Ohio History Journal

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EDUCATION IN TERRITORIAL OHIO*

EDUCATION IN TERRITORIAL OHIO*

 

 

BY W. ROSS DUNN

In tracing the beginnings of education in that part of

the old Northwest that later became Ohio, the historian

naturally turns to that much noted work of the decadent

Congress of the Articles of Confederation, the North-

west Ordinance or the Ordinance of 1787. His efforts

are not unrewarded, for Article Three contains the oft

quoted declaration that "schools and the means of edu-

cation shall forever be encouraged". However, this is

all, and it is necessary to turn elsewhere to find the be-

ginning of the policy of land grants for schools. It is

important to note the beginnings briefly, for besides pro-

moting the settlement of the territory, the grants en-

couraged education, and later contributed to the sup-

port of the schools. They were at least the background

of the beginning of education in Ohio. Furthermore, it

was the beginning of a policy that was later generally

extended to include all the lands of Ohio, although in the

original patents it applied only to certain grants. In the

end it became a regular land policy of the West and

each state admitted after 1842 was given section 36 of

each township for school purposes.1

 

1 Willis Mason West, American History and Government, Allyn and

Bacon, 1913, pp. 270, 274.

* Awarded the annual prize offered by the Ohio Society of Colonial

Wars, for the best essay on early Western history and offered as a

thesis for the degree of M. A. in the University of Cincinnati, 1925.

History Department.

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