the credit of the available fund of the university, and $2,074 to the credit of the Agricultural and Mechanical College fund. SUPPOSED SCHOOL-LAND DEFICIT. In the face of Land Commissioner Baker's statement of a deficiency in the lands due by the State to the free-school fund, and consequent apprehension as to their titles in the minds of holders of such lands, investigations as far as made by a special committee of the legislature indicate, as stated in an interview with Senator Potter, chairman of the committee, that there is no such deficiency as 9,000,000 acres, and that Commissioner Baker must have erred by embracing in his estimate several million acres in certificates issued but never legally located, or land granted for them. Senator Potter says: Doubtless there is yet enough on hand of the public domain to fully compensate the common-school fund without disturbing the titles or location and settlement of any of the people of the State. The estimated area of the State is 175,594,860 acres, and in 1877 the estimated liabilities to the public domain aggregated 127,724,333 acres. So it is hard to conceive, if this is correct, how, as now reported by Commissioner Baker, the public domain at the time of the adoption of the constitution in 1876 amounted in round numbers to 75,000,000 acres, half of which constitutionally belonged to the school fund and the other half to the State, and that the State appropriated about 9,000,000 acres more than belonged to her. Of course, the State will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the people in their homes and confirm the titles granted by the State. LANDS RESERVED FOR UNORGANIZED COUNTIES. There are 18 counties remaining unorganized in Texas, all in the western section of the State, and each entitled to 17,712 acres of the public domain held in reserve for them. On the other hand, there are some eighty-odd counties, covering about one-third of the State, in which the school lands are situated, and fully three-fourths of the lands have for years been open to settlement and for over twelve years have been accessible to railways and other facilities tending to promote agriculture, and yet, though mainly suited for pasturage, are subject to the restrictions of the "actual settlers act," settlers being allowed to locate their homes anywhere there are not resident occupants in the limits of the pastures. At most, there are but a few hundred children of the scholastic age, according to the census, within the limits of these unorganized counties, which have about 400,000 acres of the best land in the western section of the State, but the nature of the country is such as precludes the prospect of sufficient population to support any system of public schools for a long period. Then why, it has been suggested, should the State husband a fund for so remote a population at the expense of the necessities of one which now exists, and must necessarily increase its needs? Why is the State withholding from practical use millions of acres of land which should now be yielding hundreds of thousands of revenue per annum, and, worse than all, operating under a fiscal management, upheld by the constitution, which gives to each school child in some counties $4 or $5 and in others $20 to $30? Why not have a constitutional convention to change such abnormal conditions? There are some irregularities resulting from the per capita distribution of the school fund in Texas by reason of counties which, on account of having small property assessments, contribute but a small amount to the general school-fund tax, and yet by virtue of large scholastic population, mainly where Mexicans or negroes predominate, receive a large per capita share of the tax; and in some of them, although a great proportion of the children are of Catholic parentage and attend the parochial schools of that church, instead of the public schools, the per capita distribution being applied to all children alike, such counties receive an allowance largely disproportioned to the actual free-school attendance. The Catholics protested against any proposition to deprive them of the full benefits of the fund by limiting the apportionment to the school attendance, claiming that all children of the scholastic age were properly beneficiaries of the law, whether the pupils were enrolled in the public or Catholic schools; and as in Louisiana many parishes which did not have a public school, but had paid the school tax, claimed the sums appropriated for them, so with like reason the Catholics in Texas claimed for the use of their parochial schools a proportionate share of the general school fund, to which they had contributed by taxation. But the State authorities ruled that the fund must be applied exclusively for the use of the children attending the public schools. As shown in a course of lectures on Texas history by Judge Fulmore, some counties have such a large per capita school fund of their own, from various sources, that they do not need the State per capita, so much more needed in other counties, but distributed to all alike. For this reason he advocates local taxation as each county may need, instead of taxation of the counties by the State for school funds for redistribution to the counties. RACE DISCRIMINATIONS. After the war there were no such disturbing efforts in Texas as were made in some other States to associate colored with white children in the public schools. This was due to the Texas constitution being changed by the one of 1869 to accord with the inhibition by the reconstruction acts of Congress against "race discriminations,” followed by the State providing separate schools for colored children, and taking such other action in behalf of the colored people as served to curb any spirit of dissatisfaction on their part. It is of applicable interest, however, to note how Texas was not alone in the besetment of various matters of difficult adjustment in educational affairs and how similar conditions were differently treated and resulted in other States. The constitution of 1868 of Louisiana, like that of 1869 of Texas, contained stringent provisions against "race discriminations;" but while the Louisiana constitution provided that there should be "no separate school or institution of learning established by the State exclusively for any race," Texas specially provided by law for such schools. The results were that while such matters were quietly enough adjusted to the new order of things in Texas, "the days of reconstruction," as Mr. Fay states in his history of education in Louisiana, "were bitter days, showing the inexpediency of commingling the two races in social ways, the laws not being really observed on account of lacking that indispensable requisite of popular government, the consent of the governed." "As far as the laws were enforced," Mr. Fay adds, "it amounted to the exclusion of the whites from the public schools." Subsequently, in 1877, State Superintendent of Instruction Lusher, in his public report stated: The senseless inhibitions of the constitution of Louisiana had generally been disregarded in the rural parishes, and the system of public education has steadily gained favor from the public mind only where separate schools for white and colored children, respectively, were established and maintained. In New Orleans nine-tenths of our colored fellow-citizens prefer separate schools for the education of their children. Fortunately, what at first and for some years appears to have been a seriously perplexing difficulty seems to have been permanently adjusted. TEXT-BOOK LAW. The State has but recently adopted the method of providing by law for a uniform system of text-books; not, as in California, by the State printing them, but by selection of the books by a text-book board and competition of publishers for supplying them for the public schools, the larger cities of the State being exempt from its provisions. The result so far is claimed to have been satisfactory, but in Texas, as in some other States, a degree of influence appears to have been brought to bear which, perhaps, has not resulted in the best selections being made. The bids of one large publishing house were ignored on account of partisan opposition to "book trusts," claimed to be represented by the bidding company; and while, ceteris paribus, it was fairly enough aimed to give Texas and other Southern authors the preference in the selection of the books, the ceteris paribus does not appear to have been fully established or regarded. The inmates of the Confederate Home made a bitter protest against the United States history selected, on the ground that it did not do justice to the Confederates. Indeed, it is very difficult to write a perfectly fair and impersonal history, involving records of great importance and subtle and impartial analyses, and especially one that will draw the lines properly as to the merits of both sides in such a remarkable conflict as the American civil war. In fact, any system of selecting and supplying the books, except by open competition with authors and publishers, seems liable to the dangers of nepotism, or some sort of favoritism, or interested business influence. As to the question of State publication, the report of the text-book board to Governor Culberson seems conclusive against the system, and is here presented on account of the careful and very instructive information which it conveys on so important a subject: His Excellency C. A. CULBERSON, Governor. AUSTIN, TEX., January 10, 1899. DEAR SIR: We, the State text board, in compliance with section 15, chapter 164, acts of the regular session of the twenty-fifth legislature, the same being the uniform text-book law, submit to you the following report in reference to the State publication of common-school text-books: The State superintendent, acting for this board, sent the following questions to all the State superintendents of the United States: "1. Has your State a uniform series of text-books? "2. Has your State had any experience in State publication of text-books? If so, please state whether favorable or unfavorable. "3. Do you think State publication advisable? "Please send any printed matter you may have concerning State publication." Replies to these questions were received from the superintendents of a large number of States. To the first, second, and third questions the answers were "No," except as follows: The superintendent of public instruction of Florida answered "No" to the first and second questions, and to the third replied: "Yes; if the proper men are at the helm." The superintendent of public instruction of Vermont replied “No” to the first and second questions, and to the third question he replied: "Under certain conditions." The superintendent of public instruction of California replied as follows: To the first question "Yes;" to the second question "Yes." "The cost of publication and printing is excessive, and the character of the product-the substance-is mediocre." To the third question he replied "No." He also sent a copy of the seventeenth biennial report of the State, which contains much information in reference to the experiment of State publication. The experiment was begun in that State in 1885. The State appropriated for this purpose, from 1885 to 1895, $478,505.47; of the funds received for sale of books there has been used in paying the expenses of publishing text-books $594,749.36, making a total expended in publishing text-books of $1,073,254.83. The receipt from the sale of books, with the value of unsold books and material on hand, amounts to $767,931.31. This is $305,323.32 less than the total outlay. The State has a printing plant valued by the State printer at $189,330.47, which, subtracted from the $305,323.32, leaves a net loss of $115,942.87. Even with this loss the State is selling its books at higher prices than are being paid for similar books bought in the open market. To show the difference in the prices paid for books in California and Texas, the one with State publication and the other with a uniform State text-book law, the following comparison of prices is given: The 3 readers of the California old series, which had to be revised after having been in use from 1886 to 1894, only eight years, sell for $1.25, while the first 3 books of the Texas series sell for 72 cents at retail and 45 cents at exchange prices, and the 5 books of the Texas series sell for only $1.52 at retail and 87 cents at exchange prices. The 4 revised readers of the California series sell for $1.64, against $1.07 retail and 62 cents exchange for the first 4 books of the Texas series, and $1.52 retail and 87 cents exchange for the 5 books of our series. In these estimates the number of pages in the books is not taken into consideration, as the number of pages in each of the California books is unknown to the board. |