HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 409 



liability -within twenty years from the time of the 

 contracting thereof, and shall be irrepealable until the 

 principal and interest thereon shall be paid and dis- 

 charged ; but no such law shall take effect until, at a 

 general election, it shall have been submitted to the 

 people, and have received a majority of all the votes 

 cast for and against it at such election ; and all money 

 raised by authority of such law shall be applied only 

 to the specific object therein stated, or to the payment 

 of the debt thereby created ; and such law shall be 

 published in at least one newspaper in each judicial 

 district, if one be published therein, throughout the 

 State, for three months next preceding the election at 

 which it is submitted to the people. 



ARTICLE IX. 



EDUCATION. 



Sec. 1. The Legislature shall provide for the elec- 

 tion, by the people, of a Superintendent of Public 

 Instruction, who shall hold his office for three years, 

 and whose duties shall be prescribed by law, and who 

 shall receive such compensation as the Legislature may 

 direct. 



Sec. 2. The Legislature shall encourage, by all suit- 

 able means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, 

 moral and agricultural improvement. The proceeds 

 of all lands that may be granted by the L'nited States 

 to this State for the support of schools, which may be 

 sold or disposed of, and the five hundred thousand 

 acres of land granted to the new States, under an act 

 of Congress distributing the proceeds of the public 

 lands among the several States of the L'nion, approved 

 A. D. 1841 ; and all estates of deceased persons who 



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