The act of Congress providing for the admission of Ohio into the Union, offered certain educational propositions to the people. These were, first, that Section 16 in each township, or, in lieu thereof, other contiguous or equivalent lauds, should be granted for the use of schools; second, that thirty-eight sections of land, where salt springs had been found, should be granted to the State, never, however, to be sold or leased for a longer term than ten years; and third, that one-twentieth of the proceeds from the sale of the public lands in the State should be applied toward the construction of roads from the Atlantic to and through Ohio. These propositions were offered on the condition that the public lands sold by the United States after the 30th of June, 1802, should be exempt from State taxation for five years after sale. The ordinance of 1787 had already provided for the appropriation of Section 16 to the support of schools in every township sold by the United States; this, therefore, could not, in 1802, be properly made the subject of a new bargain between the United States and Ohio; and, by many, it was thought that the salt reservations and one-twentieth of the proceeds of the sale of public lands, were inadequate equivalent for the proposed surrender of a right to tax for five years. The convention, however, accepted the propositions of Congress, on their being so modified and enlarged as to vest in the State, for the use of schools, Section 16 in each township sold by the United States, and three other tracts of land, equal in quantity respectively to one-thirty-sixth of the Virginia Military Reservation, of the United States military tract and of the Connecticut Western Reserve; and to give 3 per cent of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the State to the construction of roads in Ohio, under the direction of the Legislature. Congress agreed to the proposed modifications, and, in March, 1807, offered to the State, in lieu of the one thirty-sixth part of the Virginia Military Reservation, eighteen quarter townships and three sections of land lying between the United States Military tract and the Connecticut Reserve. On the llth of January, 1808, the State accepted these lands and released all right and title to the school lands in the Virginia Military District. We here have the basis of the common-school fund of Ohio, never probably conjectured or intended to be sufficient for the purposes of education, but adequate to encourage broader and more liberal views.
We have seen in the foregoing how Congress by a compact with the people, gave them one thirty-sixth part of all of the lands northwest of the Ohio River for school purposes. The lands for this purpose set apart, however, were often appropriated by squatters, and through unwise, careless and sometimes corrupt legislation, these squatters were vested with proprietorship. Caleb Atwater, in his History of Ohio, in speaking on this subject, says: "Members of the Legislature not unfrequently got acts passed and leases granted, either to themselves, their relatives, or to their partisans. One Senator contrived to get, by such acts, seven entire sections of land into either his own or his children's possession." From 1803 to 1820, the General Assembly spent a considerable portion of every session in passing acts relating to these lands, without ever advancing the cause of education to any degree.
In 1821, the House of Representatives appointed five of its members, viz., Caleb Atwater, Loyd Talbot, James Shields, Roswell Mills and Josiah Barber, a committee on schools and school lands. This committee subsequently made a report, rehearsing the wrong management of the school land trust on behalf of the State, warmly advocated the establishment of a system of education and the adoption of measures which would secure for the people the rights which Congress intended they should possess. In compliance with the recommendation of the committee, the Governor of the State, in May, 1822, having been authorized by the Legislature, appointed seven Commissioners of Schools and School Lands, viz., Caleb Atwater, Rev. John Collins, Rev. James Hoge, N. Guilford, Ephraim Cutler, Josiah Barber and James M. Bell. The reason why seven persons were appointed was because there were seven different sorts of school lands in the State, viz., Section 16 in every township of the Congress lands, the Virginia Military lands, Symmes' Purchase, the Ohio Company's Purchase, the Refugee lands and the Connecticut Western Reserve. This commission of seven persons was reduced by various causes to one of three, Messrs. Atwater, Collins and Hoge, who performed the arduous duties incumbent upon them with but little remuneration, and (at the time) but few thanks.
The Legislature of 1822-23 broke up without having taken any definite action upon the report presented by the commission, but, during the summer and autumn of 1824, the subject of the sale of the school lands was warmly agitated, and the friends of this measure triumphed over the opposition so far as to elect large majorities to both branches of the General Assembly in favor of its being made a law. The quantity of land set apart was ascertained, in 1825, to be a little more than half a million acres and was valued at less than $1,000,000.
Having now briefly related the facts connected with the school lands, we will pass on to the Legislative enactments through which they were disposed of. On the 17th of February, 1809, the lands belonging to the Virginia Military District were authorized to be leased and the proceeds thereof paid into the State Treasury for the future use of the schools. From 1810 up to 1824, acts were passed at nearly every session of the Legislature more fully describing the condition of those leases and disposition of moneys accruing therefrom. In 1827, a law was enacted directing a vote to be taken in the district as to whether these lands should be sold or not. The vote decided in favor of selling, and, January 28, 1828, the Legislature ordered them to be sold. In 1829, an act authorized the distribution among the several counties, or parts of counties, in said district, the sum of $54,000 of school moneys, then in the State Treasury, Madison County receiving as her share $2,075.34½. This distribution, however, was for some cause postponed by an act passed January 21, 1830, until May 1, 1830. The manner of apportionment was as follows: The School Directors delivered to the County Auditors a list of white children in their respective districts, between the ages of four and sixteen; the County Auditors transmitted said lists to the Auditor of the State, who divided the school fund among the several counties, or parts thereof, according to the foregoing enumeration. From that time up to the present this principle has been carried out, each county receiving annually its quota of moneys derived from this school fund. The reader must bear in mind, however, that the school age was changed whenever the General Assembly saw fit to do so, or considered such a change necessary or judicious.