State v. Board of Curators

• Citation: 188 S.W. 128,268 Mo. 598
• Decision Date: 03 July 1916
• Docket Number: No. 18985.,18985.
• Parties: STATE ex rel. HEIMBERGER v. BOARD OF CURATORS OF UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

188 S.W. 128

268 Mo. 598

STATE ex rel. HEIMBERGER v. BOARD OF CURATORS OF UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI et al.

No. 18985.

Supreme Court of Missouri. In Banc.

July 3, 1916.

Rehearing Denied July 18, 1916.

Original proceeding by mandamus by the State, on the relation of Harry T. Heimberger, against the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri and others. Alternative writ made absolute.

C. C. Bland, Frank H. Farris, J. J. Crites, Watson & Livingston, Lorts & Breuer, and Holmes & Holmes, all of Rolla, for plaintiff. O. M. Barnett, of St. Louis, and Charles E. Yeater, of Sedalia, for respondents.

BLAIR, J.

This is an original proceeding by mandamus, the purpose of which is to compel the curators of the University of Missouri to obey an act duly passed by the General Assembly of the state and signed by the Governor March 23, 1915. That act amends sections 11134 and 11141, R. S. 1909, and, with the amendatory matter indicated by italics, reads as follows:

"Sec. 11134. Objects of These Colleges. — The leading objects of said colleges shall be to teach such branches as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts and mining, including military tactics, and without excluding other scientific and classical studies, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

"Sec. 11141. Right to Confer Degrees. — The college of agriculture and school of mines and metallurgy shall have power to confer degrees suitable to their designs and courses of study; and the school of mines and metallurgy shall provide courses for, and shall confer the bachelor of science and professional degrees in mining engineering, in metallurgy, in mechanical engineering, in electrical engineering, in chemical engineering, in civil engineering and the degrees of bachelor and master of science in general science."

So far as concerns section 11134, the act merely restored it to the form in which it was first enacted (Laws 1870, § 2, p. 15) and which it had retained (section 7278, R. S. 1879; section 8739, R. S. 1889; section 10505, R. S. 1899) until it was amended in 1909 (section 11131, R. S. 1909).

The unitalicized portion of section 11141, as above set forth, constituted the entire section 11141 in the Revised Statutes of 1909. The words "college of agriculture" used therein were inserted in 1909 in lieu of the words "the college of agriculture and mechanic arts," and these, in turn (section 10505, R. S. 1899), had supplanted the words "the agricultural and mechanical college" as they appeared in the act of 1870. The "colleges" referred to in the act of 1915 are the college of agriculture, as it is now called, and the school of mines and metallurgy. The act of 1870 (Laws 1870, § 1, p. 15), which was in force at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of 1875, upon the interpretation of one of the sections of which Constitution the defense depends, established —

"the Agricultural and Mechanical College and a School of Mines and Metallurgy, provided for by the grant of the Congress of the United States as a distinct department of the University of the State of Missouri."

It is unnecessary to set out the pleadings, since no question of consequence is raised in connection with them. It will suffice to say the return admits relator's capacity to sue, the passage of the act of March 23, 1915, and respondents' refusal to obey or permit obedience to its command. It is the command of the General Assembly contained in the amendment made by the act of 1915 to section 11141 which relator seeks to have enforced and the enforcement of which respondents resist.

No question is raised as to the regularity of the passage of the amendatory act, nor is it contended the amendment it makes to the statute is couched in language whose meaning is obscure or equivocal. Respondents simply deny the power of the General Assembly to exert over them any authority of the kind implied by the enactment of the amendment. Their position is that they are independent of the General Assembly, and not subject to its direction or control in any manner or degree. The argument whereby they seek to maintain this position is grounded upon section 5, art. 11, of the Constitution of 1875, which section reads as follows:

"Sec. 5. The General Assembly shall, whenever the public school fund will permit, and the actual necessity of the same may require, aid and maintain the state university, now established, with its present departments. The government of the state university shall be vested in a board of curators, to consist of nine members, to be appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate."

The question presented is whether this constitutional provision invalidates the act of March 23, 1915. In order to maintain the affirmative of this it is incumbent upon respondents to convince us beyond a reasonable doubt that the act assailed is not susceptible of any reasonable interpretation consistent with section 5, art. 11, which will leave in it any command to them which is enforceable by mandamus and within the scope of the alternative writ.

I. In support of their position that the quoted constitutional provision devests the General Assembly of all authority over the university and vests all authority in respondents, the first branch of the argument advanced is based upon a comparison of that provision with section 4, art. 9, of the Constitution of 1865. That section provided that:

"The General Assembly shall also establish and maintain a state university, with departments for instruction in teaching, in agriculture, and in natural science, as soon as the public school fund will permit."

The insistence is that, in view of the presence of the command in the Constitution of 1865 that the General Assembly should establish "a state university with departments," and of the omission of this command from the Constitution of 1875, therefore, in the language of respondents' counsel, it is—

"plainly apparent and very clear that the express power to establish a university with departments in the General Assembly was withdrawn and came to an end on the adoption by the people of the Constitution of 1875. By their vote the people struck out the word `establish' and inserted in lieu thereof the word `aid,' and ratified and confirmed the departments at that date `present' or `existing.'"

This is counsels' statement.

It may be conceded the Constitution of 1875 deprives the General Assembly of the power to disestablish the university, or any department thereof in existence when the Constitution was adopted. That matter is not in issue in this case, and in so far as the argument is directed to that question, save in one particular hereafter noticed, it is not relevant to the question before us. The rest of this argument, however, requires us to ascertain the meaning of the first sentence of section 5, art. 11, of the Constitution, and a restatement of a fundamental principle or two is pertinent. In interpreting the language of the Constitution:

"The thing we seek is the thought which it expresses. To ascertain this, the first resort in all cases is to the natural signification of the words employed, in the order of grammatical arrangement in which the framers of the instrument have placed them. If, thus regarded, the words embody a definite meaning, which involves no absurdity and no contradiction between different parts of the same writing, then that meaning, apparent on the face of the instrument, is the one which alone we are at liberty to say was intended to be conveyed. That which the words declare is the meaning of the instrument, and neither courts nor Legislatures have a right to add to or take away from that meaning." Cooley's Const. Limitations (7th Ed.) p. 91. "In interpreting clauses we must presume that words have been employed in their natural and ordinary meaning. As Marshall, C. J., says: The framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it `must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said.' This is but saying that no forced or unnatural construction is to be put upon their language; and it seems so obvious a truism that one expects to see it universally accepted without question; but the attempt is made so often by interested subtlety and ingenious refinement to induce courts to force from these instruments a meaning which their framers never held that it frequently becomes necessary to redeclare this fundamental maxim. Narrow and technical reasoning is misplaced when it is brought to bear upon an instrument framed by the people themselves, for themselves, and designed as a chart on which every man, learned and unlearned, may be able to trace the leading principles of government." Cooley's Const. Limitations (7th Ed.) pp. 92, 93.

1. The words composing the first sentence in section 5, art. 11, of the Constitution contain in themselves no hint of an intent to forbid the establishment by the General Assembly of new departments in, or in connection with, the university. Plainly and simply they command that the General Assembly—

"shall, whenever (1) the public school fund will permit, and (2) the actual necessity of the same may require, (1) aid and (2) maintain the state university, now established, with its present departments."

Obviously this provision does not directly deal, at all, with the right or power of the General Assembly to establish other departments. Its direct force is spent entirely upon an injunction to aid and maintain, under stated conditions, the departments already established. No "subtlety," no "ingenuity of argument," logically, can wring from the language used any other meaning. In such case we are not permitted, for the purpose of attempting to discover some hidden, some occult intent of the people, to resort to documents other than the Constitution itself. It is only in...