THE SCHOOLS ENTIRELY FREE AND MAINLY UNDER LOCAL CONTROL.

Tuition is absolutely free to resident pupils in all the public schools, except that a fee may be required for advanced studies in the high schools, although the reports show only an occasional case in which this is done. Their immediate administration is entrusted to the districts themselves and to the school officers elected annually by the taxpayers. The State exercises a general supervision over the system, but does not interfere with the freedom of local action within the law. It provides for the holding of teachers' institutes annually in every county containing over 1,000 children between five and twenty years of age; at their sessions practical instruction in the best methods of doing their work is given to the local teachers by the State Superintendent or by experienced educators of his selection.

THE SCHOOL YEAR AND THE COURSES OF STUDY.

The constitution of the State provides that a free school shall be kept at least three months in each year in each district, and the general law requires at least five months of school in districts having over thirty and less than eight hundred children of school age, and not less than nine months in districts with more than eight hundred. The courses of study in the various grades are as follows:

Primary Schools: Reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, and geography. Grammar Schools: Reading, arithmetic, geography, United States history, grammar, spelling, writing, composition, and in many districts music and drawing.

High Schools: Grammar, arithmetic, geography, composition, algebra, history, physical geography, rhetoric, geometry, book-keeping, botany, physiology, natural philosophy, civil government, zoology, political economy, chemistry, astronomy, moral and intellectual philosophy, and the Latin, Greek, French, and German languages. These numerous studies are arranged in various courses, from which pupils and guardians make their selections.

As a rule four years is required for the completion of a regular course in each grade.

PUBLIC AID TO SECTARIAN SCHOOLS ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITED.

The law absolutely prohibits any application of the public moneys to the support of schools of a sectarian character, whether under the control of any religious society or made sectarian by the action of the district officers themselves.

THE REVENUE OF THE COMMON SCHOOLS.

The revenue for the support of the primary schools is derived from the following

sources:

1. The Primary School Fund. This principally consists of the proceeds of the original "section 16" grant. Under that grant the State came into possession of 1,077,209 acres; of these lands there had been on September 30, 1881, over 675,000 acres sold at an average price of $4.50 per acre. The proceeds of these sales form one of the trust funds of the State treasury (the character of these funds is fully explained in the pages of this pamphlet treating of State finance and taxation), and upon them the State pays interest annually at the rate of seven per cent. A law passed in 1858 also provided that one-half of the cash proceeds of the sales of swamp lands should be added to the primary school fund, and that the State should pay annual interest thereon at the rate of five per cent. On September 30, 1881, the condition of the fund, including the sums still due from purchasers, was as follows:

Proceeds of sales of "section 16" lands (including about

$4,000 from escheats).

Half of cash avails of swamp land sales..

Total

The income is paid annually by the State to the counties for distribution to the school districts according to their number of children of school age, and the money is used for the payment of teachers' wages. From the school lands still unsold and other sources enough will undoubtedly be realized to ultimately increase this fund to about $4,500,000 and to raise the interest thereon to over $300,000. The practical extinguishment of the State debt has also left that part of the specific taxes paid by corporations, which has heretofore gone into the sinking fund, to be added to the income from the primary school fund. From this source several hundred thousand dollars will be realized yearly, the amount for the year ending September 30, 1881, having been $406,675. The sum which the counties will annually receive from the State treasury for the support of their free schools will henceforth probably exceed $600,000; in 1881 it was $639,751.

2. The One Mill Tax. Each township is required to raise annually for "school and library purposes" a tax of one-tenth of a cent on each dollar of its assessed valuation, and this is apportioned, after deducting the amount which may have been voted for the support of the township library, to the school districts in which it was raised, provided such districts have maintained at least the minimum school term required by law. Such part of this tax as may have been raised on unorganized territory, or in districts not maintaining the required school term, is apportioned to those districts

which have complied with the law, according to their number of children in the school census. The amount realized from the one mill tax in 1881 was $507,111. The peculiar care of the State for its schools is shown in the fact that of all the taxes collected in any township those for school purposes, as assessed and without reference to the amount collected, must be paid into the district school fund before any money is disbursed except for township expenses.

3. Local or district school taxes. These are voted by the people of each district, or by the school boards elected by them, under certain restrictions imposed by law with the view of preventing extravagance. The amount of these taxes in all the districts in 1881 was $2,288,824. The total taxation in Michigan for primary school

purposes in 1881 was .$2,795,934, or about $1.70 per capita of the population, and but a little over three-tenths of a cent on a dollar of the assessed valuation of the State. 4. Miscellaneous. Considerable sums are reçeived annually from the tuition fees of non-resident pupils, from the dog tax and from various miscellaneous sources, their amount in 1881 being $336,633.

The total sum realized for school purposes from all sources in the State in that year was $3,644,778.

THE STATISTICS OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

The growth of the primary school system of Michigan is shown, and the essential facts of its present condition are given, in this table:

Growth and Condition of the Primary Schools of Michigan.

NOTE.-Where the blanks occur in this table no reports were collected in the years named.

THE SCHOOL HOUSE TO BE FOUND EVERYWHERE.

The statistics gathered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1881 showed that every organized county in this State (Isle Royal alone not being heard from), however sparsely settled, was provided with school houses, and that none of them failed to maintain schools during that year. The log school house speedily takes its place by the cabins of the pioneer settlers on the edge of the wilderness; serviceable frame structures abound among the improved farms of the older counties; and there is no considerable city or village within the boundaries of Michigan which cannot point to its substantial, often beautiful, union school building as one of its most attractive features. In the larger towns such edifices are numerous; in Detroit with their sites and furniture they amounted in value in 1881 to $750,000; in Grand Rapids to $362,000; in East Saginaw to $200,000; in Battle Creek to $175,000; in Jackson to $160,000; in Bay City to $145,000; in Ann Arbor to $142,000; in Flint to $127,000; in Lansing to $106,000; in Adrian to $104,000, and in Saginaw and Marshall to $100,000.

A LARGE SUM WELL SPENT IN DEVELOPING A THOROUGHLY REPUBLICAN SCHOOL

SYSTEM.

The total expenditures of this State since its admission to the Union for the support of its primary schools have exceeded $55,000,000, and, without claiming that there has been no extravagance or wastefulness on the part of the districts or that the existing system is free from imperfections, there is no exaggeration in asserting that this great sum has, on the whole, been wisely expended, and that the State has had "value received" in the universal diffusion of knowledge among its people. It may be added, moreover, as a special cause of pride, that the history of the common schools of Michigan has fully justified these utterances of the first report of its first Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Rev. John D. Pierce : "Common schools are truly republican. The great object is to furnish good instruction in all the elementary and common branches of knowledge for all classes of community, as good indeed for the poorest boy of the State as the rich man can furnish for his children with all his wealth. In the public schools all classes are blended together; the rich mingle with the poor, and both are educated in company. In these schools the poor are as likely

to excel as the rich, for there is no monopoly of talents, of industry, or of acquirements. Nothing can be imagined more admirably adapted, in all its bearings, to prostrate all distinctions arising from mere circumstances of birth and fortune. By means of the public schools the poor boy of to-day may be the man of learning and influence of to-morrow; he may accumulate and die the possessor of thousands; he may reach the highest station in the republic."

The University of Michigan has during a score of years maintained its position as one of the first of American educational institutions, ranking as the rival of the celebrated eastern colleges with colonial histories. It is strong in the breadth of its fundamental plan, the practical usefulness of its work, the value of its contributions to the general stock of knowledge, the ample character of its equipment, the cheapness with which its advantages can be enjoyed, and its thoroughly democratic atmosphere.

ITS REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT.

It was first opened to the public in 1841, and hence has had an active existence of forty years. Within that time its corps of three instructors has grown to eighty-five, and its list of students, which in its first catalogue contained but fifty-three names, has passed beyond fifteen hundred. Its single collegiate department has developed into three courses, while five additional departments have been established. Its solitary building, 110 by 40 feet in dimensions, has expanded into a group of handsome and spacious structures of almost half a million dollars in value. Its library now

numbers 38,500 volumes with many thousand pamphlets. Originally a mere local school, unknown beyond the limits of the State, it has won an international reputation, and its rolls have borne the names of students from all parts of the United States and from many foreign countries.

ITS LOCATION, BUILDINGS, AND DEPARTMENTS.

The University is located in the city of Ann Arbor, thirty-eight miles west of Detroit on the Michigan Central railroad. Its numerous buildings are situated upon a high plateau in a campus of forty acres in extent; the single exception is the observatory, which occupies the summit of a natural elevation a short distance from the main grounds. University Hall is a spacious structure, crowned with a lofty dome, and containing the general offices of the institution, the instruction rooms of the collegiate department, and a large auditorium capable of accommodating 3,000 people. The other principal buildings are the Law School, the Medical College (old