The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1906-03-01
MARYLAND DAY.
Its Observance in The Public Schools
of the State.

the teachers containing specimen
programs for the proper observance
of Washington's Birthday, Mary
land Day and Arbor and Bird Day.
The programs may be modified or
extended to suit the conditions of
the school.
Maryland Day will be observed
in the public schools on March %.
The topic for this years celebra-
ton is "Maryland's Part in the
Settlement Of the Northwest Ter
ritory." Prof. Stephens urges
every school to try and secure one
good speaker, who is familiar with
this subject, as the orator of the
day. In order to do this no time
should be lost in commencing to
make the necessary arrangements.
"Maryland's Initiative Il d
Guiding Part III the Settlement Of
the Northwestern Territory Cues
ton" is the title of a paper by Mr..
DeCourcy w. Thorn, which is in
cluded in the pamphlet In part,
Mr.. Thorn says:
1T is we'll known that the more
or less cloudy claims of various
European countries to portions of
what our national domain extends
from the warm waters Of the Gulf
to the Canadian border and from
the stormy Atlantic to the calmer
waters of the Pacific ocean had by
1868; the treaty of Paris, resolved
themselves into Spanish claims al
lowed, which included centrally
the present State of Louisiana re-
gion and chiefly all the trans Miss
issippi lands, and
"Second-English claims which
covered the lands back of their
settlements, Canada, and the Yves
ter county as far as the Mississippi
river.
Perhaps the richest portion of
those lands, then acknowledged as
English, lay in the great triangle
east of the Mississippi, south Of
the Great Lakes and northwest of
heOhio, containingabont US, 900, :
900 acres.
"T h a t triangular Northwest
Territory the great, rich, finely
watered and wooded and crucial
eXpanse, about I 900 miles long on
each of its sides, was destined to
be the theatre in which would be
applied afresh and collective the
theories of government adopted by
the United States in their fedora
ton perfected on March I, 1871.
But if from the Treaty of Paris in
1888 it was solely English terri
tory until by the treaty OfJanuary
II, 1884, ratified with Great Brit
ian in the old Senate Chamber in
Annapolis, it became the territory
of the United States of America,
there yet remained the vexing
question as to which of those
States owned all or some oft.
''Virginia, proud and glorious
mother of States and of statesmen,
claimed it under her second char
ter of 1909. Nor did she abandon
that claim until long years after
ward, as we shall presently see.
From sea to sea, west and north
west, and also all the islands living
within 100 miles along the coast of
both seas of the precinct (sic)
aforesaid, she claimed, and When
we remember that the seas thus re
ferred to III her second charter
that Of I6o9-were the Atlantic
and the Pacific, we realize why
her gallant and devoted children
named her THE Old Dominion
But by 1888 her actual claims
had delimited themselves as fol-
lows: Say, the southernmost fourth
and the most northern two ffths
of the Northwest Territory.
Massachusetts, vigorous and
aspiring, claimed what is now
Southern Michigan and Wiscon-
sin-that is, the land embraced
within the westward extension of
her present southern boundary and
of her ancient northern limit that
lay in parallelogram shane saw Zoe,