I picked up a little sarcasm in this line when read along with the paragraph before it, making fun of the native's tendencies to follow the directions from ancestors in the past rather than cultivate their own futures. However, this one sentence is very interesting to me because it also can be taken realistically by someone who reads it. It basically establishes that the rules of their forefathers, like encroaching on land that is not your own and taking what is not yours, are the keys to maintaining a future. It is blatantly justifying any actions of this sort under a veil that they are for "science and improvement" and in the "awful reverence... of our fathers." Read alone, it creates a basis for all actions that were taken in history, but put together within it's own paragraph it completely contradicts itself and makes fun of the natives and their customs.

This line really stuck out to me as prominent because it goes so well with the values our economy and democracy hold today, showing favoritism for big businesses and agribusiness. Companies like Monsanto have so much leverage with politicians and are completely corrupting so much of our country. Our "public industry" is really only accessible to a few people in power, and I find it interesting that these ideals of free market and promoting agriculture go so far back- little did the writers of this document know how the growth of these industries would come to control a nation.

The hypocrisy of this statement is so obvious and really sad- the people constructing and eventually attending this university are at the time considered the smartest and most capable in society. Yet despite the morals and order they claim to have, they are riding off the backs of slave labor as if it doesn't exist.

The "healthiness and fertility" I think can be taken in two ways, literally and figuratively. Figuratively the areas taken into consideration were easily accessible to the white population of the state from all sides, and were not barren. These areas were already established and presumably somewhat well grown. On the more literal side, the ground physically must be stable and the climate must be moderate. Buildings must be able to stand and ways to produce food (farming, livestock, etc.) have to be easy and long lasting.