THIRD TERM Butler's Analogy, Plato's Gorgias. Monday mornings throughout the year, Greek Testament (Epistles). The total number of students in 1850 was 72. Ten years later it was 519; in 1880-81 it reached 1,534;1 in 1907-8 the total was 5,010;2 and in 1913-14 the members aggregated 6,857.3 Of these, more than 1,200 were women. Naturally the branches had to keep step with this restricted program of the university; at least the preparatory or classical departments had to do so. In consequence, as we have seen, popular approval was gradually withdrawn from both types of institution. In 1850, the date of the program given above, the Romeo branch was the only one in existence, and this was supported by local funds. Still, at this very time there was a demand on the part of the more progressive citizens and the lovers of popular education that the branches be revived and supported. Indeed, pressure was brought to bear upon the legislature so that a law was enacted requiring the regents to continue their appropriations to the branches. This act placed the authorities in an embarrassing position. Though eager and ready to comply, the state of finances was still such as to render impossible a just and adequate maintenance for both the university and the dependent schools. To attempt to do so, the regents felt, would cripple both and lead finally to a retrograde movement in all that had been planned. Fortunately-or unfortunately the courts came to the aid of the university, and disposed of the difficulty by setting aside the newly enacted law and by so 1 President's Report, 1881, p. 1. The Department of Medicine was opened in 1851; that of Law in 1860; those of Homeopathy and Dentistry in 1876; that of Pharmacy in 1877.. 2 Catalogue, 1907-8, p. 470. In 1906-7 there were 741 women students enrolled. President's Report, 1907, p. 2. 3 Catalogue, 1914-15, p. 707. construing the constitution that the regents were given full power to deal with the university as they thought wise. Left free to act as judgment dictated, the regents took no further notice of the conflicting requests, but left the branches, as they had been left since 1846, to live or die as fate might decide. All hope of their official revival was now abandoned, and the friends of public education directed their view and attention to secondary schools of other kinds. Such institutions had, as we have hinted, already become well started, and from this date they advanced rapidly. Thus died the branches of the University of Michigan. As a final justification of their policy carried out during the fourteen years, the regents authorized one of their number, Dr. Zina Pitcher, to prepare an address that was printed and distributed over the state. The most significant parts of this address are here appended:1 Having selected the site of the University, secured the means of erecting the buildings, purchasing the library, and of having other things necessary to lay its foundation, it became apparent that the materials for the construction of the living edifice were not at hand. The blocks for the statuary were in the quarry, but there were no hands to hew them into form. Our political and social institutions were yet in a transition state. The common schools were then in chaos, and our whole system of Public Instruction in the state, at best, [was in a condition] of inchoation. Believing that the attempt to establish or organize the University at this stage of our political existence, in this condition of the other educational institutions of the state, would prove abortive, the regents resolved (as a constitutional authority or warrant for so doing had not then been questioned,) to invert the order of things contemplated in the organic law, and proceed at once to the establishment of branches as a means of furnishing the elements necessary to give vitality to the central institution, when the time for appointing its Faculty should arrive. 1 The address in full is found on pages 312 ff. of Report of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1852. It epitomizes the transactions of the regents from 1837 to June 30, 1851. In order to carry this purpose into effect, the committee on branches was authorized to employ an agent to visit the different sections of the state and engage the cooperation of citizens living at such points as seemed most suitable for the establishment of branches, and report his doings to the Board. This agent, who was restricted to eight localities, reported in favor of locating a branch at Pontiac, Detroit, Monroe, Tecumseh, Niles, Grand Rapids, Palmer and Jackson, the citizens of which were required to furnish the site and the edifice necessary for the accommodation of the pupils. On the fulfillment of these conditions, branches were organized at Monroe, Tecumseh, Niles, White Pigeon, Kalamazoo, Pontiac, Romeo and Detroit. A department for the education of females was added to the branch at Monroe, Tecumseh, White Pigeon, Kalamazoo, and Romeo. Branches were also located at Mackinac, Jackson, Utica, Ypsilanti and Coldwater, but no appropriations were ever made for their support. On the first organization of the Board of Regents, it included no clerical members. For this reason, the University then in futuro, was stigmatized as an infidel affair, which, it was predicted, would fail to perform the functions for which it had been endowed. This prediction was uttered with much confidence in certain quarters, and an act for the incorporation of a sectarian college was urged through the Legislature, partly by the force of an appeal to the religious feeling of the members, based on this accusation. Partly with a view to disarm that kind of opposition, and more especially because they believed it to be a duty, irrespective of it, the Board was careful to introduce the elements of religion into the branches, which they did by the appointment of clergymen of the different denominations as principals thereof. In the adoption of rules for the government of the branches, special care was taken to guard the common school interest from injury, by requiring candidates for admission to undergo a preparatory examination. Tuition was to be paid in advance. A treasurer was appointed for each branch, who was required to make a report of the funds in his hands, at the close of each term. The course of study to be pursued therein was prescribed by the Board of Regents, which embraced the preparation of the pupil for college, his qualification for business, or for teaching, as he might himself elect. With the design of inducing young men who had been educated at the branches, to engage in the business of instruction, a regulation was adopted which authorized the treasurer to refund the money paid for tuition, to all such persons as should furnish to him evidence of having been engaged in teaching, having regard to the time they had been thus employed. A board of visitors was also appointed for each branch, to whom such powers were delegated as seemed necessary to the practical working of the system. Notwithstanding the pains taken to adapt these institutions to the public exigencies, so that their legitimate functions could be performed without infringing upon another portion of the educational system, they soon began to decline in popular estimation, because they were not able at the same time to perform the functions of a common school as well as a branch of the University. A feeling of jealousy was awakened in the minds of those whose children were excluded from them either from want of age or qualifications. Consequently they were soon regarded as places for the education of the (so-called) aristocracy of the state, and the University, through the influence of the branches, began to be spoken of as an enemy to popular education. If an opinion may be formed of public sentiment by the tone of certain official papers, it would appear that that feeling, instead of becoming extinct, has only changed the mode and place of its appearing. Finding that the branches were drawing largely upon the fund designed for the construction of the University building, and that they were not satisfactorily accomplishing the end for which they had been established, the Board of Regents, after mature deliberation, being fully assured that the expense of keeping them up was greatly disproportioned to the benefits accruing therefrom, suspended, in 1846, all appropriations for their support, after more than $30,000 had been expended in trying to sustain them. Whilst this trial was being made of the utility of branches, Professor Gray was in Europe selecting the library of the University, and Dr. Torrey, of New York, was negotiating the purchase of the Lederer cabinet of foreign minerals, which now constitutes the principal sources of attraction to persons visiting this institution. From this experimental though abortive effort to build up and sustain branches of the University, the Board have learned, and they deem the lesson of sufficient importance to leave it on record, that local institutions of learning thrive best under the immediate management of the citizens of the place in which they are situated, and when endowed or sustained by their immediate patrons. TH CHAPTER VII THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT `HE second great type of secondary school in Michigan was the academy. While, as elsewhere, this class of schools was not, strictly speaking, a part of the statesupported educational system, the different foundations were nevertheless quasi-public institutions which were chartered and regulated by the state and which the people then regarded essentially as public schools. Certain it is that during the two decades in particular from 1839 to 1859- the academies and kindred institutions played a notable part in the history of secondary education in Michigan. Indeed, a historical account of the public secondary schools of this state would be wholly incomplete without a brief sketch of the rise and status of the academy. In earlier chapters we have seen that there were a few private schools of the academy type in Michigan even before the state was admitted into the Union. The records respecting these are, however, scant indeed. For the most part they are the merest legal statements respecting the terms of the charters given, or the briefest accounts of the fact that a particular school was "kept" by a particular person at a particular time and place. This is all. There is nothing available that yields returns worthy of the search. Apparently most, if not all, of these early private schools were of short duration and of doubtful financial success. Many of them taught the classical languages and French,' and may, in a sense, 1Mr. William D. Wilkins, in an article styled "Traditions and Reminiscences of the Public Schools of Detroit," in the Michigan Pioneer Collections, Vol. 1, p. 448, speaks of there being "public" schools in Detroit in 1802, 1816, 1823, and, later. Some of these taught the classics, but not one, surely, was a public school in the present meaning of the term. |