CHAPTER XXI

PUBLIC DONATIONS OF LAND TO SCHOOLS

GRANTS BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

To the schools in some of the states land has been donated, either as an investment, the proceeds of which should be used for their benefit, or as sites for the erection of buildings. This has been done by the national government, by the states, by cities and by individuals and corporations. The most important of such gifts have been the grants of the public domain made by Congress for the benefit of certain of the state institutions. Shortly after the work of the education of the deaf had commenced in the country, it bestowed 23,000 acres upon the Hartford school and a township of land upon the Kentucky. After nearly three-quarters of a century it came again materially to the aid of this education, this time by directing that certain tracts of the public lands located in states about to be admitted to the Union should be set apart for the benefit of the schools. Thus in the enabling act of 1889 for the admission of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, land was set aside for the benefit of the schools for the deaf and the blind, which are mentioned by name. In North Dakota and South Dakota the number of acres allowed to each was 40,000, and in Montana 50,000. Likewise when Wyoming was admitted in 1890, 30,000 acres were granted for an institution for the deaf and the blind, though the school has not yet been established. When Utah was admitted in 1896, 100,000 acres were granted to the school for the deaf. On the admission of Arizona and New Mexico in 1910, like amounts were respectively granted for institutions for the deaf and the blind, 50,000 acres having already been set aside in the latter while a territory.

GRANTS BY THE STATES

Grants by the states themselves for the schools on a large scale have not been numerous. The state of Texas has set apart large tracts of public land for its institutions, the school for the deaf coming in for 100,000 acres as its share. The school in Michigan has received a number of sections of the state salt spring lands, amounting to 16,000 acres.

GRANTS BY CITIES OR CITIZENS

Small tracts of land have been donated in some cases by cities where the schools were to be established, sometimes accompanied by a cash donation as a further inducement for a particular location. Similar gifts have been made by individuals and corporations. These donations have occurred in about half of the states, but they have usually been small in size, most being of five or ten acres.

FOOTNOTES:

We have also seen how applications were made to Congress for the endowment of other schools.

Stat. at Large, 1889, ch. 180. Washington was also admitted by this act, and there was a grant of 200,000 acres for "charitable, penal and reformatory institutions". The schools for the deaf and the blind, which were not mentioned by name, seem not to have shared in this grant.

Similar amounts were allowed to the reform schools, the agricultural colleges and the universities.

Stat. at Large, ch. 664. When Idaho was admitted the same year (ibid., ch. 656) 150,000 acres were granted to charitable, educational, penal and reformatory institutions, the school for the deaf not being directly mentioned.

Ibid., 1894, ch. 138. Similar amounts were allowed for the school for the blind and other institutions. As the school in Utah is for both the deaf and the blind, it really has 200,000 acres.

Ibid., 1910, ch. 310. In the act admitting Oklahoma, though the school for the deaf is not mentioned among the institutions upon which land is bestowed, it has shared in the grant, having land reported to be worth at least $350,000. Annals, lvi., 1911, p. 206.

In general with respect to the land granted by Congress, it is provided that such land is not to be sold at less than $10 an acre.

The state of Massachusetts granted a small parcel of land to the Horace Mann school in Boston. To the school in Missouri 40 acres were granted by the state, and to that in Arkansas two tracts of land, one being of 100 acres.

Thus land of perhaps five acres or less has been donated to the schools in California, District of Columbia, Illinois, New York (New York Institution, Le Couteulx St. Mary's, and Central New York) Oregon, Pennsylvania (Oral and Pennsylvania Home), Tennessee, Virginia, and doubtless to other schools. Larger tracts, of ten acres or more, have been given in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan (state school and Evangelical Lutheran Institute), Nebraska, Pennsylvania (Western), South Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and perhaps elsewhere. To the Kansas school 170 acres were presented, to the Minnesota 65, to the Washington 100, to the Oklahoma 60, to the school for the colored in Oklahoma 100, and to the school for the deaf, together with that for the blind, in Ohio 180. To the New York Institution for Improved Instruction the city of New York granted the land for ninety-nine years at an annual rental of one dollar.