ations for all useful and necessary purposes should be made; while prudence in the demand, and economy in the expenditures of the moneys appropriated, will enable the government of the State to move smoothly on with a degree of independence entirely unknown to other new States. SCHOOL Fund. The School Fund on the 1st of October last, amounted to And adding the amount of 25 per cent. of Swamp Land Fund In- Gives the amount of School Fund Income to be appropriated in UNIVERSITY FUND. .$3,001,297 30 210,090 81 17.302 47 52,484 07 245,272 41 The University Fund on the 1st day of October last, amounted to $300,725 22 On which the annual interest of 7 per cent. is Add balance in Treasury,.. Gives income for the University for the year, SWAMP LAND FUND. 21,050 76 501 04 21,551 80 The Swamp Land Fund on the 1st October last, amounted to... $988,712 88 The interest on which, at 6 per cent., is..... 69,209 90 This amount is by law divided as follows: To School Fund, 25 per cent., Normal School Fund, 25 per cent $17,302 48 17,302 47 34,604 95 The last sum is distributed annually to the several counties in the State, in proportion to the amount received from the sales of lands in such counties. Including a balance in the Treasury to the credit of this fund, the amount to be appropriated the present year will be about $58,000. Including the balance to the credit of the Normal School Fund in the Treasury, the amount to be appropriated this year to the Academies and Colleges of the State will be about $26,000. VALUATION AND ASSESSMENT. From the report of the State Board of Equalization, consisting of the Senate, meeting for the first time under the new assessment law, in September last, it appears that the number of acres of land assessed in the State last year was 17,411,418. The average valuation, as equalized was $6 78 per acre. aggregate valuation of lands, as equalized, was $118,178,829. Aggregate valuation of lots, as equalized, $36,833,511. Ag The gregate valuation of personal property, $13,607,893. Total aggregate valuation of property, as equalized, $168,620,233. A comparison with the same items of the assessments of 1858 is decidedly favorable to the good effects of the new law, showing an increased return and valuation of property in 1859 as compared with 1858, as assessed, of $82,619,680, and as equalized, of $98,702,213. The true rule in the levy and collection of taxes is to make the property of the State pay the taxes of the State. When all property, real and personal, is assessed at a fair cash value, the burthens of government expenses are equally and fairly distributed. The property of every man is protected by law, and each should be compelled to pay to meet the expenses of the State according to what he has. It is difficult to conceive why any discrimination should be made in the assessment of personal and real estate. An offset of indebtedness against assessed valuation might as well be made upon an encumbered farm, as debts deducted from the valuation of personal estate. This question of assessment and the levy and collection of taxes, commends itself to your careful consideration. Independent of the defect in the law, growing out of the discrimination above suggested, our present law is defective in its details and machinery. It requires simplifying and perfecting. The total taxation levied last year for State purposes, including the amount to meet State indebtedness, and for township libraries, was one and four-tenths mills per cent. on the dollar of valuation, producing in the aggregate the sum of $234,310 11, of revenue. This is $200,000 less than the previous year, and less than any year for the past six years. STATISTICS. The returns required by law to be made to the Secretary of State of agricultural, manufaucturing and mineral statistics, are very imperfect, and show an inexcusable neglect in the officers charged with the duty of making such returns. So far as they have been made, they show the valuation of the product of industry to be $33,986,771; the counties of Grant, Kewaunee, La Crosse, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Portage and Wood making no returns. important in the State. other particulars. These counties are among the most Forty-nine counties make no report. The law which requires statistical information to be furnished, is entirely inadequate, and ought to be revised. Severe penalties ought to be imposed upon officers who either carelessly or wilfully fail in the performance of such duties. It is a matter of great public concern that, every year, information be furnished of the evidences of increasing wealth and prosperity of the State. It is safe to conclude, that scarcely more than half the mineral and agricultural products and manufactured articles and fabrics of the State are shown by the reports made. Of the vast lumber and timber trade of the North and North-west, we have but a very imperfect knowledge. The Legislature ought to be furnished with all the facts showing the wealth of the State, and the energy and enterprise of the people. It would be useful to our citizens at home, and do credit to the State abroad. It would invite capital hither for permanent investment, from which far greater advantages would be reaped than. from foreign capital loaned at twelve per cent. COMMON SCHOOLS. The number of persons of school age-that is, between four and twenty years of age-as returned for 1859, is 278,871. The average length of time schools have to be taught is five and one-half months. Total number of School Districts in the State, 4,331. Valuation of School House property,.. The average wages paid to male Teachers per month has been.. The amount paid for Teachers' wages during the last year is.. $1,185,181 00 22 93 14 29 536,860 60 That sum is an increase of over $200,000 above the aggregate amount paid for the same purpose the previous year. According to the figures of the Secretary of State, as I have before stated, the amount to be apportioned for the support of schools, next March would be $215,272, if the interest due the School Fund should be promptly paid; but the experience of the past year showed a deficit of about $70,000, owing to the failure to pay interest, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction estimates for a considerable, but not so large, deficit the present year. The School Fund is less by about $60,000, than last year, owing to the failure to pay for, and the consequent forfeiture of lands heretofore sold. The policy that has been so long pursued of selling the school lands, either in large or small quantities, with so small a portion of the purchase money paid down at the time of the sale, has been most mischievous. The evils of that system now begin to be realized. The entry of large quantities of the best agricultural lands belonging to that fund by speculators, to be put into the market at speculating prices, has retarded the settlement and cultivation of the lands, and financial reverses have returned them, by thousands of acres, upon the fund. Lands, valuable chiefly for timber, have been held until their value has been destroyed by exhaustion of the forests growing upon them and then forfeited. The school lands still in the hands of the State unsold, are every year deteriorating in value for want of adequate legal means to prevent trespasses. The Commissioners should be armed with the necessary legal processes by the Legislature, and ample means furnished them to pay the expenses incident to prosecutions and protecting agencies. The Board of Regents of Normal Schools, composed of educated and discreet men, has been an excellent auxiliary to our school system. The Teachers' Institutes, under the direction. and supervision of Chancellor Barnard, an accomplished scholar and teacher, are giving new life and vigor to education in the State. They are making teaching a pleasant and a profitable duty, rather than a task, and the children in the schools are reaping rich harvests of knowledge and thought from the intellectual soil well prepared, and the seed well sown. BANKS AND BANKING. On the first Monday of January, 1859, the whole number of Banking Associations, doing business under the laws of the State, was ninety-nine, with an aggregate capital of $8,045,000. During the pear 1859, fifteen new banks have been organized, with an aggregate capital of $575,000. Five Banks have increased their capital,.... $570,000 550,000 1,120,000 The whole number of banks in operation on the first Monday in 1860, was one hundred eight, with an aggregate capital of... 7,760,000 The decrease of banking capital for the year is,. 285,000 .4,476,231 Banks winding up,. 133,201 4,609,432 These notes are secured by the deposit of specie and public stocks, as follows: Racine & Mississippi Railroad Company Bonds 8 per cent... 27,000 50,000 Total securities on deposit... 5,133,565 50 Specie of Banks winding up.. The amount of the Bank Tax during the past year was.. 118,806 85 The present Comptroller suggests that it is evident the original Banking Law of this State intended to provide only for the establishment of business Banks, and not of Banks of circulation merely, and that Banks of the latter class were always evasions of the law. To make this clearer, the act of May 15, 1858, was passed, directing the Bank Comptroller to "refuse to issue any circulating notes to any Banking Association, unless he shall have satisfactory evidence that such banking association had not been, or is not to be organized for the purpose of issuing circulating notes merely, but was, or is to be, organized for the purpose of doing a banking business by discounting bills, notes, and other evidences of debt; by receiving deposits; buying and selling gold and silver bullion, foreign and inland bills of exchange; by loaning money on real and personal security, and by exercising such incidental powers as may be necessary to carry on such business, at the place where such bank purports to he located." After the passage of that act it was the practice of his predecessor to require from such new Banking Associations as were organized, the affidavit of some officer or stockholder that the association was formed for the purposes indicated by this law, and such affidavits were taken as "satisfactory evidence." It is plain, that notwithstanding these precautions, some Banking Associations are kept up for the purpose of circulation merely, and without doing or intending to do a banking busi |