The Republicans on the Committee of Education and Labor took up the cudgels for the Bureau.

We beat the Committee of Appropriations.

The result of the strife was that the Bureau was put on a firmer footing with a more liberal provision, and it has since been, under General Eaton and Dr.Harris, the accomplished and devoted Commissioners, of very great and valuable service to the country.
That led me to give special study to the matter of National education.

I introduced a bill for establishing an education system by National authority in States which failed to do it themselves.

Later, I introduced and carried through the House a measure for distributing the proceeds of the public land and sums received from patents and some other special funds, among all the States in aid of the common schools.
This bill passed the House, but was lost in the Senate mainly because Senator Morrill of Vermont, a most excellent and influential statesman, insisted that the money should go to the agricultural colleges, in which he took great interest, and not to common schools.