for, and urge the necessity of receiving, the power of conferring degrees, "to enable them to adapt the institution to the present time and circumstances, to carry out its original design, and to promote the interests of education generally," a suspicion is engendered that the trustees are laboring under a slight misapprehension of the true objects and aims of, and the internal economy adapted to, such an institution. Your committee are of opinion that this power should be exercised by those institutions alone, which, by the possession and control of ample means, the employment of distinguished and well known professors, and the enjoyment of a wide spread and deserved reputation, will afford a guarantee against the abuse of the power. Experience teaches us that colleges in some of the States have been so reckless and indiscreet in conferring honors on unworthy subjects, that it is not uncommon to encounter an A. B. or an A. M. incapable of construing and translating his own diploma. Though your committee apprehend no such foolish consequences from granting the prayer of this petition, yet, they think that great caution should be used, lest the standard of education be lowered. Former legislatures have been laudably careful in bestowing this power on chartered schools, and the only two instances in which it has been extended, are so guarded and restricted, that the clause is little better than a dead letter in the acts of incorporation. But your committee doubt the policy of conferring these degrees at all. They are inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions, and a vestige of the aristocratical distinctions of monarchical Europe. The hope of attaining them is a motive addressed not to the reason or generous emulation of youth, but merely to their vanity. Intellect, morality and knowledge, confer a patent in their possessor universally recog nized and respected-a patent which schools can neither give nor take away. And it is a remarkable fact in our nation's annals, that while a majority of those great and good men, whose names are identified with the national glory, were ardent and untiring devotees at the shrine of knowledge, still they never attained the distinction of an academical degree.

Mr. CARTER, from the committee to whom the subject was referred, reported against a bill to incorporate seminaries of learning, on the ground, mainly, that all general incorporation laws were unconstitutional.

During the year, an act was passed incorporating Ann Arbor Female Seminary; the Michigan Central College, at Spring Arbor; the charter of the Wesleyan Seminary amended, and the Ypsilanti Seminary incorporated; a further act for the relief of purchasers of University and school lands. Misses Clarks' school, at Ann Arbor, was incorporated.

An act was passed relative to primary schools, providing for the organization of districts; and that whenever any school district should

be so large as to contain more than one hundred scholars, between four and eighteen years of age, the district might raise a sum of money from the taxable property, for leasing and purchasing a site and building a school house, not to exceed in any one year, four dollars a scholar. It enacted that in no case should the school house be connected with any other building; and further provided that a majority of two-thirds of the voters voting at a school district meeting, called for that purpose, should vote for such tax. It gave power to the inspectors, annually to appoint a librarian; and took the charge of the library from the township clerk, as provided by a prior law. Ira Mayhew, of Monroe, was nominated and confirmed as Superintendent of Public Instruction.

1846.

EXTRACT FROM GOV. FELCH'S FIRST MESSAGE.

The subject of common schools is universally acknowledged to be one of vital interest in every free government. The liberal reservation by the general government of section sixteen in each of the townships of the State, for that purpose, has enabled us to secure a fund that will do much in support of our common schools, and for the diffusion of knowledge among the youth of the State. The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, will give the necessary information on the important subjects coming within his supervision. The whole number of scholars that have attended the common schools during the past year, is 75,770. Of these, 69,253 are between the ages of four and eighteen years, 2,289 under four years, and 4,228 over eighteen years. There are also in the State 20,752 persons between the ages of four and eighteen years, who have not attended the common schools; the whole number of children between four and eighteen, being 90,006. The amount of school interest money distributed in the last year, for the support of the schools, was $22,113.

A provision having been made by Congress, May 20, 1826, by which the State was authorized, when the school section in a township was fractional merely, or entirely wanting, to select other lands to supply the deficiency, the State geologist was, by act of March 1, 1845, anthorized and required to ascertain the quantity thus deficient, and to report the same to the Legislature, at the present ses. sion. This duty has been performed under the direction of the State Geologist, and the result will be reported to you by the Topographer, to whose charge, since the death of the Geologist, the documents relating to the same were committed. These returns contain maps, and complete descriptions of all the fractional sections of common school lands in the lower peninsula, and of lands which have been

located to supply such deficiency. The quantity of land to which the State is entitled, for such deficiency in the lower peninsula, is 20,729.68 acres. This, added to the quantity of entire sections in the several townships, and also of the fractional sections, gives for the whole amount of school lands in the lower peninsula, 759,518.69 acres. The quantity of school lands in the upper peninsula is estimated at 380,481.31 acres. The whole number of acres of school lands in the State, is 1,140,000. The minimum value of these lands, as fixed by law, would be $5,700.000, yielding an annual interest, at seven per cent., of $399,000. A sale of all these lands, at the present minimum price of five dollars per acre, is certainly not at present anticipated, and may not take place for many years; yet the statement exhibits a noble fund, from which the amount actually realized is now very considerable, and must continue greatly to in

crease.

A wise provision of the school law, in connection with a requirement of the constitution, designed to promote the same object, has laid the foundation for valuable township and district school libraries, and during the past year many such libraries have been established. A more effectual method of fostering a taste for reading, and a thirst for knowledge, and of diffusing intelligence and enlarged views of morals and patriotism, could scarcely be devised. Their influence is at the fire-side, and in silence, yet it is an influence that will do much to elevate the people of Michigan.

Our State University, although it has been in actual operation less than five years, has already given promise of great usefulness, and assumed a rank as a literary institution, of which Michigan may well be proud. There are now connected with the University, seventy students. The ability of its professors, the extensive library and cabinets, and the liberal principles upon which it is conducted, are constantly attracting students to its halls. The fact that no tuition fee is charged to any resident of the State, opens its door to all, and makes knowledge literally free.

The University fund, at an early day of its existence, became indebted to the State for loan of $100,000, and the interest of this debt has been liquidated from the interest received annually on the fund. The acts of the Legislature, approved February 28, 1844, and March 11, 1844, authorized the State Treasurer to receive certain property and State warrants belonging to the University fund, and to credit the same on this loan, and also authorized the sale of University lands for internal improvement warrants, which were to be paid into the State treasury, and credited in like manner. The effect of these provisions have been materially to aid in relieving the fund from its embarrassments. The amount received by the State, under these provisions, and credited to the University fund, is $56,774 14, leaving due to the State from that fund, for principle, $43.225 86. The amount received on this fund during the past fiscal year, for interest on account of lands sold, and on loans, was $9,724 74. Deducting from this sum the interest due the State on the loan before mentioned, above the interest allowed on warrants paid in, the available

income for the past year is found to be $6,138 39, while in 1843, it was but little over $1,100. The embarrassment of the fund has occasioned a withdrawal of pecuniary aid from most of the branches of the University. Six of these branches have been continued in operation, three of which are supported entirely by the avails of private tuition; to each of the others, the sum of $200 has been allowed during the year. The number of students in these branches, and in the preparatory department of the University, is 396. It is to be hoped that returning prosperity may again enable the Regents to afford them such aid as necessity and good policy shall demand.

REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT.

The Superintendent embraces in his report the following subjects: the duty of States in relation to education; the condition of the public schools, visitation of schools, libraries, school houses, the condition of the University and its branches; the system of public schools, proposed modifications of the school law, teachers' associations, female influence, and other subjects of interest and practical impor

tance.

His appreciation of the important duty devolved upon the State, in the work of education, is manifested in the following extract from

his report:

The education of children in a manner suitable to their station and calling is generally conceived a branch of parental duty of very great importance to the welfare of the State. Education, (as here used,) implies every preparation that is made in youth for after life. This parental duty is strongly and persuasively inculcated by writers on national law. Says Kent, "a parent who sends his son into the world uneducated, and without skill in any art or science, does a great injury to mankind, as well as to his own family, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and bequeaths to it a nuisance." Paley says, "to send an uneducated child into the world, is a public injury, and little better than to turn a mad dog or a wild beast into the streets." Solon, the great Athenian lawgiver, was so deeply impressed with this obligation, that he even excused the children of Athens from maintaining their parents if they had neglected to train them to some art or profession.

Enlightened and liberal minded individuals of every age and nation have regarded it the duty of State to provide for the education of the children of the poor. Distinguished exertions have been made in several parts of modern Europe, for the introduction of elementary instruction accessible to the young of all classes. This has been the case particularly in Denmark, Prussia, and some parts of Germany and Switzerland. In this branch of political economy, Scotland attained to early and very honorable pre-eminence. More than two centuries ago, the Scottish parliament adopted measures for settling and supporting a common school in each parish at the expense of the

landed proprietors. And what has been the result? The Scotch are, as a nation, better instructed, and more moral and religious in their habits, than any other people in Europe. * *

**

Great pains have been taken, and munificent provision has been made, in this country, to diffuse the means of knowledge, and to ren der elementary instruction accessible to all. The first legal provision for sustaining free public schools was in 1647, and Massachusetts has the honor of taking the lead in this country, in this great and wise policy. In the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut, early provision was made for the establishment and maintainance of common schools, which were placed upon a permanent foundation a century before the Revolution. The State of Connecticut has, by its constitution, declared the school fund to be perpetual and inviolate. Ordinary education is so far enforced, (and indeed was long prior to the Revolution,) that if parents will not teach their children the elements of knowledge, by causing them to read the English tongue well, and to know the laws against capital offences, the select men of the town are enjoined to take their children from such parents, and bind them out to proper masters, where they will be educated to some useful employment, and be taught to read and write, and the rules of arithmetic necessary to transact ordinary business. This regulation, said the late chief justice Reeve, has produced very astonishing effects, and to it is to be attributed the knowledge of reading and writing so universal among the people of that State. During the twenty-seven years in which that distinguished lawyer was in extensive practice, he informs us he never found but one person in Connecticut who could not read and write.

The total number of scholars that had attended common schools during the year was 75,770. The number that had not attended school, 20,753. The Superintendent says:

There is one entire county from which no returns have been received. There are, also, in the twenty-nine counties from which reports have been received, eighteen entire towns that have made no report. There are, in addition to these, in the three hundred and ninety.nine towns from which reports have been received, 588 districts from which reports have not been received. This is, indeed, alarming. But what adds to the darkness of the picture, there are in the 2,095 districts from which reports have been received, 4,578 children between the ages of four and eighteen years, who have not attended any school during the year, and who cannot read, write and cipher. This is by no means a favorable omen But are there no schools in those townships and districts from which no reports have been received? In many cases there are. They are not, however, common schools. They are not entitled to participate in the avails of the school fund. They are private schools, or what are ordinarily denominated select schools.

The average length of time scholars between the ages of four and eighteen years have attended school, was a fraction less than four