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conditions. The gathering of large numbers of children upon the same grounds had not proved detrimental to morals, although it had imposed extra care and watchfulness upon teachers. Nearly all the union schools had been made free to resident pupils by the voluntary action of the voters in the districts. In a few cases tuition fees were charged for some of the advanced studies in the high school departments. For several successive years the State reports devoted considerable space to the discussion of the advantages offered by these schools and to reports as to their conditions and progress.

Reference has already been made to the summary of the advantages of graded schools made by Mr. Mayhew. To impress these more thoroughly upon the people, Mr. Gregory in his report for 1861, gave an extended recapitulation of the benefits to be expected from them. His main points were the following: "They economize the time of teachers; the teaching is better; pupils are more thoroughly instructed, and make more rapid progress; each class receives its due share of time and attention; all school arrangements can be better adapted to the age and capacities of different classes of pupils; a much larger number of pupils will be able to pursue advanced studies without increasing their stay in school; they afford special facilities for teaching the higher branches of study and thus serve as secondary schools; the high school grades stimulate pupils in the lower grades; they offer the advantages of higher education to all children without regard to parentage or wealth; they make it possible to have longer terms of school, better buildings and a better supply of apparatus, and other means of instruction; they secure a better class of teachers, and by

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IMPROVEMENT IN THE LAW

bringing more teachers together, furnish a stimulus for improvement on their part; they can be better and more easily governed; the animating and inspiring influence of large numbers in the same school is of great value; the character of the school boards will be improved by the larger interests involved in the school; the people generally will have a higher regard for education; thorough supervision of all the schools will be made pràcticable; and finally the graded school is the most economical and most efficient form of school yet discovered." The educational history of the State during nearly half a century enables one to decide whether the advantages claimed for graded schools have been realized.

The provisions of the school law relating to graded schools, were gradually modified and improved, as experience suggested. An act of 1859 authorized any single district, or any district formed by the union of two or more districts, containing more than two hundred children of school age, to elect a district board of six trustees, some years later made five. This board was authorized to grade the school, employ all necessary teachers, fix rates of tuition for non-resident scholars, establish a high school when directed to do so by vote of the district, and to make all necessary rules and regulations for the management of the school. Tuition could be charged in the high school to resident pupils, or the district could make the school free in all grades to residents, and raise by tax the funds needed for the support of the schools.

The main features of this law have remained without essential changes to the present time. The number of children necessary for the organization of a graded school

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was soon after changed from two to one hundred. By subsequent legislation the powers of the school board have been slightly modified and enlarged.

The growth of the union graded schools, by decades during the half century, has been as follows: In the year 1850 there were 7; 1860, 85;* 1870, 248;* 1880, 389; 1890, 513; `1900, 711.

The township school district is a natural outgrowth of the union district; it is simply the union of all the districts of a township, managed by a township school board, and supported by a township tax.

Prior to 1891 eight such districts had been organized by special acts of the Legislature. In that year a general law was enacted, allowing any township in the Upper Peninsula, to organize itself into a single district. In 1893 there were 67 township districts; in 1898, 115; in 1900, 119. It has been impossible up to this time to secure the passage of a general law for the establishment of township districts in the Lower Peninsula. It is, however, only a question of a little time, as the organization of "rural high schools," which have been provided for, can be effectually secured only by township action. At no distant day the benefits of the graded system will be extended to the people of the whole State. With this will come the era of good roads and the free transportation of pupils wherever such transportation is desirable. The day of the old-time, isolated, ungraded district school has nearly passed.

*Report of 1880, p. 334.

CHAPTER VII.

SECONDARY EDUCATION. THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

Under the Territorial government secondary education, including preparation for higher education, was to be provided through schools established and controlled by the University. The first constitution of the State, in effect, continued this method by providing for the establishment of branches of the University. Upon certain conditions the Regents of the University and the Superintendent of public instruction were authorized, by legislative enactment, to organize branches in the various counties. These schools were to serve a three-fold purpose, provide for local needs, fit students for the University, and prepare teachers for the primary schools. This last function will be touched upon in another connection.

Branches were established at Pontiac, Monroe, Niles, Tecumseh, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Romeo, and White Pigeon. The school at Ann Arbor was spoken of sometimes as a branch and sometimes as a preparatory department of the University. Institutions, sometimes called branches, were located at Mackinac, Jackson, Utica, Coldwater, and Ypsilanti, but no appropriations were made by the regents for the support of these. Departments for young ladies were connected with the branches at Monroe, Niles, Tecumseh, White Pigeon, Romeo, and Kalamazoo, but generally only English studies were taught in these departments. The

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branches had uncertain and intermittent lives, and after 1849 the regents made no appropriations for them.

It has been customary, in some quarters, to cast ridicule upon this scheme for establishing branches of the University as secondary and preparatory schools, and to regard it as one of the vagaries of an over-excited imagination. It requires no extraordinary powers of prevision to prophesy after the event. The plan soon proved to be impracticable at that time, and in the form proposed. It exists, however, at this time, in all its essential features, through the affiliation of the high schools with the University.

Superintendent Pierce and his immediate successors attached great importance to the branches, seemed indeed to consider these schools as absolutely necessary to the unity and efficiency of the public educational system of the State as a whole.

When it became evident that they could not be sustained from the University funds, nor from local contributions or local taxation, Mr. Pierce urged that, since one of their purposes was the preparation of teachers for the primary schools, it would be "just and right" that a portion of the income from the primary school fund should be appropriated for their support. He urged also that some part of the proceeds of the "Salt Spring" lands should be devoted to this object. Neither of these recommendations was considered favorably by the Legislature, and the branches were left to their fate. Some of them were transformed into private schools; others ceased to exist. The plan of providing public secondary education by means of branches of the University proved a failure, not because it was, in itself, chimerical, but because the educational resources and edu