Public Land for Private Education in the Republic of Texas

A Look at Rutersville College

The history of education in Texas is an important, yet complex, puzzle that often required outside-the-box thinking to solve. From the Spanish colonial period of frontier missions, established in part as centers of education for the native people of the region, to Stephen F. Austin’s attempts to establish academies at San Felipe,[1] and onward, various efforts were made to institute public education for Spanish, Tejano, and American settlers of the region. An initiative implemented by the Republic of Texas that granted public lands to establish private educational institutions provided one innovative solution to the challenge of education in Texas.[2]

Initial action was taken to provide for education in 1839, following President Mirabeau B. Lamar’s December 21, 1838 address to the Congress of the Republic. Lamar said:

“It is admitted by all, that cultivated mind is the guardian genius of Democracy, and while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man.”

Lamar proposed using public lands to support education.[3] Congress supported this proposal by granting four leagues of land (17,712 acres) to each county for the support of schools.[4] However, the Legislature failed to provide a system of how this was to be done, creating a “land but no plan” predicament. This void was partially filled in the short term by an influx of religious institutions, which, aided by public land grants, endeavored to correct the educational deficiencies in Texas which would persist until 1854.[5]

The Texas Legislature set aside over fifty million acres of public land for public and higher education. The state also allocated a much more humble figure of 172,000 acres of public land to help establish various private schools.[6] The first private institutions were funded directly by the government through the disposition of public land. Many of the early private schools were church-affiliated, and most were established by Protestant groups. One goal for these organizations was to establish schools to further educational opportunities for Texan citizens, while also fostering their moral and spiritual needs. One such school was Rutersville College, located near present-day La Grange.

Rutersville College main building, circa 1841. Southwestern University Special Collections. http://www.southwestern.edu/library/how-we-remember/root-institutions/Rutersvillerevised.htm

Rutersville College was named in memory of Methodist missionary Dr. Martin Ruter, who had an extensive track record of establishing private, religious schools throughout the United States.[7] Dr. Ruter, however, died at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1838 shortly after arriving in Texas.[8] Rutersville College opened it doors in January of 1840 with an enrollment of 63 co-educational students.[9]

John C. Hays, County Surveyor for the County of Bexar, certifying the field notes for the Rutersville College land grant. Certificate No. 2, 16 September 1840, Bexar 1–000345, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

In 1841 the Texas Legislature granted four leagues of land in Fayette and Gillespie counties to Rutersville College by a certificate issued under “an act to establish and incorporate the Rutersville College approved 5th February 1840.”[10] The school used the revenue generated from the land to help defray costs associated with constructing new buildings, purchasing materials, and to help sustain the financial security of the college. Within the Texas General Land Office Archives are the original land grant documents for Rutersville College, which include the signatures of John C. Hays, then the County Surveyor for Bexar County, and the first Land Commissioner, John P. Borden.

Rutersville College Land Certificate No. 2, 16 September 1840, Bexar 1–000345, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office. Austin, TX.

Rutersville College began its mission to educate the sons and daughters of pioneers, with over 800 graduates on record from 1840 until the school’s demise in 1856.[11] On the site of the former campus, no buildings remain, as they were removed in the 1890s. Its legacy remains alive today on the GLO’s maps of Fayette and Gillespie Counties, where the land grants issued to the school are depicted in their original locations. Furthermore, Southwestern University in Georgetown, another Methodist institution, traces its lineage through Rutersville College and is home to the original bell from the Rutersville campus. [12]

Rutersville College was not the only private institution to receive land grants; the Republic of Texas issued a total of 172,000 acres of land to help fund various private and parochial schools. In total, from 1846 to 1861 the Texas Legislature granted charters to 117 educational institutions, not all of which received land grants. This group consisted of forty academies, thirty colleges, twenty-seven institutes, seven universities, five schools, three high schools, two seminaries, one collegiate institute, one orphan asylum, and one medical asylum.[13]

While not household names, these private institutions and others like them provided educational opportunities for students at a time in Texas history when the odds of success were very low. Despite numerous setbacks and challenges, these schools blazed the trail for the eventual establishment of a public education system across the state, which is partially funded through the management of the Permanent School Fund.