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Show out of the public treasury. We would also suggest that more efficient means be adopted by committee or otherwise to ensure the further payments of our professors, and that means may also be taken to forward the Parent School House in its erection and completion, that the Institution may assume a flourishing aspect." A laboratory for chemistry and physics was fitted up, and lectures were given particularly in the evening by Orson Pratt and others, but owing to the want of means, the "Parent School" did not grow so rapidly as the Chancellor and Regents wished. The people were still having their economic problems to solve; and at times, everybody had to toil hard at the soil to combat the drough and pests of the fields. Money was scarce and the people were poor. It seems from the journals and writings of those days that the people struggled at times almost in the very face of death and destruction that all might live and prosper in their new homes. It is, therefore, almost dramatic to read the following appeal to the Congress of the United States for help to maintain their new University: "Memorial to Congress for five thousand dollars for the University. TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED: Your memorialists, the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, feeling a deep interest in the future welfare of the Territory, and for the advancement of her sons and daughters in science and literature, respectfully ask your honorable body to appropriate the sum of five thousand dollars, to advance the interests of the University, established by law, in the city of Great Salt Lake; and that the said sum be applied to the above purpose, under such regulations as your honorable body may appoint. Situated as we are, remote from the multiplied facilities for improvement possessed by the older States and Territories, and unable to avail ourselves of the advantages arising from the lease or sale of certain sections of public lands, invariably appropriated for school purposes, from the fact that no land bill has yet passed for Utah; we feel to urge our claims upon the generosity of your honorable body, with an assurance that they will meet with a response, generous on your part, and highly necessary and advantageous on ours; and your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray. Approved January 17, 1854." Congress did nothing. The general Government had up to that time left education to the respective states. It was not until nearly ten years later that the Government began to help in making bequests for colleges and universities. This came about through the celebrated Morrill Bill of 1862. In 1854, Governor Young said in addressing his annual message to the Territorial Legislature: "The subject of EDUCATION has probably received as much attention in this as in any other as newly settled State or Territory. In almost all the wards and districts, good school houses have been erected, and schools maintained a part of the year, but I fear that sufficient attention is not paid to the selection and examination of teachers, or the manner of conducting schools. Although the Board of Regents have doubtless by their influence aided much, and are still extending their influence and exertions in a general way to advance the cause of education, yet, at this moment, there is not a Parent School for the instruction of teachers, a mathematical or high school where the higher branches are taught, in all the Territory. ... As a Territory, we have peace, and extensive ability exists with the people to establish and sustain good schools in every ward and district, not only three or six months in a year, as it appears at present most common, but ten or eleven, wherein every child, no matter how poor, may find admittance. Schools for teachers, mathematical schools, and schools wherein the higher branches are taught, should also be kept in operation in all the principal towns." From the time that the University was closed in 1854, the Chancellor and Regents were empowered by the Territorial Legislature to look after the schools of the State. Primary and some Secondary Schools were established in all the countries, and the Regents were kept busy in looking after them and providing for their wants. Before the days of the railroad, it was difficult to travel, and the visits of those men were few and far between to the most remote parts. They were, however, in touch with all of them, and whenever a school was opened in a town or village, a report of it was sent to the Chancellor of the University. Schools were found in all the towns, for the people Page Thirty |