St. Clair and Wayne 359 



ended in nothing save financial disaster. The price 

 was nominally seventy cents an acre ; but as payment 

 was made in depreciated public securities, the real 

 price was only eight or nine cents an acre. The 

 sale illustrated the tendency of Congress at that time 

 to sell the land in large tracts ; a most unwholesome 

 tendency, fruitful of evil to the whole community. 

 It was only by degrees that the wisdom of selling 

 the land in small plots, and to actual occupiers, was 

 recognized. 



Together with the many wise and tolerant meas 

 ures included in the famous Ordinance of 1787, and 

 in the land Ordinance of 1785, there were one or 

 two which represented the feelings of the past, not 

 the future. One of them was a regulation which 

 reserved a lot in every township to be given for the 

 purposes of religion. Nowadays, and rightfully, we 

 regard as peculiarly American the complete sever 

 ance of Church and State, and refuse to allow the 

 State to contribute in any way toward the support 

 of any sect. 



A regulation of a very different kind provided 

 that two townships should be set apart to endow 

 a university. These two townships now endow the 

 University of Ohio, placed in a town which, with 

 queer poverty of imagination, and fatuous absence 

 of humor, has been given the name of Athens. 



The company was well organized, the founders 

 showing the invaluable New England aptitude for 

 business, and there was no delay in getting the set 

 tlement started. After some deliberation the lands 



