History of the public school system of California.

THE
PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM OF CALIFORNIA.
PART I.
I. FOUNDATION.
THE foundation of the public school system of California was
laid in the Constitutional Convention held in Monterey, September, 1849.
The Select Committee on the State Constitution reported,
in Committee of the Whole, in favor of appropriating the five
hundred thousand acres of land granted by Congress to new
States for the purpose of internal improvements, to constitute
a perpetual School Fund, with a proviso, however, that the
Legislature might appropriate the revenue so derived to other
purposes if the exigencies of the State required it. An animated debate occurred on this proviso, in which Mr. Sherwood
of Sacramento, and Mr. Jones of San Joaquin, were the principal speakers in favor of it; and Mr. Semple of Sonoma, and
Mr. McCarver, opposed to it. The proviso was stricken out by
the close vote of eighteen ayes to seventeen noes, thus securing an inviolable fund for school purposes. In the progress of
the debate Mr. Semple spoke as follows:
"This is a subject upon which I have thought probably more
than upon any other subject that has ever engrossed my attention.
I regard it as a subject of peculiar importance here in California,
from our location and the circumstances under which we are placed,
the immense value of our lauds, and the extent and wealth of the
country. I think that here, above all places in the Union, we
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