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��HISTORY or OHIO.
��government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever en- couraged;" and by the ordinance of 1785 for the survey of public lands in the Northwestern Terri- tory, Section 16 in each township, that is, one thirty-sixth part, was reserved for the maintenance of public schools in said townships. As the State of Ohio contained a little more than twenty-five millions of acres, this, together with two special grants of three townships to universities, amounted to the dedication of 740,000 acres of land to the maintenance of schools and colleges. It was a splendid endowment, but it was many years before it became available. It was sixteen years after the passage of this ordinance (in 1803), when Ohio entered the Union, and legislation upon this grant became possible. The Constitution of the State pursued the language of the ordinance, and de- clared that "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision." The Grovernors of Ohio, in successive messages, urged attention to this subject upon the people; but the thinness of settlement, making it impossi- ble, except in few districts, to collect youth in suf- ficient numbers, and impossible to sell or lease lands to advantage, caused the delay of efiicient school system for many years. In 1825, however, a general law establishing a school system, and levy- ing a tax for its support, was passed.
This was again enlarged and increased by new legislation in 1836 and 1846. From that time to this, Ohio has had a broad, liberal and efficient sys- tem of public instruction. The taxation for schools, and the number enrolled in them at different pe- riods, will best show what has been done. In 1855 the total taxation for school purposes was $2,672,827. The proportion of youth of school- able age enrolled was 67 per cent. In 1874 the amount raised by taxation was $7,425,135. The number enrolled of schoolable age was 70 per cent, or 707,943.
As the schoolable age extends to twenty-one years, and as there are very few youth in school after fifteen years of age, it follows that the 70 per cent of schoolable youths enrolled in the pub- lic schools must comprehend nearly the whole number between four and fifteen years. It is im- portant to observe this fact, because it has been inferred that, as the whole number of youth be- tween five and twenty-one have not been enrolled, therefore they are not educated. This is a mistake; nearly all over fifteen years of age have been in the public schools, and aU the native
��youth of the State, and all foreign born, young enough, have had the benefit of the public schools. But in consequence of the large number who have come from other States and from foreign countries, there are still a few who are classed by the census statistics among the "illiterate;" the proportion of this class, however, is less in propor- tion than in twenty-eight other States, and less in proportion than in Connecticut and Massachusetts, two of the oldest States most noted for popular education. In fact, every youth in Ohio, under twenty-one years of age, may have the benefit of a public education ; and, since the system of graded and high schools has been adopted, may obtain a common knowledge from the alphabet to the classics. The enumerated branches of study in the pub- lic schools of Ohio are thirty-four, including mathematics and astronomy, French, Grcrman and the classics. Thus the State which was in the heart of the wilderness in 1776, and was not a State until the nineteenth century had begun, now presents to the world, not merely an unrivaled de- velopment of material prosperity, but an unsur- passed system of popular education.
In what is called the higher education, in the colleges and universities, embracing the classics and sciences taught in regular classes, it is the pop- ular idea, and one which few dare to question, that we must look to the Eastern States for superiority and excellence ; but that also is becoming an as- sumption without proof; a proposition difficult to sustain. The facts in regard to the education of universities and colleges, their faculties, students and course of instruction, are all set forth in the complete statistics of the Bureau of Education for 1874. They show that the State of Ohio had the largest number of such institutions; the largest number of instructors in their faculties, except one State, New York ; and the largest number of stu- dents in regular college classes, in proportion to their population, except the two States of Connect- icut and Massachusetts. Perhaps, if we look at the statistics of classical students in the colleges, disregarding preparatory and irregular courses, we shall get a more accurate idea of the progress of the higher education in those States which claim the best. In Ohio, 36 colleges, 258 teachers, 2,139 students, proportion, 1 in 124; in Penn- sylvania, 27 colleges, 239 teachers, 2,359 students, proportion, 1 in 150; in New York, 26 colleges, 343 teachers, 2,764 students, proportion, 1 in 176; in the six NewEngland States, 17 colleges, 252 teach- ers, 3,341 students, proportion, 1 in 105; in Illi-
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