Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Jan.[January] 15, 1836.

AN ACT to amend an act entitled “an act to provide for the distribution and application of the interest on the School, College and Seminary funds.”
1

Commissioners to receive monies from the U. States.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That it shall be the duty of the commissioners of the school fund to receive from the United States, as the same may become due and payable all monies, to which this state is or may be entitled under the provisions of any law of the United States, appropriating any portion of the proceeds of the sales of public lands within this state for purposes of education and to deposite the same in the state treasury to be used by the state for revenue purposes; and the state shall be charged with the same, and with interest as required by the act to which this is an amendment.2

Sec. 2. It shall be the duty of school commissioners of counties, in loaning the township and county funds to require payment of the interest half yearly and in advance; and it shall also be their duty to loan all interest, in the same manner as principal, which they may receive, until the same is demanded for the use of schools.

Funds to be distributed.

Teachers to present schedules.

Sec. 3. Hereafter the interest on township and county funds shall be distributed, and paid to teachers on the second Mondays in January, and second Mondays in July in each and every year; and it shall be the duty of teachers to present their schedules, made and certified as now required by law, on the first Mondays in January and first Mondays in July in each and every year; such schedule not to extend further back than six months, and it shall be lawful for teachers, who returned schedules on the first Monday in November one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, and who continued to teach school to the first of January one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, to continue their schedules to the first of January one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six and to return the same at the time required by this act, and such teacher shall be entitled to a distributive share of the interest of the state fund for services rendered between the first of June one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five and first of January one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.

Proviso.

Sec. 4. The money received by the school commissioners, from the state, shall be paid out to the teachers of schools as required by the act to which this is an amendment, on the second Monday in January annually, or as soon thereafter as the money shall be received in the counties, and such payments shall be made for services, rendered during the preceding year; Provided, in all cases when a schedule has

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been regularly kept in any district or districts according to the act to which this is an amendment, and the teacher has been paid by the inhabitants of said district, the trustees upon presenting a proper schedule, well certified, shall be authorised to draw their distributive proportion of the school funds for the use of said inhabitants, as the teachers would have been entitled to.

Act to be published.

Sec. 5. It shall be the duty of the secretary of state to cause this act to be immediately published in the newspaper printed by the printer of the state.3 This act to be in force from its passage.

Approved, Jan. 15, 1836.

1Cyrus Edwards introduced SB 27 in the Senate on December 17, 1835. On December 18, the Senate referred the bill to a select committee. On December 22, the select committee reported back the bill with an amendment, in which the Senate concurred. On December 23, the Senate passed the bill as amended. On December 30, the House of Representatives referred the bill to the Committee on Education. On January 1, the Committee on Education reported back the bill with an amendment, in which the House concurred. The House passed the bill as amended on January 4, 1836. On January 15, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law. Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 2nd sess., 141, 146-47, 184, 196, 220, 325, 331, 348; Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 2nd sess., 54, 62, 83, 84, 93, 172, 250, 269.

2When Ohio and Indiana became states, Congress earmarked five percent of the net proceeds of all future sales of government lands within those states for the construction of roads and canals. In 1818, when Congress passed the act enabling the Illinois Territory to become a state, Nathaniel Pope successfully argued that the proceeds from sales of government lands in Illinois should be earmarked for education rather than infrastructure. Upon statehood, Congress granted to Illinois three percent of the net proceeds of all federal land sales in the state to be used exclusively for education; this became known as the “three percent fund”. Congress additionally granted to every township in the state the proceeds of the sale of land in each township’s Section 16. This money became known as the common school fund. Congress specified that one-sixth of the three percent fund was to be used for the establishment of a college or university; this became known as the “college fund.” Congress furthermore specified that the proceeds from the sales of land in two entire townships would be reserved for a seminary of learning; this became known as the “seminary fund.” Since 1829, the state had been borrowing from the school and seminary funds in order to pay regular government expenses.
“An Act to Enable the People of the Illinois Territory to Form a Constitution and State Government, and for the Admission of Such State into the Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States,” 18 April 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States, 3:428-31; “An Act Authorizing the Commissioners of the School and Seminary Fund to Loan the Same to the State,” 17 January 1829, Revised Code of Laws, of Illinois (1829), 118-19; W. L. Pillsbury, “Early Education in Illinois,” in Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Illinois (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1886), 106-07.

3At this time, the public printer was John Y. Sawyer, who printed the Illinois Advocate and State Register in Vandalia, the state capital.