Two Men from Marshall Created State’s School System
Michigan, under the provisions of the
Ordinance of 1787, became a territory (splitting off from Indiana) upon
reaching a certain population level. That occurred in 1805.
The next step, statehood, would come when
another, level of growth (60,000 free inhabitants) was reached. In the early
1830s, the territorial government and other leading citizens, aware that
Michigan would soon become eligible due to the surge of new settlers that were
arriving, set the mechanism in motion for joining the union.
Interestingly, a vote taken in 1832 on whether
a state government should be formed passed by only a small margin.
One of the main orders of business, after
Congress had given permission for a state government to be formed in January of
1835, was calling a convention for the purpose of creating a state
constitution. And election of delegates was held on April 4, with the
convention set to meet in Detroit in May.
Among
the delegates was General Isaac E. Crary of Marshall. He, in turn, was
appointed to chair a committee to draft an article on education.
In his book Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State (published in 1965)
Willis Frederick Dunbar wrote that one of the men Crary knew, and apparently
discussed the matter with, was his fellow townsman John D. Pierce.
Crary, noted Dunbar, hailed from
Connecticut and “had achieved an excellent reputation in his home state before
he came to settle in Marshall and practice law in the early 1830s,” adding that
“his title ‘general’ derived from his appointment to that office in the
territorial militia.”
Pierce, who was born in New Hampshire and
educated in Brown University and then Princeton Theological Seminary, was an
ordained minister of the Congregational Church. He moved to Michigan for the purpose
of being a missionary, settling in Marshall in 1831.
At the time of the constitutional
convention, Sarah Austin’s English translation of Victor Cousin’s Report on the State of Public Instruction in
Prussia had gained widespread attention and “much impressed” the two men
from Marshall.
The Prussian model, as it came to be known,
outlined an overarching system of education that included primary schools,
secondary schools, and a university. Students would be divided by age into
specific grades, starting at grade one when they were young and progressing up
the ladder.
In addition, this system (according to the
model) would be administered by the state and supported with tax dollars. To
that end, the committee recommended that the office of Superintendent of Public
Education be created. Aware that the federal government would give the state
the proceeds of section 16 in each township as a means of funding a school
system, the proposed constitutional article (wrote Dunbar) “included provisions
designed to safeguard the lands the federal government would grant the state
for education and to prevent the use of the proceeds for other purposes.”
The article stated that schools “were to be
conducted for at least three months out of the year.” While a state university
was mentioned, the particulars of establishing one and how it would be governed
was left to the legislature.
The committee’s draft was adopted by the
convention with little debate, becoming Article X in the Constitution of 1835.
The
convention, Dunbar’s history book noted, also accepted Crary’s suggestion that Congress
be petitioned with a request that the money earned from the sale of those
section sixteen parcels be given to the state rather than to each township. The
money would be collected in a fund and distributed to the schools.
The proposed constitution had to be put
before the voters of the territory for approval. That ratification occurred in
October. General Crary, as it so happened, was elected as Michigan’s first
member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
With Crary heading to his new post, he
recommended that John Pierce be named as the new superintendent of public
education. Gov. Stevens T. Mason accepted the recommendation and made the
appointment in 1836.
At that time, though, Michigan was in limbo
between a territorial government and its newly-elected state government. This
was due to the dispute with Ohio over who owned a strip of land along their
mutual border that included the settlement of Toledo and, more importantly, the
mouth of the Maumee River on Lake Erie.
President Andrew Jackson, not pleased with
Michigan’s position and its attempt to take control of the area, delayed
signing the bill on statehood. As it turned out, Ohio, having more clout in the
nation’s capital, got the land. Michigan, as a consolation prize, had the Upper
Peninsula included within its new boundary.
Thus it was not until April 22, 1837, that
Michigan became a member of the federal union even though a state government
had been established and had begun conducting some business in late 1835.
WHILE CRARY AND HIS COMMITTEE WERE THE
ARCHITECTS of what would become Michigan’s public school system, it was
Pierce—with approval from the legislature over the next six years, who began
the construction.
The new supervisor started off, Dunbar wrote,
by traveling “to the East to confer with leaders in the field of education and
attend a national education meeting in Massachusetts.” He also attended an annual
meeting of the College of Professional Teachers held in Ohio and “carried on
extensive correspondence with education leaders throughout the nation.”
“He was determined to equip himself with
knowledge of the best educational practices of the day and to become acquainted
with the experience of other states before drawing up his plans for Michigan,”
explained Dunbar.
As a result, he had two major legislative
proposals on the agenda when the legislature officially convened in January of
1837. Only a few weeks later, Gov. Mason had signed them into law.
The
organization of primary schools was first and foremost. It called for
establishing school districts in each township, with each district having a
moderator, a director, and an assessor, along with three school inspectors per
township. Under the law, it was up to the township residents to establish a
school, not the state superintendent.
Money from the Primary School Fund was to be
allocated to the school districts based on their enrollment of students between
the ages of five and 17. In addition, school districts could seek to levy
taxes, with perks given for those that did so. A regular report from each
district to the state superintendent was required.
Soon after, due to an economic downturn that
occurred, the state would limit the amount of tax millage that could be levied
but (eventually) would also allow for each district to have an elected school
board to administer it. However, oversight existed at both the county and state
levels. What evolved was that local schools had to meet certain standards and
students had to pass a test at eighth grade in order to graduate.
Interestingly, while Pierce recommended a
system of tax-supported public schools which primary school-aged students could
attend for free, the legislature did not put that into the law. “…not until
1869 did the legislature require all public primary schools to be free,
although some were free prior to that date.” Prior to that tuition fees helped
fund many districts along with property tax revenues and state money.
The new superintendent also called for
teachers to have “a regular course of training,” that teachers be paid a
minimum wage in order for a district to be eligible for state funding, and that
student attendance be compulsory. It took a number of years before these ideas—training,
a decent wage, and mandatory attendance--were embraced by governmental
officials.
Pierce’s second proposal that was put into law
was the creation of the University of Michigan. But the legislation entailed
much more than that. In additional to establishing a college in Ann Arbor, the
law allowed the appointed university board to create branches in other
communities that would serve as an intermediate level of study after primary
school. Under his plan, a branch would offer a female department,
agriculture-mechanical studies, teacher training, and studies for young men
planning to attend the university.
This idea
of branches saw some initial interest. The board ended up authorizing 16
branches, but only nine were opened. The poor economy made funding both them
and the university problematic.
Also, participation was low. “The total
attendance in all the branches never exceeded 315 for any one year,” Dubar
noted. By 1846 financial support from the university ended. A few of these
schools continued, supported by their local communities, but when all was said
and done, the idea had failed.
However, the underlying purpose was
fulfilled with the eventual establishment of high schools as the main means of
providing secondary education, vocational training institutes, women attending
high schools and colleges, and the formation of the Michigan Normal College and
the Michigan Agricultural College.
In the rural areas, where most state residents
resided when the 1837 laws were passed, the one-room country schools proved the
most efficient means of providing education for the young. One teacher handled
the duties. While the students were divided by age into each grade, from first thru
eighth grade, and had their appropriate level of studies, all of them sat in
the same room.
This set-up was not necessarily a problem.
Many people, later in life, claimed they learned a lot, and felt they were
better prepared for their next grade, due to listening to the lessons given to
the older students by the teacher.
These country schools, administered by their
individual school boards, were a staple in Michigan through the rest of the 19th
century and up to the mid-1900s. After World War II, for a variety of reasons,
the rural districts were compelled to consolidate into larger entities.
A different set-up emerged in the larger
towns and cities. As more and more people moved to the state and settled in these
communities, the legislature in the early 1840s allowed for the creation of
union school districts whereby smaller districts could merge together into a
combined entity. Detroit, for example, became a single district in 1842.
These union districts, by possessing a much
larger enrollment and more substantial financial resources, were able to build
larger schoolhouses where the grades could be separated and several teachers
employed. Even so, most students attended a neighborhood elementary school
located near their homes.
It was also in the cities where the first
high schools were established. However,
these secondary educational facilities served not only the students in their
town or district, but students from the surrounding rural districts.
The shared vision of Crary and Pierce would
evolve into public schools serving an ever-growing and more diverse population.
These schools were administered at the primary level by local boards and other
officials, and supported by public monies from both the districts and state.
The two men from Marshall also set into
motion the creation of a state university that would flower into additional
public-supported colleges in the coming decades as well as the means for
establishing secondary education that would (with some changes) result in the
establishment of our many community high schools.
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