26 FAVORS UNIVERSAL EDUCATION. In 1862 Congress passed a law “donating public lands to the several States and Territories, which .may provide colleges for the benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts.” About nine million acres were thus appropriated for educational purposes. Three years before this a similar bill was vetoed by the Democratic President, James Buchanan! The Republican party, in its reconstruction measures for the Southern States, made noble provision for free public schools, for black as well as white. One of the best works of the party was the establishing of the National Bureau of Education in 1866, for gathering and scattering information about the schools of our country. General Garfield was the ablest champion of the measure. He said, “Schools are less expensive than rebellions. A tenth of our national debt expended in public education fifty years ago, would have saved us the blood and treasure of the late war.” Horace Mann well said, “In our country, and in our times, no man is worthy the honored name of a statesman, who does not include the highest practicable education of the people, in all his plans of administration.” This Bureau, with General John Eaton at its head, has done incalculable good. It has shown the illiteracy of our country, especially at the South, and awakened us to the needs of the hour. It has shown us the rapid advance in Technical Schools abroad, especially in Germany, Norway, and England, thus inciting us to like schools, if we would have skilled artisans, or have our boys and girls taught how to earn a living. It has interested the whole world in American methods of education, and brought many to our country to study them. PROTESTS AGAINST POLYGAMY. The platform of 1884 says in no uncertain words : "■Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as shall promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy within our territory, and divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power of the so-called Mormon Church; and that the law so enacted should be rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if possible, and by the military, if need be." GIVEN THE COUNTRY A SOUND CURRENCY. During the war, when millions of money were needed, National Banks were established, based on a uniform security—the bonds of the United States. Before this time, State banks were based
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