GENERAL MEETING. 105 
uary, 1839, there were no funds in the Treasury available for the 
payment of the fourth installment, and since that date there has 
never been a surplus in the Treasury above the debts and estimated 
expenditures of the Government. 
The amount of the three installments was $28,101,645, and the 
amount placed in the Treasury of each State has since been carried 
among “unavailable funds of the general Treasury,” as may be 
seen by reference to the annual reports of the Treasurer of the 
United States. 
The fourth installment, amounting to $9,367,215, has never been 
transferred or deposited, and recently the State of Virginia, through 
the action of its Legislature, and the State of Arkansas, through 
the action of its treasurer and one of its United States Senators, 
has applied to the Secretary of the Treasury for the payment of 
this last instalment. 
It is generally believed that the moneys deposited by the Gov- 
ernment with the different States were, for the most part, wasted or 
employed in works of internal improvement which were unneces- 
sary. The data for a full investigation of this subject are not at 
hand, but it is known that the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North 
Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri appro- 
priated a considerable portion of the income from this fund to the 
support of public schools; and that in many of these States the 
income from the whole fund has been from the commencement, and 
still is, devoted to the education of the people. 
A bill was introduced by Senator Logan, during the first session 
of the last Congress, providing that the entire income derived from 
the internal-revenue tax on the manufacture and sale of distilled 
spirits shall be appropriated and expended for the education of all 
children living in the United States, as shown by the census of 1880 
and each succeeding census. The bill also provides that the States 
shall be required, before receiving the benefits of the act, to make 
school attendance obligatory upon all children between the ages of 
seven and twelve years, for at least six months in each year. 
Mr. ALVoRD inquired as to the present status of the Smithsonian 
fund, amounting to about half a million of dollars, which was in- 
vested in the bonds of the State of Arkansas. 
Mr. Knox said that the Government has assumed the Arkansas 
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