panic at once. They see that they are likely to be burdened, and withdraw their children, and the school is substantially and perhaps literally broken up'. "As every day's absence lessens the tuition fee, a premium is offered on irregularity. When, by reason of paying higher wages to a superior teacher or the extension of the term, the expense is increased, many withdraw their children, and the cost becomes burdensome to the few who remain. The objection 'I have no children to be educated; let those who have, pay the cost of their schooling' is founded on a false theory. The truth is, we belong to the State as children belong to their parents, and the State has, for its defense, a right to us; a right to lay its equal and needful claim on our property, our time, our service, and if need be our life. While this claim of the State upon us is now more than ever the admitted doctrine of the American people, and is the only ground on which the conscription and the national tax for a righteous war can be defended, the correlative truth, that the State has duties as well as rights and claims, and that foremost among them is the duty of securing a good common education to the children of all classes, is the growing conviction of the masses. "Said a poor widow to me, 'I have just paid a rate-bill of $11.85, for my little girl the last year'. 'The law permits but $6.00 a year for each child', I replied. Yes-the tuition was $5.85, and the $6.00 was for board of the teacher, boarding round, as I have no home. Though I can scarcely support myself and child by work as a seamstress, I will pinch and toil, and wear my nails off, rather than not give that child an education-but indeed it is hard.' She felt and I felt that it was worse than hard-it was wrong. I have just learned that the present term of the center school in opens without that little girl of nine years of age. On inquiry as to the reason of her absence, tears told better than words the sad story of stern necessity-the hard struggle of that mother on the question 'schooling or bread', 'rate-bill or boardbill'. The ratebill keeps hundreds and thousands of children out of school. If this legislature should open every school in Connecticut free, I am confident that the Report of the Board for the next year after such a law has gone into operation would show literally thousands more in attendance." "It is said, ample provision is already made for the poor, as their bills may be abated. True, if they are willing to stand in the attitude of town paupers. Ought the honest laborer to be thus humiliated? His pride and self-respect revolts at seeing his name recorded among the town indigents. That it is regarded as degrading, I have the fullest means of knowing. Said a carpenter in -, 'I have five children who ought to all be at school, and would be, but for the rate-bill, which, at present high prices for everything, I can't pay. So far, I have always supported my family, and so long as I can work, I won't beg for board or schooling'. Shall not such self-reliance and independence be encouraged? Shall the distinctions of rich and poor be kept up in the school room? Shall the sons of penury be sent to a poorer seat in the schoolhouse, with the hard and humiliating taunt 'your father don't pay anything for you'. Does this poor, discouraged boy, though a better scholar than his paying schoolmate, deserve to be told 'that is good enough for you?' The theory of pauper schools is not new. In the States of Virginia and South Carolina, long ago, a school system was established for the indigent only, and 'the pride and selfrespect of the really poor revolted against such a discrimination. The schools were comparatively worthless, were unattended and the system failed', as it surely would if revived in Connecticut. My work leads me to mingle with the masses, and increasing familiarity enhances my appreciation of the sterling common sense, the sound judgment and honesty of the common people, the industrious classes. I find among them manifold signs of an advancing public sentiment in behalf of free schools, a growing conviction that general education is the heritage of the people, alike their interest and their right, the source of individual thrift, success and virtue, of public safety and permanent prosperity. Mechanics and laborers now understand that the wealth of the State consists in its men, in its treasures of mind. True men are worth more than money. Connecticut cannot afford to cripple her schools with the rate-bills." (Conn. Rept., 1868, 38-71) DOCUMENT 10 FREE EDUCATION AS CHARITY Stonington (Conn.) Visitor on this conception. "That the common schools of our State were designed by their founders to be schools where all the children should be generally educated, must be evident to everyone who is acquainted with their history. They were not established for any particular class, but for all, without distinction of sex, or condition, wealth or poverty (?). They were not designed more for the poor than the rich, for the sons and daughters of patrician families than of plebian. All such distinctions are not only contrary to the genius of republican institutions, but detrimental to the whole system of common schools. The invidious distinction now attempted to be made,-that the common school is only for the poor who are unable to secure knowledge elsewhere, is slanderous to those principles upon which the whole system of common schools is founded, and should be indignantly repudiated. The poor and ignorant classes are not more dependent on the rich and learned than the rich and learned are upon them, and unless the one can elevate the other, the other will most certainly degrade the one. That caste system of education, which seeks to elevate the few and degrade the many, stands opposed to progress, civilization and Christianity." (Conn. Rept., 1868, Appendix, CIII-CIV) DOCUMENT 11 SECRETARY NORTHROP ON CHARITY IN EDUCATION "Much has been said in Connecticut during the last year in favor of maintaining public schools exclusively for the poor. There is little danger that our legislation will favor those distinctions of caste and aristocracy which have long been the bane of English society. This caste system has been tried on a wide scale and under varying circumstances, and the results nowhere recommend it. Pennsylvania thoroughly tried 'pauper schools'. The result was poor houses, poorer teachers, and poorest schools. To attend them was a disgrace. Even the poor washerwoman scorned to send her children to the pauper school, proudly saying 'I haven't come to that-indeed I haven't'. Virginia tried the plan of pauper schools, and therefore never had a general operative public school system. Her farseeing statesman, Thomas Jefferson, prepared with his own hand a bill for a free school system, of which he said: One provision of the school bill for all children generally, rich or poor, was that the expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the County, in proportion to their general tax rates'. How different would have been the history of the Old Dominion had she heeded his counsel. But the long trial of pauper schools has, in the end, made poor indeed, that State, so rich in natural resources. "Instead of Jefferson's bill for free schools, quite another sentiment became popular, as thus expressed in a leading Virginia paper: 'We have got to hating everything with the prefix free, from free negroes down and up through the whole catalogue, free farms, free labor, free society, free will, free thinking, free children and free schools,-all belonging to the same damnable brood of sins. But the worst of all these abominations is the modern system of free schools. The New England system of free schools has been the cause and prolific source of the infidelities and treasons that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs and her land into the common nestling places of howling Bedlamites. We abominate the system because the schools are free'. "South Carolina adopted pauper schools, and of their results Gov. Hammond, in 1843, spoke thus: 'Our free school system has failed. It does not suit our people or our government. The paupers for whose children it is intended but slightly appreciate the advantages of education; their pride revolts at the idea of sending their children to school as poor scholars, and besides, they need them at home to work'. Just before the war, South Carolina had learned the folly of schools for the poor alone, and was inaugurating a system of free schools for all classes of her white population." (Conn. Rept., 1868, 135-138) BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MICHIGAN SOURCES 1. Laws of the Northwest Territory, of the Territory of Michigan, and of the State of Michigan, 1785-1914. 2. Journals of the Constitutional Conventions. (a) 1835-7. (b) 1850. (c) 1868. (d) Constitutional Commission of 1873. (e) 1907. 3. Journals of Legislative Proceedings. 4. Reports of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 5. State and Federal Census Reports. SECONDARY ACCOUNTS AND MATERIAL 1. Michigan Pioneer Collections. Vol. I: 37-46.* IV: 57-63.* V: 27-43, 43-46, 184-187,* 547-557.* VI: 25, 115–137, 137-166, 284-90, 2001,* 245,* 294,* 325.* VII: 17–36,* 36–52, 130. IX: 321-326,* 326328,* 92-100,* 328-330. X: 24-33.* XIII: 571-575. XIV: 280283,*283-402.* XVII: 462-474, 311-319.* XVIII: 374,* 397,* 415, 561-570,* 660. XXII: 454-457.* XXVI: 501-517. XXVIII: 107-110.* XXX: 524-549. XXXII: 452. XXXV: 295-309.* XXXVIII: 522-534. *Starred references contain material about primary and secondary schools. 2. Histories of Michigan and histories in general. (a) Sheldon, E. M., Early History of Michigan, New York, A. S. Barnes and Co., 1856. (b) Cooley, T. M., Michigan, Am. Com. Series, Houghton Mifflin. (c) Fuller, G. N., Economic and Social Beginnings of Michigan, Vol. I, (d Mathews, Lois K., The Expansion of New England, Chap. IX. 3. Histories of Education. (a) McLaughlin, History of Higher Education in Michigan, Circular of Information, No. 4, 1891, U. S. Bureau of Education. (b) Putnam, Daniel, Development of Primary and Secondary Public Education in Michigan (1904). (c) Shearman, Francis W., System of Public Instruction and Primary School Law of Michigan, Part I, 1852). (d) Smith, W. L., Historical Sketches of Education in Michigan, 1-38 (e) Winters, Schools of Detroit, Detroit School Report, 1870–72. (h) Knight, G. W., History and Management of Land Grants for Edu- 4. Barnard's American Journal of Education, and Annual Reports, U. S. Commissioner of Education. (a) Barnard's Journal. 17:100. 24:279 (legal provisions concerning education). 24: 164 (land grants). 15:640 (biography). (b) Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education. 1892-3, 2:1225 et seq. (Document, Hinsdale). 1897-98, 1:591 et seq. (Foreign Influences, Hinsdale). 1894–95, 2: 1513–50 (Education in Northwest Territory, Mayo). 1898–99, 1:389–413 (Common Schools, Michigan, Mayo). 1876, 200-2 (History of School System). (Index of Reports of Commissioner give further references to various phases of education in Michigan.) 1. Michigan Teacher. PERIODICALS 2. Michigan Journal of Education and Teachers Magazine, Vol. 1–7, 18531860. 3. Education, Vol. V:12. Salmon, L. M., Education in Michigan in Territorial Period. BIOGRAPHIES 1. Hoyt and Ford, John D. Pierce, Founder of the Michigan School System. 2. Hinsdale, Horace Mann. NOTE.-Data compiled from various Michigan reports. L signifies loss, or decrease in rate 4,019.84 4,744 3,715.35 4,855 8.1 16,133.71L 5,052 |