Book Description

Excerpt from Historical Sketches of Education in Michigan In every department of life it is useful, at times, to review the past, in order that we may properly understand the present, and be better enabled to make intelligent advancement in the future. Believing that a retrospective view of the progress of education in the State of Michigan would be conducive to good, these sketches, which are largely a compilation from various reliable sources, have been prepared. It is a source of gratification to every friend of American institutions that changes of power in the political departments of the government bring with them no diminution of interest in relation to the instruction of the rising generation. Education is a subject of paramount importance with all, differences of opinion existing only as to the modes by which the widest blessings may he bestowed, and the most enduring results secured. It is a peculiar characteristic of the American people, and more especially of that portion by whom, for the most part, the states of the Northwest were settled, that they have ever contributed of their means, whether scanty or ample, for the benefit of education, with a liberality and zeal which deserve our gratitude, and which will forever deserve the gratitude of posterity. The early settlers of our common country were willing to stint themselves, and to submit to every hardship incident to their settlement on the shores of a new world, that by these means future generations of men might find no excuse for the encroachments of ignorance and vice and despotism, in their neglect to provide for the means of universal free education. It was the sagacity and forethought of such men, which, by an ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation, in 1785, laid the broad foundation of free education in the munificent appropriation of the one-thirty-sixth part of the public domain for the use of schools forever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.