Constitution and Amendment of the State of Missouri IN REGARD TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS. ARTICLE IX. EDUCATION. SECTION 1. A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the General Assembly shall establish and maintain free schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this State between the ages of five and twenty-one years. SEC. 2. Separate schools may be established for children of African descent. All funds provided for the support of public schools shall be appropriated in proportion to the number of children, without regard to color. SEC. 3. The supervision of public instruction shall be vested in a "Board of Education," whose powers and duties shall be prescribed by law. A Superintendent of Public Schools, who shall be the President of the Board, shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State. He shall possess the qualifications of a State Senator, and hold his office for the term of four years, and shall perform such duties, and receive such compensation, as may be prescribed by law. The Secretary of State and AttorneyGeneral shall be ex officio members, and, with the Superintendent, compose, said Board of Education. SEC. 4. The General Assembly shall also establish and maintain a State University, with departments for instruction in teaching, in agriculture, and in natural science, as soon as the public school fund will permit. SEC. 5. The proceeds of all lands that have been or hereafter may be, granted by the United States to this State, and not otherwise appropriated by this State or the United States; also, all moneys, stocks, bonds, lands, and other property now belonging to any fund for purposes of education; also, the net proceeds of all sales of lands and other property and effects that may accrue to the State by escheat, or from sales of estrays, or from unclaimed dividends, or distributive shares of the estates of deceased persons, or from fines, penalties and forfeitures; also, any proceeds of the sales of the public lands which may have been or hereafter may be paid over to this State (if Congress will consent to such appropriation); also, all other grants, gifts or devises that have been or hereafter may be made to this State, and not otherwise appropriated by the terms of the grant, gift or devise, shall be securely invested and sacredly preserved as a public school fund; the annual income of which fund, together with so much of the ordinary revenue of the State as may be necessary, shall be faithfully appropriated for establishing and maintaining the free schools and the university in this article provided for, and for no other uses or purposes whatsoever. SEC. 6. No part of the public school fund shall ever be invested in the stock, or bonds, or other obligations of any State, or of any county, city, town or corporation. The stock of the Bank of the State of Missouri now held for school purposes, and all other stocks belonging to any school or university fund, shall be sold, in such manner and at such time as the General Assembly may prescribe; and the proceeds thereof, and the proceeds of the sales of any lands or other property which now belong or may hereafter belong to said school fund, may be invested in the bonds of the United States. All county school funds shall be loaned upon good and sufficient unencumbered real estate security, with personal security in addition thereon. SEC. 7. No township or school district shall receive any portion of the public school fund, unless a free school shall have been kept therein for not less than three months during the year for which distribution thereof is made. The General Assembly shall have power to require, by law, that every child of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend the public schools, during the period between the ages of five and eighteen years, for a term equivalent to sixteen months, unless educated by other means. SEC. 8. In case the public school fund shall be insufficient to sustain a free school at least four months in every year in each school district in this State, the General Assembly may provide, by law, for the raising of such deficiency, by levying a tax on all the taxable property in each county, township or school district, as they may deem proper. SEC. 9. The General Assembly shall, as far as it can be done without infringing upon vested rights, reduce all lands, moneys and other property used or held for school purposes, in the various counties of this State, into the public school fund herein provided for, and, in making distribution of the annual income of said fund, shall take into consideration the amount of any county or city funds appropriated for common school purposes, and make such distribution as will equalize the amount appropriated for common schools throughout the State. AMENDMENT. Article IX of the Constitution of the State of Missouri is hereby amended by adding a new section thereto, to be numbered and known as section 10, and to read as follows: SECTION 10. Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation, shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any creed, church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by [any] State, county, city, town, or such public corporation, for any creed, church or sectarian purpose whatever. COPIES OF THE ACTS OF CONGRESS MAKING APPROPRIATIONS OF THE VACANT LANDS IN THE AN ACT Making further provision for settling claims to land in the Territory of Missouri. SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the rights, titles and claims to town or village lots, out-lots, common-field lots, and commons in, adjoining and belonging to the several towns or villages of Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand, Ville-a-Robert, Carondelet, Ste. Genevieve, New Madrid, New Bourbon, Little Prairie and Arkansas, in the Territory of Missouri, which lots have been inhabited, cultivated or possessed prior to the twentieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and three, shall be and the same are hereby confirmed to the inhabitants of the respective towns or villages aforesaid, according to their several right or rights in common thereto : Provided, That nothing therein contained shall be construed to affect the rights of any persons claiming the same lands or any part thereof, whose claims have been confirmed by the Board of Commissioners for adjusting and settling claims to land in the said Territory. And it shall be the duty of the principal deputy surveyor for the said Territory, as soon as may be, to survey or cause to be surveyed and marked, (where the same has not already been done according to law), the out-boundary lines of the several towns or villages, so as as to include the out-lots, common-field lots and commons thereto respectively belonging. And he shall make out plats of the surveys, which he shall transmit to the Surveyor General, who shall forward copies of the said plats to the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Recorder of Land Titles; the expense of surveying said out-boundary lines shall be paid by the United States out of any moneys appropriated for surveying the public lands: Provided, That the whole expense shall not exceed three dollars for every mile that shall be actually surveyed and marked. SEC. 2. That all town or village lots, out-lots or commonfield lots included in such surveys, which are not rightfully owned or claimed by any private individuals, or held as commons belonging to such town or villages, or that the President of the United States may not think proper to reserve for military purposes, shall be and the same are hereby reserved for the support of schools in the respective towns or villages aforesaid; Provided, That the whole quantity of land contained in the lots reserved for the support of schools in any one town or village shall not exceed one twentieth part of the whole lands included in the general survey of such town or village. Supplementary to an Act passed on the thirteenth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and twelve, entitled “An Act making further provision for settling the claims to land in the Territory of Missouri." SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That it shall be the duty of the individual owners, or claimants, of town or village lots, outlots and common-field lots in, adjoining, or belonging to the several towns or villages of Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand, Ville-a-Robert, Carondelet, Ste. Genevieve, New Madrid, New Bourbon and Little Prairie, in Missouri, and the village of Arkansas, in the Territory of Arkansas, whose lots were confirmed by the act of Congress of the thirtieth [thirteenth] of June, one thousand eight hundred and twelve, entitled "An Act making further provision for settling the claims to land in the territory of Missouri," on the ground of inhabitation, cultivation or possession, prior to the twentieth |