OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, TO HIS EXCELLENCY, AUSTIN BLAIR, Governor of the State of Michigan: SIR-I have the honor to submit herewith, in accordance with the provisions of the laws of the State, the annual report of the Department of Public Instruction, and the accompanying documents, for the year of our Lord, 1863. I remain, very respectfully, Your, &c., JOHN M. GREGORY, Superintendent of Public Instruction. 1 REPORT. Under the benignant care of Almighty God, our Public School system continues to grow in usefulness and power. The reports of the year show a more than wonted vigor and prosperity in almost every department of the school work. From the district school to the University, the halls of learning are everywhere crowded with pupils, and increasing numbers of trained and skillful teachers are rising to crown with a richer success the toils of the school-room. Public zeal, pausing for a little, to meet the unwonted duties of public defence, has resumed with fresh interest the care of education; free schools have increased, and an unusual number of the larger districts have voted appropriations for the erection of large and elegant school buildings. Thus, in the midst of war, we are preparing for a grander and more glorious era of peace. Twenty-six years have elapsed since our public school system came into legal existence. Born in the infancy of the State, it has grown with its growth, and kept pace with its expansion. Planting the humble district school among the log cabins of the pioneer} settlers, it has swept upward abreast with the rising tide of population and wealth; its first rude huts have given place to more costly and convenient houses, and its scanty groups of pupils have swelled into the multiplied grades of our magnificent union schools. Amendments have been made from time to time, as the light of experience has revealed defects; but the great organic features of the system remain, and we, to-day, have reason to admire the generous hearts and broad views of the men whose devotion and far-seeing sagacity secured to the State so noble a provision for the education of its successive generations. Let it be ours to emulate their wisdom, not by pausing where they began-adhering, with a false and foolish conservatism, to errors which they themselves would now disclaim, and seeking to retain our school system in the cradle in which they rocked its infancy; but by urging to a grander growth, the institutions which they planted; by unfolding new agencies and elements of power, on the widening field of effort, and by lifting into still nobler application, the great doctrines of public and universal education which they so ably pronounced. THE UNIVERSITY. The history of the University of Michigan was concisely traced in my annual report for 1862. Another year' has since been added to its career of successful development and public usefulness. The full and able report of the retiring Board of Regents, published in the appendix, exhibits its present condition, and gives, also, a history of the numerous and important changes made in the Faculty during the year. Considerable excitement has attended these changes, but it is a reason for public thanksgiving that this excitement has not hindered the progress, or impaired the prosperity of the institution. Without wishing to sit in useless judgment upon the course of the retiring Regents, or to influence the action of the new Board, and anxious especially not to minister to an undue and hurtful public excitement, it is still due to history and to the memory of a great scholar and thinker, to record here a fitting acknowledgment of the eminent ability, fidelity and success with which Dr. Tappan discharged his trust as President of the University. Whether at home or abroad, in public or in private, he seemed to have but one great aim, and that was the glory and prosperity of the institution over which he presided, and his name will forever remain indissolubly associated with one of the most remarkable periods in the history of its development. Happily his successor, Rev. Dr. E. O. Haven, is not a. stranger to the State or to the University, and the wide and high reputation earned by him in former years, serves to make welcome his return. His well remembered talent, energy, an wise public spirit, excite the highest hopes of the success of his administration. A generous, people, mindful of the interests of this their chief seat of learning, will warmly welcome, and wisely support whatever efforts he shall make to promote its growth and power. The attendance for the current year, which has opened since the date of the report of the Regents, is larger than at any former period in its history. The total number of students, now belonging to the different departments, is 857, of whom 218 are in the Law School, 339 in the Medical College, and 300 in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. The numbers graduated during the last year from the several deparments are as follows: In Law, 45; in Medicine, 34; and in Literature, Science and the Arts, 45; making a total of 124 graduates for the year. The University having now attained such a magnitude of growth and power, the question ought to be urged, is it doing all it can be reasonably asked to do for the State; is this gigantic power being exerted in all directions possible to it for the public good? A little reflection will convince us that there are at least two fields of eminent public usefulness in which its forces may be properly employed, and into which it has here. tofore entered but slightly, and as it were by accident. The first of these is the department of military education. The facts of the present and the possibilities of the future of our national history, alike admonish us of the great necessity that our young men shall be taught something of military science. Much as we may love peace, and sincerely as we may hate the bloody butchery of war, we are now learning the sad but inevitable lesson, that the nation which will preserve its liberties and laws, must be prepared to defend them with arms. And who can measure the cruelty and the danger of sending out our untutored youth, under ignorant commanders, to risk their lives on the battle-field! Who can say how many, in this very war, have marched needlessly into "valleys of death" because "somebody blundered"; and who can tell |