In the matter of salaries, Michigan is neither at the head nor the foot. The average salary paid to women in the public schools is $31.18 per month. Nevada pays $96, Maine, $15. Many of the district school teachers are paid far below the average; there are those who teach for two dollars and a half a week and “board around." What is likely to be the quality of services secured at that price I leave you to judge. In many districts the custom still obtains of letting the school to the lowest bidder. The connection between such policy and the results of the county examinations as given above can be readily seen.

Between the district school and the university come the graded and high schools.

In 1874 the citizens of Kalamazoo brought a case before the circuit court in order to test the right of a school board to establish and maintain a high school as a part of the public school system of the state. The court ruled that though there was nothing in the school law expressly directing the establishment of such schools, there was nothing, on the other hand, forbidding it. This decision has been regarded as final, not only for the state of Michigan but for other states in which the school law is so worded as to leave any doubt on this point.

There is an arrangement by which high schools in Michigan desiring recognition from the university are visited and examined by a committee of the faculty, and if approved, have their graduates admitted to the university without further examination. This seems to supply the last link needed to connect the lowest and the highest departments of our school system.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

The University of Michigan was established by legislative act, March 18, 1837, and celebrated its semi-centennial in July, 1887. It has been fitly called "the crown of Michigan's school system." The university comprises, in addition to the literary department, the professional departments of law, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and pedagogics. The reputation of the school is national. It numbered in 1888, 1677 students (among them representatives from almost every state in the Union and many from foreign lands), and ninety-three professors and instructors. The university doors were first opened to women in 1870.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.

A state that would have its educational system keep pace with the times must provide some means for the professional training of its teachers. Accordingly, the legislature of 1849 passed an act providing for the establishment of a state normal school. Ypsilanti was selected as a suitable place for its location, and the school was opened in 1852. The object of the school is to give professional training and practice in teaching. Opportunities for practice are afforded by a model school connected with the institution. The Normal School has an attendance of over nine hundred students. It sends out a graduating class of about one hundred annually, and yet fails to meet the demand for trained teachers.

STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Michigan is largely an agricultural state. To meet the wants of a numerous class, the Agricultural College was established, by act of the legislature, and was opened in 1857 at Lansing. The objects which this institution is designed to accomplish are worthy of notice.

1. To impart a knowledge of science, particularly those sciences which relate to agriculture and kindred arts, such as chemistry, botany, zoölogy, and animal physiology. Within a few years veterinary surgery has become an important branch of study.

2. To afford to students the benefits of daily manual labor. It is held that four years of study without labor during the time when habits and tastes are forming, will almost inevitably produce disinclination, if not inabilty to perform the work and duties of the farm.

3. To prosecute experiments for the promotion of agriculture and horticulture.

4. To afford the means of a general education to the farming class.

The course includes instruction in surveying, laying out of grounds, building, stock-breeding, agricultural chemistry, horticulture, etc. The school is in session during the entire summer, the long vacation being in the winter.

MICHIGAN MINING SCHOOL.

Michigan is not only an agricultural but a mining state as well.

The wheat fields and fruit farms of the southern peninsula are offset by the copper mines of the Lake Superior region. A wise system of schools could not ignore this source of wealth or fail to provide for its scientific development.

The Michigan Mining School, established in 1885, is located at Houghton in the upper peninsula. The course of instruction is such as to "conduce to the end of enabling the students of said institution to obtain a full knowledge of the science, art, and practice of mining, and the application of machinery thereto," and is largely of a practical as well as of a scientific nature. The school began its first session in September, 1886. It has at present five instructors and thirty-five students.

INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.

Thus does Michigan provide instruction for all her children, who are able to receive it. But through the length and breadth of the land there are dumb lips pleading for that which alone can bring them into communion with their fellows; there are sightless eyes striving to pierce the veil which darkens their lives. A true mother will not be neglectful of her helpless children, and Michigan is no step-mother.

The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Flint provides education for this unfortunate class, and gives them an apprenticeship in certain trades with a view to making them self-supporting upon leaving the school. The trades taught are cabinet-making, shoe-making, willow work, printing, and, for the girls, sewing and knitting.

SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND.

The School for the Blind, at Lansing, is similar in scope and design to the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. It proposes to give pupils the benefit of an education, and to fit them for becoming self-sustaining. Much attention is paid to music, both vocal and instrumental. Aside from the enjoyment which music affords, it becomes to many a source of self-support. As organists in churches, as teachers, and as piano-tuners many of the blind earn a competent livelihood. Every pupil has the privilege of studying music. After a thorough trial, the lessons are discontinued if a correct taste is not developed. The trade of broommaking is at present the only one taught in the school. All the boys are required to work a part of each day unless excused.

STATE REFORM SCHOOLS.

Early in the history of the state it became apparent that some provision must be made for youthful criminals. To send To send young boys convicted of some petty theft or misdemeanor to the state prison, to be the companions of hardened men, was to confirm them in a life of crime. To take them from their evil associations and place them in an institution where they would be obliged to attend school and do a certain amount of work, where they were. taught obedience to law and order, and trained in habits of industry was, in many cases, to save them. Such are the objects of the State Reform School at Lansing. A similar school for girls was a few years ago established at Adrian, and many a wretched girl has been kept from a life of shame by having thus forcibly put into her hands the means of honest self-support.

STATE SCHOOL FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN.

In 1870 a commission appointed by the governor for this purpose, visited many of the poor-houses of the state and found a large number of children in them indiscriminately associated with idiots, maniacs, prostitutes, and vagrants. Their report recommended that such children under sixteen should be placed in a state school. The State School for Dependent Children at Coldwater was the outcome of their work.

This is not a reformatory institution, as many suppose, but is a home and school for those who have been, or would otherwise be, inmates of poor-houses, for those who have been deserted by their parents or whose parents have been convicted of crime, and for orphans.

Here they are kept, taught the common English branches, and, as far as their age will permit, how to work; the boys to do gardening, farming, making shoes and clothing, the girls to do housework and sewing. As soon as possible homes are provided for them by agents in each county appointed by the governor. Children are received between the ages of four and sixteen. Cottages having a capacity of about thirty each are provided, and each building is in charge of a cottage-manager.

It is a noble charity and, strange to say, is the first of the kind in the world.

This, in brief, is the school system of Michigan. In the words

of ex-Superintendent Nelson, "To assert that our schools have the singular merit of being the best in the world, is too flagrant selfconviction, either of disingenuousness or of ignorance. Happily for the other states of the Union, happily, also, for our own benevolent wishes for our countrymen and for mankind, we have no legitimate reasons for making any such claim. It is enough to know that our common schools and schools of higher learning have taken rank with the best in the world: that, for example, our great university has a reputation and influence far out-reaching the most casual and imperfect knowledge that the state of Michigan as much as exists. Hence we have a right to feel that our lines have fallen in pleasant places, that our lot is cast in an enlightened age and in a progressive and prosperous commonwealth.

FOR convincing reasons, not now necessary to state, the sciences

have been brought into our school curriculums, and, in spite of the foolish and unsatisfactory ways in which they have often been presented, have come to stay. Let us see, then, how they may best fulfill their truer end in education.

We notice, first, the two-fold division of science, into Natural History and Physical Science, or the Sciences of Matter and of Force, a real distinction, though their interpenetation is everywhere seen and constantly made use of in teaching.

A plan for rudimentary instruction in science, for the lower schools, will train the child's power of observation through material things, parts of the human body, plants, minerals, and the phenomena they exhibit. A plan for scientific instruction in College or Technical Institute, investigates the forces which these phenomena involve. It may also follow out some specialty, — electricity, astronomy, physiology, or even some division of these, as elec

1 Copyright, 1889, by Eastern Educational Bureau.