Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Minnesota
One of the North Central States of the American Union, lies about midway between the eastern and western shores of the continent, and about midway between the gulf of Mexico and Hudson's Bay.
GEOGRAPHY
Minnesota extends from 43°30' to 49°N lat. and from 89°29' to 97°5' W. long. Its length from north to south is about 400 miles, and its greatest breadth is about 354 miles. Of its total area of 84,287 sq. miles, no less than 5637 are water surface, owing to the great number of inland lakes (numbering about 10,000), and watercourses, large and small. Minnesota is bounded on the north by Canada, on the east by Lake Superior and Wisconsin, on the south by Iowa, and on the west by North and South Dakota. Within the wide domain of the State originate the three principal water systems of North America: those of the Mississippi and Red River of the North, and the St. Lawrence system, beginning with the St. Louis River, which rises in the north-east part of Minnesota and flows into the western end of Lake Superior.
SOIL AND GEOLOGY
A large portion of the state was originally prairie, but along the rivers a dense growth of trees has always extended, while, between the Minnesota river and the Mississippi, and extending north-westerly, almost to the Red River, is the great forest of hardwood trees, commonly known as the "Big Woods". The northern part of the state was formerly covered with a dense growth of pine, and has supplied a large portion of the white pine utilized throughout the United States in various industries. Aside from the districts originally covered by pine and rocky ridges near Lake Superior, the state possesses a warm, dark soil of great fertility. Its geological formations vary from the Laurentian traprock, granite, and basalt along the shores of Lake Superior and the banks of the St. Croix, with outcrops of similar formations in various portions of the state, to the soft limestone of a later period. The granite is of various colours, ranging from dark brown to light grey, and is highly valued for building purposes. Another excellent building material is the Kasota limestone, which has been largely used in the construction of the new and magnificent state capitol. In the north-eastern, and to a considerable part throughout the northern part of the state, are found extensive beds of iron ore of excellent quality. Shipments of this ore have been so great in recent years as to render Minnesota the greatest iron producing state of the federal union. No less than 150,000,000 tons of ore have been mined and shipped, and the amount still underground is estimated at fully one thousand million tons, a supply that will not be exhausted for fifty years.
SURFACE AND CLIMATE
The fact that the state is the source of three continental river systems suggests its high elevation. The Mississippi, which has its chief source in Lake Itasca at an elevation of 1466 feet, leaves the state at 620 feet above sea-level. The Red River of the North rises near Itasca Lake at an altitude of 1600 feet, and, after a circuitous route south and east to Breckenridge in Wilkin County, turns north and enters Canada at an elevation of 750 feet. The Minnesota shore of Lake Superior is 692 feet above sea-level. The average elevation of the state is given as about 1275 feet, the highest elevation being the Misquah Hills in Cook County (2230 feet). Its elevation above the sea, its fine drainage, and the dryness of its atmosphere gives Minnesota an unusually salubrious and most agreeable climate. The mean annual temperature is 44°; the mean summer temperature 70°. Owing to its higher latitude, Minnesota enjoys correspondingly longer days in summer than states farther south, and during the growing season there are two and a half hours more sunshine than (e.g.) in Cincinnati. This fact, taken in connection with the abundant rainfall of early summer, accounts for the rapid and vigorous growth of crops in Minnesota and their early maturity. The winter climate is one of the attractive features of the state. Its uniformity, its general freedom from thaws, excessive periods of cold, severe weather, or heavy snowstorms, and its dryness, together with the bright sunshine and the full supply of ozone in the atmosphere, all tend to make the winters of Minnesota very delightful. It is asserted by labourers from abroad that they can work out-of-doors on more days of the year in Minnesota than in any other region in which they have lived.
NAME
The name of the state is derived from the Dakota language. Before the white men came to their hunting grounds, the Dakotas called the river which rises on the western border of the state and flows into the river near the site of St. Paul the Minisotah (mini, water, sotah, sky-coloured), and, when the region between the western border of Wisconsin and the Mississippi was organized by Congress into a territory, it was given the name of this river in a slightly modified form - the name which the state bears at present.
HISTORY
At the time when explorations by white men began, the region now known as Minnesota was inhabited by people of two great divisions of the American race. From the southern boundary of the state as far north as latitude 46°30' the land was inhabited by the Dakotas, while the shores of Lake Superior and the northern portion of the state were occupied by the Ojibways. Many places in Minnesota bear Indian names, and those derived from the respective languages of these two aboriginal nations show very clearly at the present time the areas which they respectively occupied. The French came into contact, first with the Ojibways and the other kindred Indian nations of the Algonquin family, who in their language designated the Dakotas the Nadouessioux (Ojibway for "enemies"). The French soon abbreviated this long word into its final syllable, and called the Dakotas the Sioux, under which title they have been commonly known since the days of Marquette and Allouez.
The real history of the state may be said to begin in 1680 with the visit to the Falls of St. Anthony and adjacent regions by Rev. Louis Hennepin and his companions, Accault and Augelle. During the same year Sieur Daniel Greyolson du Lhut explored the northern part of the state, and, in July, joined Father Hennepin at the lake now known as Mille Lacs. Late in the autumn du Lhut and Hennepin departed from the land of the Dakotas and returned to eastern Canada. From the time of these explorations to the English conquest of Canada in 1760, France held sway over the Upper Mississippi region. Formal assertion of sovereignty was made in 1689, as appears from a document drawn up at Green Bay on the western shore of Lake Michigan, in which Nicholas Perrot, commanding for the king at that post, and holding a commission from Marquis Denonville, Governor of New France, issued a declaration in these words:
"We this day, the 8th day of May, 1869, do in the presence of Rev. Father Marest of the Society of Jesus, missionary among the Nadouessioux; of Monsieur de Borieguillot, commanding the French in the neighbourhood of the Ouiskonche of the Mississippi; Augustine Legardeur, Sieur de Caumont, and of Messieurs Le Sueur, Herbert Lemire, and Blein: "Declare to all whom it may concern that, being come to the Bay des Puants [Green Bay], and to the Lake of Ouiskonches, and to the River Mississippi, we did transport ourselves to the country of the Nadouessioux, on the border of the River St. Croix, and to the mouth of the River St. Pierre, on the bank of which were the Mantantans; and further up to in interior of the north-east of the Mississippi, as far as the Menchokatonx, with whom dwell the majority of the Songeskitons, and other Nadouessioux, who are to the north-east of the Mississippi, to take possession for, and in the name of, the King, of the countries and rivers inhabited by the said tribes, and of which they are the proprietors. The present act done in our presence, and signed with our hand, and subscribed."
Without delay, practical measures were taken to secure the rights of France. A map of the year 1700 shows a fort on the west side of Lake Pepin. In 1695 a second post was established by Le Sueur on an island above the lake. Thus, in the beginning of the ei ghteenth century, what was officially termed "La Baye Department", consisting of a line of military and trading posts, was organized to command the waterways from Green Bay to the Falls of St. Anthony. Not until 1727, however, were systematic efforts made to establish permanent military garrisons north of the mouth of the Wisconsin River.
In the spring of 1685 Governor De La Barre of New France sent from Quebec to the west twenty men under the command of Nicholas Perrot to establish friendly alliances with the Dakotas. Proceeding to the Mississippi he established a post near the outlet of Lake Pepin, which was known as Fort Perrot. War having been declared in 1687 between the French and the Indians, Perrot and his followers left the Mississippi River and repaired to Mackinac. Early in 1689, however, he returned with a party of forty men to his post on Lake Pepin, and re-established trade with the Dakotas. On a map published in 1700 this fort is denominated Fort Bon Secours; three years later it was marked Fort Le Sueur, but it was in that year abandoned. In a much later map it is correctly called Fort Perrot. In 1700, acting upon the recommendation of the Governor of Louisiana, Pierre Le Sueur, a native of Artois, France, came to the area now known as Minnesota with an intelligent ship carpenter named Penicaut and about twenty others, in search of copper which, according to earlier explorers, existed in the Sioux country. Le Sueur and his company spent the winter of that year in the neighbourhood of the great bend of the Minisotah, and there gathered a large quantity of green earth which was supposed to contain copper in the crude state. From the circumstance that this earth is sometimes described by Le Sueur and his contemporaries as "blue earth", that name has been given to the tributary of the Minnesota River at the mouth of which Le Sueur spent a winter and built a fort, and also to the country within which the site of the fort is situated. The Dakota word Mahkahto means blue or green earth, and that word, corrupted in the course of time to Mankato, is the name of the county seat of Blue Earth County.
A trading company, formed in Montreal to carry on traffic in furs with the Indians of the Baye Department, dispatched on 16 June, 1727, an expedition under René Boucher to the land of the Sioux. The expedition arrived at its destination on the shore of Lake Pepin on 17 September. Two Jesuit missionaries, Michel Guignas and Nicholas de Gonnor, accompanied Boucher and his small command. Before the end of October a small fort, called Beauharnois as a compliment to the Governor of New France, was built in the low lands opposite the towering cliff, which now bears the name of Maiden Rock. A chapel was erected within the enclosure of Fort Beauharnois, and was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. This was the first Christian temple to cast its beneficent shadow upon the soil of Minnesota. The first ceremony of note in the new chapel was the celebration of the feast of St. Charles of which Father Guignas writes: "We did not forget that the fourth day of the month [November] was the saint's day of the general. Holy Mass was said for him in the morning, and we were well prepared to celebrate the event in the evening, but the slowness of the pyrotechnists and the variableness of the weather led to the postponement of the celebration to the fourteenth of the same month, when some very beautiful rockets were shot off, and the air was made to resound with a hundred shouts of 'Vive le Roy' and 'Vive Charles de Beauharnois' . . . . What contributed very much to the merry-making was the fright of some Indians. When these poor people saw fireworks in the air and the stars falling from the sky, the women and children fled, and the more courageous men cried out for mercy, and earnestly begged that we should stop the astonishing play of the terrible medicine." It may be stated in explanation that, among all the American Indians, any phenomenon which exerted a powerful influence upon the physical and nervous system was designated by a term corresponding to the term medicine in other languages.
In a report made in October, 1728, by the Governor of Canada to the Government of France, Fort Beauharnois was said to be badly situated on account of freshets "and, therefore," as the report says, "this fort could be removed four or five arpents from the lake shore without prejudice to the views entertained in building it on its present site." The report declares that the interests of religion, of the service, and of the colony demand that the fort on the banks of Lake Pepin be permanently maintained. In S eptember, 1730, Fort Beauharnois was rebuilt on a plot of higher ground near the old establishment. Upon this lofty site, surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in America, now stands the Ursuline convent, Villa Maria. The convent chapel very properly bears the same name as its historic predecessor, St, Michael the Archangel. Sieur Linctot was made commandant of the new fort in July, 1731, and in 1735 was succeeded by St. Pierre. The Dakotas having shown a very hostile spirit, St. Pierre decided to abandon Fort Beauharnois, and accordingly, on 17 May, 1737, the post was burned. In 1743, and again in 1746, representative chiefs of the Dakota nation made a journey to Quebec and presented to the Government of New France a petition for the re-establishment of the fort and for the restoration of trade relations. Their request was not granted until 1750, when Pierre Marin was commissioned to rebuild the little fortress. Fort Beauharnois was retained until the outbreak of the war between the English and the French, but it was never occupied after the surrender which followed the defeat of Montcalm in the famous battle of Quebec (1759).
About one-third of the state, compromising its north-eastern part to the east of the Mississippi was included in the territory surrendered by Great Britain under the treaty of 1783, at the end of the War of Independence. The greater portion (about two-thirds) of the territory embraced within the boundaries of Minnesota, however, was included in the Louisiana Purchase, ceded to the United States by France in 1803. In 1805, a grant of land nine miles square, at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter (now Minnesota) Rivers, was obtained from the Sioux Indians. A military post was established on the grant in 1819, and in 1820 arrangements were made for the erection of a fort, which was completed in 1822 and named, at first Fort St. Anthony, but later Fort Snelling after the commanding officer. The grant has ever since been known as the Fort Snelling Reservation. In 1823 the first steam boat ascended the Mississippi as far as Fort Snelling, and annually thereafter one or two trips were made by steamboats to this isolated post for a number of years.
From the date of the English victory over the French to the establishment of Fort St. Anthony by the Government of the United States, conditions were unfavourable for the establishment of Catholic missions in the upper Mississippi country. However, some colonists from Switzerland, who possessed the true Faith and spoke the French language, having migrated from their original settlements near Fort Garry in Canada to a place seven or eight miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, Bishop Mathias of Dubuque, whose diocese included the entire region now called Minnesota, visited Fort Snelling and the adjacent Swiss settlement in 1839, and in the following year sent a missionary to Minnesota, Father Lucien Galtier. The latter established himself upon the present site of the metropolitan city of St. Paul, and in the following year built a log chapel which he called by the name of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. The gradual increase of population about the chapel, the development of the community into a village, and finally into a large city under the name of St. Paul, constitute an important material monument to the missionary work of Father Galtier, and for ever associate the name and fame of the capital city of Minnesota with the glories of the Catholic Faith. Minnesota was organized as a Federal territory by Act of Congress of 1849, and, on 11 May, 1858, its territorial existence terminated and it became a state.
POPULATION
The population of the state has shown a rapid increase. According to the successive census returns, the population was: 172,023 in 1860; 250,099 in 1865; 439,706 in 1870; 780,773 in 1850; 1,117,798 in 1885; 1,301,826 in 1890; 1,997,912 in 1905. In that year the population of the five largest cities was: Minneapolis, 261,874; St. Paul, 197,023; Duluth, 64,942; Winona, 20,334; Stillwater, 12,435. The population of Minnesota according to the nationalities was thus classified by the census of the year, 1905:
| Native born | 366,767 |
| Minnesota born | 1,057,566 |
| Germany | 119,868 |
| Sweden | 126,283 |
| Norway | 111,611 |
| Canada | 47,211 |
| Ireland | 19,531 |
| Denmark | 16,266 |
| England | 11,598 |
| Bohemia | 8,403 |
| Poland | 7,881 |
| Finland | 19,847 |
| Austria | 14,403 |
| Russia | 8,835 |
| Scotland | 4,651 |
| France | 1,277 |
| Wales | 1,035 |
| All Other Countries | 18,345 |
This makes a total foreign born population of 537,041. The inmates of state institutions, and the 10,225 Indians in the state at the time of taking the census, are not included in the above figures.
The progress of the Catholic Faith in Minnesota has been marvelous. In 1841 the mission of Father Galtier included some twenty families, and in 1851, when Father Joseph Crétin was named first bishop of St. Paul, the number of Catholics in Minnesota was estimated to have been about 1000. In 1888 the see of St. Paul was raised to archiepiscopal rank, the dioceses of St. Cloud, Winona, Duluth, Fargo, Sioux Falls, and Lead becoming its later suffragans. As each of these diocese is treated in a special article, it will be sufficient to quote here some general statistics for the state of Minnesota, which includes the Archdiocese of St. Paul and the first three of the above-named suffragans: 1 archbishop; 4 bishops; 602 priests (476 secular); 406 churches with resident priests; 168 missions with churches; 67 missions without churches; 67 chapels; 1 university; 6 orphan asylums; 14 hospitals; 32,426 children in parochial schools; 427,627 Catholics. The recently established Diocese of Crookston, separated from Duluth, with constitute an additional suffragan of St. Paul.
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
The Constitution provides expressly for religious liberty by declaring that "the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed nor shall any man be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any religious or ecclesiastical ministry, against his consent, not shall any control of or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship." It further provides: "No religious test or amount of property shall ever be required as a qualification for any office of public trust under the State. No religious test or amount of property shall ever be required as a qualification of any voter at any election of this state; nor shall any person be rendered incompetent to give evidence in any court of law or equity in consequence of his opinion upon the subject of religion." This constitution has been interpreted by the legislature in the most liberal manner, and Minnesota has led all the other states in the Union in providing liberty of conscience and the free exercise of religion in favour of the inmates of penal, correctional, and eleemosynary institutions. The general statutes now in force contain these provisions: "Religious Instruction. - Said Board [The State Board of Control] shall provide at least one hour, on the first day of each week, between nine o'clock a. m. and five o'clock p. m., for religious instruction to inmates of all prisons and r eformatories under its control, during which clergymen of good standing in any church or denomination may freely administer and impart religious rites and instruction to those desiring the same. It shall provide a private room in which instruction may be given by clergymen of the denomination desired by the inmate, or in case of minors by the parent or guardian, and, in case of sickness, some other day or hour may be designated; but all sectarian practices are prohibited, and no officer or employee of the institution shall attempt to influence the religious belief of any inmate, and none shall be required to attend religious services against his will" (revised Laws, 1905, chap. 25, sec. 1903). As to the state prison, the laws provide: "Visitors. - Fees. - The members of the state board of control, the governor, lieutenant governor, the members of the legislature, state officers, and regularly authorized ministers of the Gospel may visit the prisoners at pleasure, but no other persons, without special permission of the warden, under rules prescribed by said board. A moderate fee may be required of visitors, other than those allowed to visit at pleasure. Such fees shall be used to defray the expense of ushers for conducting such visitors, for maintenance of the prison library, the prison band, and other entertainments of the inmates" (Chap. 105, sec. 5434).
REGULATIONS CONCERNING PROPERTY
The Constitution of Minnesota provides security for private rights in the declaration that "every person is entitled to a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property, or character; he ought to obtain j ustice freely and without purchase; completely and without denial; promptly and without delay; conformably to the laws", and by the further provision that, "private property shall not be taken, destroyed or damaged for public use without compensation therefor first paid or secured". To prevent any revival of abuses and monopolies such as grew up under the feudal system, the constitution contained this provision: "All lands within this state are declared to be allodial, and feudal tenures of every description, with all their incidents, are prohibited. Leases and grants for agricultural land for periods longer than twenty-one years , hereafter made, in which shall be reserved any rent or service of any kind, shall be void."
The statutes of Minnesota provide for the free and untrammeled acquisition of real property, and also for abundant security for its possessor. Estates in lands are divided by statute into estates of inheritance, estates for life, estates for years, and estates at will and by sufferance. The decisions of the Supreme Court establish the principle that tenancies from year to year are estates at will. The laws further provide that every estate of inheritance shall continue to be termed a fee simple, or fee; and every such estate when not defeasible or conditional, shall be a fee simple absolute. All estates which would be considered at common law as estates tail are adjudged to be fee simple estates in the person who would, otherwise, be seized thereof in fee tail. Every future estate is void in its creation, which suspends the absolute power of alienation by any limitation for a longer period than the continuance of two lives in being at the creation of the estate, except that a contingent remainder in fee may be created on a prior remainder in fee, to take effect in the event that the persons to whom the first remainder is limited, die under the age of twenty-one years, or under any other contingency which the estate of such persons may be determined before they attain their full age. The rule in Shelley's case has been abolished. With a few express exceptions, no corporation, unless orgaiznized for the construction or operation of a railway, canal, or turnpike, may acquire more than five thousand (5000) acres of land. Uses and trusts, with few exceptions, have been abolished.
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS
In furtherance of the liberal principles regarding the exercise of religion contained in the state constitution the laws of Minnesota provide for the creation of religious corporations and special statutory provisions enable a bishop of the Catholic Church, in association with the vicar-general and chancellor of the diocese, to create such diocese a corporate body. The bishop and vicar general, in association with the pastor of any parish, are likewise authorized to create parochial corporations. The corporations have the right to acquire and to hold land to the same extent as have individuals. Every person (and the term include married women) may dispose of his estate, real and personal, or any part thereof, or right or interest therein, by a last will and testament, in writing. There is no limitation on religious bequests, and full force and effect have been given thereto by the decisions of the courts.
CHARITABLE SOCIETIES AND INSTITUTIONS
The laws of Minnesota contain the most liberal provisions for the founding and incorporation of charitable societies. Under these provisions, many Catholic hospitals, orphanages, refuges and reformatories have been established. The public charitable institutions of the state are various and manifold. Provision is made for the care and treatment of all insane persons, not only in great general hospitals, but also in institutions equipped with buildings on the "cottage group" plan for the custody of the harmless and incurable insane. The state prison is situated at Stillwater and is a most admirably conducted penitentiary. The state reformatory is at St. Cloud, and receives for correction, rather than for punishment, offenders whose ages range from sixteen to thirty years. This institution is managed upon the benevolent plan of instruction of the mind and the rehabilitation of character. For boys of wayward tendencies who have repeatedly violated the laws of the state, is provided the training school, at Red Wing, which is not only a school of moral and mental discipline, but also a manual training school. Wayward girls are accommodated and placed under moral restraint at a similar institution. Each county provides for paupers in a county alms-house, and also distributes out-door relief to the poor. All public charitable institutions and agencies are under the watchful care of the state board of control, consisting of three members appointed by the Governor. The board of control not only has visitoral powers, but is also invested with administrative functions. It is highly efficient. The public charities of Minnesota are famous throughout the world for their advanced humanitarianism and general excellence.
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE
The statutes of Minnesota declare that marriage, so far as its validity in law in concerned, is a civil contract, to which the consent of the parties capable in law of contracting is essential. Every male person who has attained the full age of eighteen years, and every female person who has attained the full age of fifteen years, is capable in law of contracting marriage, if otherwise competent. No marriage may be contracted while either of the parties has a husband or wife living; nor within six months after either has been divorced from a former spouse; nor between parties who are nearer of kin than first cousin, whether of the half or full blood, computed by the rules of the civil law; nor between persons either one of whom is epileptic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or insane. Marriage may be solemnized by any justice of the peace in the county in which he is elected, and throughout the state by any judge of a court of record, the superintendent of the department for the deaf and dumb (in the state school for the deaf and dumb), or by any licensed and ordained minister of the gospel in regular communion with a religious society. Before any persons are joined in marriage a license must be obtained from the clerk of the district court of the county in which the woman resides, or, if not a resident of the state, then from such clerk in the county in which the marriage is to take place.
The statutes of Minnesota are liberal with regard to divorce. A divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be adjudged by the district court for any of the following causes: (1) adultery; (2) impotence; (3) cruel and inhuman treatment; (4) sentence to imprisonment in any state prison or state reformatory subsequent to the marriage, and in such case a pardon will not restore conjugal rights; (5) willful desertion for one year next following the filing of the complaint; (6) habitual drunkenness for one year preceding the filing of the complaint. Limited divorces, extending to a separation a mensa et toro permanently or for a limited time, may be adjudged by the district court, in the complaint of a married women, between any husband and wife who are inhabitants of the state, or in cases where the marriage has taken place within the state and the wife is an actual resident at the time of filing her complaint, in cases where the marriage has taken place outside the state and the parties have been inhabitants of the state for at least one year, and the wife shall be an actual resident at the time of filing her complaint. The grounds upon which limited divorces may be granted are: (1) cruel and inhuman treatment by the husband; (2) such conduct on the part of the husband toward his wife as may render it unsafe and improper for her to cohabit with him; (3) the abandonment of the wife by the husband and his refusal or neglect to provide for her.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
The public property of the state consists of realty used in connection with the various public institutions, and also of a large public domain consisting of lands granted to the State Government by the General Government of the United States at the time when the State of Minnesota was admitted to the Union; such grants having been made for the benefit of the state university, for the support of the common school system, and for the purpose of making internal improvements. The title to such lands is vested in the state of Minnesota, and the care and control of such lands is vested in the auditor of the state, who is ex officio Land Commissioner of Minnesota. The portion of the grant assigned to public education has been estimated by competent authority to be sufficient to yield ultimately a fund of $250,000,000. The educational system of the state is organized as follows: School districts are divided into common, independent, and special. Among schools are distinguished state rural schools, state semi-graded schools, state graded schools, state high schools, normal schools, and university. A common school district is controlled by a board of three members; an independent one by one of six members; a special, by a board of six or more members. Common schools are supervised by a common superintendent; independent and special districts have their own superintendents, and in the main are not subject to the county superintendents. The state graded and state high schools are subject to a board of five members; the president of the state university, the superintendent of public instruction, and the president of normal school board are ex officio members, a city superintendent or high school principal and a fifth member are appointed by the governor. The normal schools are controlled by a board of nine members; five of these are resident directors; three are appointed for the state at large, and one, the superintendent of public instruction, serves ex officio. The state university is situated in Minneapolis and is in a most flourishing condition. Its enrollment for the year 1909-10 includes 5000 students. The university is controlled by a board of twelve regents; the governor, the president of the university and the superintendent of public instruction are ex officio members and nine are appointed by the governor.
The public schools of the state are supported by a direct tax on the property of the school districts, by a county one-mill ($.001) tax, by a state mill tax, and by the income from the permanent school fund, together with small fines that are accredited to this fund. No religious school receives any subsidy direct or indirect. The educational institutions established by the Catholic church have exhibited wonderful vitality and increase. The seminary of St. Paul, a monument to the zeal of Archbishop Ireland, is the leading institution of theological instruction in the Northwest. A university is conducted by the Benedictines at Collegeville, in the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and is well supplied with all the facilities for modern education, including laboratory equipment and scientific collections. The College of St. Thomas at St. Paul has not only acquired a reputation as a seat of learning and sound instruction in the classics, but also as a military school of the first rank. It is attended by six hundred cadets and is constantly expanding both in educational facilities and in attendance. The College of St, Catherine at St. Paul is the leading Catholic institution for the education of women, but the education of girls and women is provided for in many other excellent institutions in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and other parts of the state.
BANCROFT, Hist of the U.S.A., II (Boston, 1879); NEILL, Hist, of Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1882); Diocese of St. Paul, Golden Jubilee (St. Paul, 1901); SHEA, Hennepin's Description of Louisiana; Jesuits Relations LXVIII, 207; Annals of the Faith (Dublin, 1840); Memoirs of Rev. A. Ravoux (St. Paul, 1900).
John W. Willis.