where the soil primarily belonged to the Government, cannot be too highly commended. In addition to grants like 500,000 acres to aid in the establishing of a University, Congress granted later to each State in the Union a large amount for the establishment of an agricultural college, and a provision in the act for the admission of the State of Iowa gave to her five per cent. of all sales by the United States of the public lands within the State, to aid the University. But there was the grandest gift of all in the provision in the same act that the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of every township of the public land should be appropriated for the purposes of Common Schools, under the supervision of the State. The State herself has supplemented these gifts with contributions of her own, and with taxes levied on the people of each locality for the support of schools, so that these contributions and provisions have created a system by which every child in the State of Iowa, from the age of six to sixteen years, may pass six to eight months of each year of his life in attendance on school without charge. The rigid enforcement of this system has dotted the whole surface of the State with comfortable school-houses. As a system calculated to educate every human being in the State up to a certain degree of attainment, it is difficult to see how it could be much improved. One of the incidents of this system is that most of the teachers are females, to whom the compensation is quite a blessing. They are generally better adapted to the education and training of children in their early youth than men, and who have, in the State of Iowa, at least, done credit to the sex by their skill. their diligence and good conduct.

The purpose of this school system was primarily to educate the youth in the elements of an English education-reading, writing, arithmetic, orthography, geography, grammar, history.

some of the more ambitious towns and cities there

has been engrafted upon this, and paid for from the same source, what is often called the High School or Grammar School, in which are taught. in addition to the branches just mentioned, the dead languages, often Latin, sometimes Greek. and German and French. These High Schools in the larger cities are to some extent the equivalents of lower grades of colleges, and no doubt better education is frequently obtained in them than can be had in poorly endowed and struggling colleges.

CHAPTER XXX.

IN

COMMISSIONER OF DRAFT.

N the spring of 1861, immediately after the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, an order was issued, under the State laws, for examination to be made of all men between eighteen and forty-five years of age who claimed exemption from military duty. Mr. Hildreth was appointed Draft Commissioner for Floyd county, Iowa, by Gov. S. J. Kirkwood, since known as Iowa's War Governor.' Every able bodied citizen in the county, liable to bear arms, was promptly enrolled and held subject to draft when a draft should be ordered. This difficult and delicate business was transacted with fidelity and to the satisfaction of all concerned.

A highly colored description of the efforts of certain persons to procure exemptions from draft, written by W. P. Gaylord of Nora Springs, is found in a recent publication entitled a History of Floyd County, Iowa," which is copied as follows:

Mr. Hildreth, traveled over the county distributing notices, appointing a time at which all persons, claiming exemption on account of physical

disability, should present themselves to the examining surgeon; and when the time arrived it was both exciting and amusing to witness the crowds of able bodied men swarming around Dr. Smith's office, with all sorts of ailments, both genuine and counterfeit. Such a day for invalids and cripples. as were congregated at Charles City on that day. has not been since the days when the lame, the halt and the blind gathered around the pools of Bethesda and Siloam. Young men, who had shaved for years, suddenly dodged behind their eighteenth year and became boys again. Others inwardly said: "Oh, if I were a boy again!" Those for whom there was no escape on account of age, with forlorn look and quivering lips as suddenly plunged forward over the boundary line of forty-five. Those who but a few days before had been boasting of their superior strength and great endurance, were hardly able to walk upright; while those whose hearing had always been acute, on that day could scarcely hear it thunder. Some fell to coughing, as if consumption were setting in, and others who had no present trouble had had some ailment years before, and were liable to have it again!"

In addition to the foregoing it should be added that several men of the county claimed, under oath, that they were subjects of Queen Victoria, having been born in Canada or in England or Ireland, and were never naturalized; and yet these men had voted in the county at every election, had held offices and served as jurors! But it should be stated that nine-tenths of the men of the county were good loyal and patriotic Union men, and enlisting progressed rapidly whenever calls for troops were made.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A MEMBER OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

N the fall of 1863 Mr. Hildreth was elected to represent the 54th District of Iowa in the Tenth General Assembly. As a legislator he acquitted himself with much credit and to the general acceptance of his constituents. He was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Schools and State University. and was also a member of the Committee on Banks and Banking, and of the Committee on Printing. Any one at all familiar with the business of legislation, can readily understand that these were important committees, and that the amount of labor incumbent upon them was necessarily large.

Mr. Hildreth was very successful in carrying through the Legislature whatever measure he undertook. Among the more important measures. and one that proved of lasting benefit to his part of the State, was a Memorial to Congress asking for a grant of land to aid in the construction of a railroad on or near the 43d parallel of north latitude. and passing from McGregor on the Mississippi river westward through his own town of Charles City. Repeated efforts had been made by