It affords every citizen of Minnesota great pride to know that, under all phases and conditions of our territory and state, whether in prosperity or adversity, the school fund has always been held sacred, and neither extravagance, neglect nor peculation has ever assailed it, but it has been husbanded with jealous care from time to time since the first dollar was realized from it until the present, and has accumulated until the principal is estimated at $20,000,000. The state auditor, in his last report of it, says: "The extent of the school land grant should ultimately be about three million acres, and as the average price of this land heretofore sold is $5.96 per acre, the amount of principal alone should yield the school fund not less than $17,000,000. To this must be added the amount received from sales of timber, and for lease and royalty of mineral lands, which will not be less than $3,000,000 more. It is not probable that the average sale price of this land will be reduced in the future, but it may increase, especially in view of the improved method of sale inaugurated by the new land law." The general method of administering the school fund is to invest the proceeds arising from the sale of the lands, and distribute the interest among the counties of the state according to the number of children attending school; the principal always to remain untouched and inviolate. Generous grants of land have also been made for a state university, amounting to 92,558 acres; also, for an agricultural college to the extent of one hundred thousand acres, which two funds have been consolidated, and together they have accumulated to the sum of $1,159,790.73, all of which is securely invested. The state has also been endowed with five hundred thousand acres of land for internal improvements, and all its lands falling within the designation of swamp lands. An act of congress, of Feb. 26, 1857, also gave it ten sections of land for the purpose of completing public buildings at the seat of government, and all the salt springs, not to exceed twelve, in the state, with six sections of land to each spring, in all seventy-two sections. The twelve salt springs have all been discovered and located, and the lands selected. The salt spring lands have been transferred to the regents of the university, to be held in trust to pay the cost of a geological and natural history survey of the state. It is estimated that the salt spring lands will produce, on the same valuation as the school lands, the sum of $300,000. Large sums will also be gained by the state from the sale of timber stumpage, and the products of its mineral lands. Some idea of the magnitude of the fund to be derived from the mineral lands of the state may be learned from the report of the state auditor for the year 1896, in which he says that during the years 1895-96 there was received from and under all mineral leases, contracts and royalties, $170,128.83.