aims which at one time promised to disrupt the new confederation.
Their acquisition by the nation and their eventual division and
admission to the Union as states contributed not a little to the
strengthening of the central authority at a time when it was a vital
necessity. The first survey of these lands provided, as is well known,
for division into townships six miles square, to be again sub-divided
into thirty-six lots one mile square called sections. The provision of
this ordinance of particular interest in this connection is the
following: "There shall be reserved the lot Number 16 of every township
for the maintenance of public schools within the said township."

In the Ordinance of 1787, providing for the administration of the
Northwest Territory, we have only the familiar general declaration that:
"Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," but an
ordinance adopted ten days later provided that in addition to the school
lot in every township: "Not more than two complete townships are to be
given perpetually for the purposes of a University, to be laid off by
the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the
same shall be of good land to be applied to the intended object by the
Legislature of the State." This was the fundamental action which made
possible the foundation of the University of Michigan almost at the same
time that the State was admitted to the Union.

For the most part the story of the land grants under this provision is
an unfortunate one of speculation, misappropriations, and sale by venal
Legislatures, whose only excuse was probably their inexperience and lack
of vision; and the natural desire of the people to benefit at once from
the endowment these lands represented. Michigan had her troubles in
common with the other new states, but she did manage to acquire enough
from these lands eventually to give the University needed support in her
very lean early years. Their history, therefore, is not without
interest. When Indiana territory was divided by Congress in 1804 into
the three districts corresponding to the present states of Indiana,
Illinois, and Michigan, one township was reserved in each for a seminary
of learning. This, in Michigan, was increased in 1826 to two townships,
which might be located by sections in any of the districts surveyed.
Even more important was a measure approved by Congress in 1836 which
permitted the State to control the selecti