shame to tax the poor man to pay a man $1,800, to teach the children to make x's and pot-hooks and gabble parley-vous." The work would go bravely on; and on election day, amid great excitement, a new school committee would be chosen, in favor of retrenchment and popular rights. In a single day the fruits of years of labor would be destroyed.

330. The Kalamazoo Decision

(Charles E. Stuart et al. vs. School District No. 1 of the Village of Kalamazoo, 30 Michigan, p. 69)

This is a famous decision, as settling the rights of a community to maintain a high school by taxation. The decision was of importance as a precedent in many other States. The School Board of Kalamazoo, Michigan, decided to open a high school and employ a superintendent of schools. A citizen, Charles E. Stuart, brought suit to prevent the collection of the tax levied therefor. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan, and the decision was written by Chief Justice Thomas M. Cooley. The decision was emphatic that the State had the right to establish a complete system of schools, including a nonteaching Superintendent, and was not limited to the so-called "common schools."

The bill in this case is filed to restrain the collection of such portion of the school taxes assessed against complainants for the year 1872, as have been voted for the support of the high school in that village, and for the payment of the salary of the superintendent. While, nominally, this is the end sought to be attained by the bill, the real purpose of the bill is wider and vastly more comprehensive than this brief statement would indicate, inasmuch as it seeks a judicial determination of the right of school authorities, in what are called union school districts of the state, to levy taxes upon the general public for the support of what in this state are known as high schools, and to make free by such taxation the instruction of children in other languages than the English.

The more general question which the record presents we shall endeavor to state in our own language, but so as to make it stand out distinctly as a naked question of law, disconnected from all considerations of policy or expediency, in which light alone we are at liberty to consider it. It is, as we understand it, that there is no authority in this state to make the high schools free by taxation levied on the people at large. The argument is that while there may be no constitutional provision expressly prohibiting such taxation, the general course of legislation in the state and the general understanding of the people

have been such as to require us to regard the instruction in the classics and in the living modern languages in these schools as in the nature not of practical and therefore necessary instruction for the benefit of the people at large, but rather as accomplishments for the few, to be sought after in the main by those best able to pay for them, and to be paid for by those who seek them, and not by general tax. And not only has this been the general state policy, but this higher learning of itself, when supplied by the state, is so far a matter of private concern to those who receive it that the courts ought to declare it incompetent to supply it wholly at the public expense. This is in substance, as we understand it, the position of the complainants in this suit.

When this doctrine was broached to us, we must confess to no little surprise that the legislation and policy of our state were appealed to against the right of the state to furnish a liberal education to the youth of the state in schools brought within the reach of all classes. We supposed it had always been understood in this state that education, not merely in the rudiments, but in an enlarged sense, was regarded as an important practical advantage to be supplied at their option to rich and poor alike, and not as something pertaining merely to culture and accomplishment to be brought as such within the reach of those whose accumulated wealth enabled them to pay for it. As this, however, is now so seriously disputed, it may be necessary, perhaps, to take a brief survey of the legislation and general course, not only of the state, but of the antecedent territory, on the subject.

Here follows a review of the educational history of the State, from the Ordinance of 1787 to the new state constitution of 1850, to show the intention to establish "a complete system of education." Of the constitution of 1850 the court says:

The instrument submitted by the convention to the people and adopted by them provided for the establishment of free schools in every school district for at least three months in each year, and for the university. By the aid of these we have every reason to believe the people expected a complete collegiate education might be obtained. . . . The inference seems irresistible that the people expected the tendency towards the establishment of high schools in the primary-school districts would continue until every locality capable of supporting one was supplied. And this inference is strengthened by the fact that a considerable number of our union schools date their establishment from the year 1850 and the two or three years following.

The final opinion of the court as to the legality of the high school is stated as follows:

If these facts do not demonstrate clearly and conclusively a general state policy, beginning in 1817 and continuing until after the adoption

of the present constitution, in the direction of free schools in which education, and at their option the elements of classical education, might be brought within the reach of all the children of the state, then, as it seems to us, nothing can demonstrate it. We might follow the subject further and show that the subsequent legislation has all concurred with this policy, but it would be a waste of time and labor. We content ourselves with the statement that neither in our state policy, in our constitution, or in our laws, do we find the primary-school districts restricted in the branches of knowledge which their officers may cause to be taught, or the grade of instruction that may be given, if their voters consent in regular form to bear the expense and raise the taxes for the purpose.

331. Program of Studies in the University of Michigan, 1843-44 (Joint Documents of the Legislature of Michigan, 1852, p. 388)

The following program of studies of the University of Michigan, for the academic year 1843-44, reveals the meager scope, from a modern point of view, of the leading western state university of that time. The institution at that date had a faculty of three professors, one tutor, one assistant in science, and one visiting lecturer, and there were fifty-three students in attendance. The following program of studies shows that this faculty then offered all told, in the entire four-year course, fifty term courses (of onethird of a year each), twenty-six of which were in Greek, Latin, and mathematics; nine in natural science; five in intellectual science; three in morals and religion; three in political science; and four in English. The program of studies for 1850, when the university had come to have 72 students, shows but slight change from that for 1843.

Each class was required to attend three recitations daily, with Bible Study on Monday mornings and Elocution on Saturday mornings as extras, making a 17-hour week. These extras are also found in the 1850 program. The instruction throughout was the same for all.

The program of studies offered is interesting both as showing the long continuance of the early conception of an English teaching college, and by way of illustrating the very remarkable transformation in American higher education which took place in the half-century between 1850 and 1900.

PROGRAM OF STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1843-44 (continued)

332. The Michigan System of Public Instruction

(Tappan, Henry P., "Report to the Regents of the University of Michigan, 1856"; in Report of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Michigan, 1855-56-57, pp. 155-84)

The report of President Tappan to his Board of Regents, from which the following extract is taken, describes the system of public instruction in Michigan, as it had then been developed and conceived, and shows the unity of the state school system from the primary school to the university.

An entire system of public education comprises three grades and can comprise but three grades: the primary, the intermediate, and the university. . . . The primary school comes first. . . . All human learning begins with the alphabet.

The second grade occupies the period of youth-of adolescence or growth. This is the period when the foundations of knowledge and character can be most amply and securely laid. . . .

But let it be remembered that the intermediate grade embraces only the apprenticeship of the scholar. . . . Hence the necessity of universities, as the highest form of educational institutions.

The highest institutions are necessary to supply the proper standard of education; to raise up instructors of the proper qualifications; to define the principles and methods of education. . . .

...

Nothing is more evident than that the three grades of education

the primary, the intermediate, the university are all alike necessary. The one cannot exist, in perfection, without the others; they imply one another....