Last year, a total of $32.5 million were distributed to Wisconsin’s public school libraries thanks to a land grant ordinance that predates the United States Constitution. This little known gift from the Confederation Congress has a fascinating history that reflects the high value placed on public education since our nation’s inception.

The founding fathers believed that public education was the surest way to prepare citizens to exercise the freedoms and responsibilities of our “republican form of government.” As such, the Land Ordinance of 1785 granted every new state one square mile of land within each township (specifically designating “section sixteen” on each township’s newly surveyed thirty-six section plat map) “for the maintenance of public schools . . . .” The sentiment behind this grant was reiterated in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which announced that “schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Despite their enactment prior to the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1789, these two landmark ordinances continued to govern the process of states’ accession into the Union for many years to come. As such, when Wisconsin was in pursuit of statehood over seventy years later, the Wisconsin Enabling Act contained a provision that the “section numbered sixteen, in every township . . . shall be granted to said state for the use of schools.” This resulted in nearly 1.5 million acres of federal land being handed over to a young State of Wisconsin for the creation of its public school system. Although much of this land was quickly sold to new settlers, Wisconsin’s schoolchildren still enjoy its dividends today.