that experience and success can fairly demand. By this means our best teachers could be retained.

I offer the above merely as a suggestion for the consideration of the Board. Of one thing I am thoroughly convinced: that Coldwater can not afford to lose her best instructors.

I had intended to discuss extendedly the propriety of introducing vocal music in our school. The length of this report will preclude everything except a statement of the question :

1. Vocal music has been introduced into several of the best schools of the State, and all these schools attest the success of the experiment.

2. Vocal music is a branch of education which (in my opinion) should be universally cultivated. If so, it can only become universal by being made a part of the course of study in our schools.

3. Tuition for music would be cheaper to the patron when taught in public schools than under the present system of private instruction.

4. The good influence of singing upon the morals and deportment of the pupils.

5. The mental effort required to master this science gives it an educational value equal to any other branch of study.

6. Music gives a vocal culture vastly superior to any other study. Hence, would materially assist in making good readers and speakers.

7. The rudiments would be taught to children five or six years of age, the proper time to commence the study in order to insure success.

8. It is a desirable and almost necessary accomplishment, and would, if taught in our school, add to its reputation as a first-class educational institution. Only two schools in the State, so far as my knowledge extends, report writing taught by a special instructor.

The conclusion I have reached on this point is, that there is not enough in the subject, per se, to warrant the expense of a special, constant teacher. I think, however, if book-keeping and drawing could be combined with it, and a practical commercial course adopted in our High School, that an extra instructor in those branches would be both profitable and desirable.

There are two improvements necessary for the coming year in the Central building, both powerful helps in imparting instruction. One is the re-seating the High School with single seats. We have had an average attendance in High School this year, to date, of ninety scholars. It is impossible, with so many students, and a class recitation in progress, to preserve as good discipline when pupils are seated together, as when seated alone; therefore, where so many are congregated, only single seats should be used. The second improvement is deadening the floors. No one thing would aid the efficiency of our school so much as this. As it is now, the necessary noise made by classes in one room, when moving to and from recitation, or when at the blackboard, is sufficient to distract the attention of every scholar in rooms below. I do not believe the patrons of the school would endure for one week the noise (and I only speak of necessary noise) which their children have to endure for ten months out of the year. True we get, in a measure, used to it, but it constantly detracts from the success of the school. The rooms whose floors were re-laid last year are a great improvement on the old floors; yet the sound is not sufficiently deadened to warrant the same process for the other rooms. Something more effectual should be done.

With the floors fixed, and High School re-seated with single seats, I think nothing really necessary (except some maps) would be wanting to complete a perfect outfit for school instruction. One room at Third Ward building also needs seating, and plank walks should be constructed from the street to Fourth Ward building.

I offer these facts and suggestions for your consideration. I offer them in full faith that the best interest of our schools demands the utilizing of all knowledge within our power to perfect the system of instruction so favorably inaugurated in our midst. I offer them as the one mainly responsible (with your help) for the success of that system.

Thanking you, gentlemen of the Board, for your aid heretofore so generously accorded, I remain,

Coldwater, June, 1874.

Yours respectfully,

D. BEMISS, Superintendent.

CONSTANTINE.

DESCRIPTION.

The Constantine Union School building was erected in 1869. Work was begun early in the month of March, and the house was finished and entered the first of November, 1869.

With the upper floor, which is under the Mansard roof, it has three floors and a basement. It is built of brick and stone.

The plan of the building is a cross with a tower in each angle. There are three entrances to the first floor, and in the rear is the main entrance to the basement. In the basement are rooms where the janitor resides; also four large furnaces, with their apparatus for warming and ventilating the rooms above.

On the first floor are four school-rooms and four cloak-rooms opening from near the intersection of the two main halls, which are 90x12 feet each, and which cross at right angles to each other. The cloak-rooms and schoolrooms are entered from near each of the four angles formed by the crossing halls.

The school-rooms are 37x28 feet each. The cloak-rooms are 20x7 feet each. Two broad and straight flights of stairs lead to the second floor, and two flights descend to the basement.

On the second floor are four school-rooms 37x28, and four cloak-rooms 20x7. On the west side the tower room is used as Principal's office and library. Here is the school library of some five hundred volumes. On the east side the tower room is fitted with shelves for geological specimens, and some 800 have been collected. The third floor has two school-rooms 37x 28. Two cloak-rooms 20x7, and a large hall 73x47. The tower room on the east side contains philosophical and chemical apparatus, and opens both into the hall and the school-room. The tower room on the west side is the janitor's room.

The ten school-rooms will seat 650 pupils, and the hall or chapel will seat 350. There is a most perfect system of warming and ventilation. The halls and entrances are so arranged that no pupil in going to his room need pass another room door. The school is well supplied with globes, maps, and charts, and is well seated. One fine 20-inch globe is the present of Gov. J. J. Bagley, as is also the bell. There is also about $2,000 worth of philosophical and chemical apparatus. The hall is fitted up with a stage, and has a new Estey organ. The building cost $38,000, and is nearly paid for.

REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.

To the Board of Education:

GENTLEMEN,-In accordance with your regulations, I now have the honor of submitting the following annual report. This is the fifth time this work has been mine, and looking over our school experiences for the past years, it becomes a duty of increasing pleasure. So long as we can see constant progress being made, it will be an agreeable task; so long as we seek to make it the means of farther progress, it will be a profitable work.

It is my duty to briefly review the work done the past year, to speak of the present condition of the school, and to suggest what the future good of the school seems to me to demand.

The past school year has been very pleasant and profitable. Good health has prevailed among teachers and pupils. The attendance has been good; the enrollment is large, and a good degree of regularity has been secured. The following table exhibits the usual statistics in regard to the attendance of each room, and of the whole school for each term and for the whole year: