The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-01-11

build monuments to the memory of those
men, who, to enjoy an immunity from tenn
porary taxation, entailed treble burden on
the education of their posterity for all time
to come.
Let it not be forgotten that the children
who eat our bread are to be our judges, and
before we shall pass away. they will rise up
in the places now occupied by US, and re-
quire of you and me an account of our
stewardship. s,,a;s.,a r.
I am, however, very far from urging that
the school lands shall only be disposed Of
with view solely to realizing therefrom the
largest ultimate fund. Such q principle
would imply an indefinite postponement of
the sale of the lands to the prejudice not
only of education, but of all collateral pub.
lie interests. 1t is to the general and per-
manent utility of the fund and not its mere
accumulation as pecuniary investment
that you are to look, and it is for you to
judge how far the public Interests may be
best subserved in the long run by encroach.
ing on the school reserves for the means OF
education in the infancy of the State.
The constitution places no check upon
legislative action in this matter, except in
the provision that not more than one-third
of the school lands shall be sold in two
years, one-third in five years, and one.third
in ten years and that the most valuable
shall be sold Tristan obviously insufficient
safeguard against improvident legislation.
Looking then at the ultimate fund to be
derived from the school lands as permanent
resource of education for all time to come
it is for you to decide, what this magnificent
endowment is to be worth as an instrument
of social development to the unborn millions
of the future. The estimate now placed
upon it will be the witness to posterity OF
the lOftiness or the meanness of the views
which actuate US. This estimate will be
expressed first of all in the minimum price
which you shall affix to the lands. la
The question of minimum, you will per-
ceive, is in fact the cardinal point to be
established. I......
There is one general principle in the ad.
justment OF minimum which, doubt not,
will meet with general concurrence. 1t
should not be so high as to exclude the
present generation from the benefits of the
resulting revenue, nor so low as to impover
ish the permanent fund. How, then, shall
the permanent interests of the school fund be
reconciled with the just claims of the present
generation ? The school lands represent
not an actual but latent and prospective
value, depending upon the general growth
OF the state for its development. Lands that
might be sold this year for half million
dollars, would probably be sold in ten years
for three millions. The former sum, at seven
per cent. interest, would yield an annual
revenue of $4,000, the latter, of $4,000.
Will the benefits that will accrue to educa-
tion during the interval between the lower
and higher valuation, compensate you and
your children for q sacrifice of five sixths of
the prospective value of the lands? think
not. And surely, looking solely to the in
terests of the present generation of children,
and regarding the period of fifteen years over
which our laws assume that the education
of youth extends, it would not be wise
economy to provide for the first five years at
such an expense to the last ten.
But as the fixing of the minimum attain
able in the present generation implies some
sacrifice of prospective values, where shall
the line be drawn? Such line must, of
course, be arbitrary, but think we are not
entirely without data for approximation to
standard, which will reconcile the interests
of the present and future on the common
ground of the public veal.
1t is proper to observe that the value of
fho LOW dc licf;p of To
the density of population. Lands rapidly
rise in value under the pressure OF immigra-
ton from the first settlement up to the point
of their general occupation, and up to this
point the school reserves ought not to be
sold. But after the lands have become
mostly occupied, in given township, expe-
rience warrants the assumption that the
included reserves have reached standard
of value, beyond which the yearly increase
will commonly be slow; and it may then
become matter of public policy that they
should be settled upon and improved, and
enter into the taxable basis of the State
and thus contribute in another form more
to the immediate revenue of the Schools and
other collateral public interests, than if re.
tanned for an advanced price. 1t is also
worth considering, that the compactness of
neighborhood which would give fair value
to the school lands, is essential to an efficient
and economical expenditure of the school
revenues.
While, therefore, the permanent interest
of the school fund, and its useful expendi-
ture, seem to require that the lands should
not be sold till their intrinsic value had be-
come developed by the growth of population
around them, public policy demands that
they should not be retained to be an obsta.
Gle to neighborbood, or withheld from cul-
tivation for speculative purposes, after all
the lands around them are taken up.
These principles, it seems, should regulate
the establishment of minimum price for
the school lands.
A density of between % and 30 persons
to the square mile in any given township
would probably imply an average valuation
of the included school lands of about eight
dollars an acre. In our more thick ly settled
counties, some of the reserved sections have
already attained this average. Beyond this
it is doubtful if the increase in value would
compensate for the public loss occasioned
by their exclusion from settlement.