USA > Michigan > Saginaw County > The county of Saginaw, Michigan : topography, history, art folio > Part 9
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At the election held in October, 1835, the constitution was ratified. Steven T. Mason was elected governor, and happi- ly for the educational interests of the new state, General Crary was elected our first representative to congress. On his way to Washington General Crary had an interview with Governor Mason and suggested that John D. Pierce be appointed to the newly created office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. The governor was not acquainted with Mr. Pierce but thought so well of General Crary's sugges- tion that he expressed a wish to meet him. Mr. Pierce accordingly went to Detroit, and after discussing the matter at some length, accepted the position on July 26, 1836. It was a fortunate appointment. Mr. Pierce was an enthusiast in his work, but his enthusiasm was tempered by practical sense, and the level headedness so essential to permanent and far-reach- ing success. In the meantime General Crary in congress was wrestling with the problem that was giving the new superin- tendent and himself so much anxiety, viz .: How should the sixteenth section of each township, reserved for school pur- poses, be given in trust to the state and not to the individual townships ? How the uniform, policy of congress could be changed was the real problem.
But it was accomplished in. this wise. ... General Crary acted with the committee whose duty, it was, to draft. the ordinance admitting Michigan as, a state. . The work was assigned by the committee to him, and in drafting the ordi- nance he so worded it that these school lands were really conveyed to the state, and it passed. without question. The change in the form of conveyance of these sections, seemed not to have been noticed. Had. it, been, there is no doubt but what the common form would have been substitut- ed and the lands given to the townships. No deception was practised. The ordinance spoke for itself, yet its effects seems not to have been perceived. The change, however, was all important to us as a state. We had received a foun- dation on which to rear a superstructure and materials with which to build.
THE PLAN .- At the time. superintendent Pierce was appointed, the legislature passed an act, requiring him to pre-
pare and submit a plan for the organization and support of primary schools, a plan for a university with branches, and also a plan for the disposition of the school land of which the state had been made trustee.
This report was to be ready for submission to the legisla- ture which was to be convened on the first Monday in Janu- ary, 1837. On receiving his commission, Supt. Pierce made a two months visit east to confer with such men as President Humphrey of Amherst, President Day of Yale, William L. Marcy, Governor of New York, Edward Everett, Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Dix and others of like character, in regard to the organization, management and support of schools. On his return he drew up a report in which the three specified plans required by the legislature were drawn out in detail. This report, with some slight modifications, was adopted and is the germ from which the present educational system of the state has been evolved. The report and the work subsequently performed in carrying out its provisions, justly entitles John D. Pierce to the honor of being the foun- der of the Michigan free school system. Never was a duty more faithfully and conscientiously performed than was his. His first report shows that he had fully grasped the difficul- ties of the situation and the magnitude of the problem to be solved. The constitution of 1835 required the legislature to provide for a system of common schools to be maintained at least three months in every year in each school district. It made no requirment however, that these schools should be free. All deficiences in the current expenses of the common school fund was raised by a tax upon parents and guardians of the children that attended school. The proportion of this tax, payable by any patron of the school, was determined by the number of days of attendance of the children sent by him. This was the "rate bill," and the law provided for the collec- tion of this tax by severe measures, including distress and sale of property. For many year (as late as 1869) the rate bill was a serious obstacle in the way of progress of the schools. No system of common or public schools can flour- ish under such a regime, for poor men could not afford to send their children to school, and sordid and avaricious men would not send their children, and thus attendance was small and the schools could not be kept up. The constitution of 1850 recognized the evils of this method in the conduct of the schools and required the legislature to provide free schools at a date not later than 1855, but for reasons now difficult to understand, the rate bill law was not repealed and the com- mon schools made truly free schools until 1869. It is worthy of note that from first to last of Father Pierce's long and use- ful career he never failed to urge upon the people that the schools must be free in order to accomplish their highest and best work. In his first report he said: "Let free schools be established and maintained in perpetuity, and there can be no such thing as a permanent aristocracy in our land, for the monopoly of wealth is powerless where mind is allowed freely to come in contact with mind. It is by erecting a barrier be- tween the rich and the poor, which can be done only by allowing a monopoly to the rich, a monopoly of learning as well as of wealth, that such an aristocracy can be established. The operation of the free school system has a powerful ten- dency to prevent the erection of the barrier."
In the mind of this far-seeing educator universal education ought to be the objective point of all educational endeavor. To him universities and higher schools had their justification not only in their direct and immediate advantages, but also, and more emphatically, because elementary education must wither and perish without them. Mr. Pierce's term of ser- vice as Superintendent of Public Instruction covered a period of five years, until April, 1841. Deeply impressed with the responsibility of the position assigned to him, he laid hold of the work vigorously and with far-seeing wisdom and with the enthusiasm born of his love for his fellowmen and his confidence in the value of universal education.
The legislature placed upon his ample and sufficient shoulders the greatest burden of that early day, and, confident in his wisdom, the state has since followed with but little deviation the plan which he marked out. Ought not the children of Saginaw County to know of and remember him ?
SAGINAW COUNTY.
The act organizing Saginaw County was approved Jan- uary. 28, 1835, to take effect and be in force from and after the second Monday of February of that year. Between the date of the passage of the act and the time when it should be
in force, all the male inhabitants of the county of suitable age, gathered at Saginaw (now Saginaw, W. S.) and voted by ballot for the persons whom they would recommend to the governor to be appointed to fill the several county offices. The old territorial law required that some learned person should be appointed in each county to the office of judge of probate.
At that time Albert Miller was teaching in Saginaw the only school that had ever been taught in the county. In order to fulfill the requirements of the law he was recom- mended for appointment to the office, for, "Who could be a learned person if the school teacher was not?" So the first school teacher in Saginaw County became also the county's first judge of probate. His school was made up of about twenty pupils, part of whom were half-breeds. A dingy little apartment made of hewn logs served for a school room. This room was a portion of the old barracks which occupied the present site of the building at the southwest corner of Court and Hamilton streets, Saginaw, W. S.
From this nucleus, and in harmony with the comprehen- sive system of the state as planned by father Pierce, have grown the schools within the county as fast as the increase of population made school advantages necessary. These early schools of course, were very rude and the instruction exceed- ingly elementary. A large portion of the pioneers were Yankees and where the Yankee goes he takes his schools with him. The early settlers were of very limited means financially, and their children were often poorly and uncom- fortably clad, but their circumstances were not sufficient in their minds to justify a neglect of school privileges. Later on a large number of Germans came into Saginaw Valley and settled within the present limits of the county, and they, also, were fast friends and loyal supporters of a school system, the plan of which had, as we have seen, been largely influ- enced by the school of their own country.
The financial limitations of the pioneers could not but be shown in their schools. The school house was built of logs, the crevices between which were filled by split sticks and mud. Within, the furniture was primitive and simple in the extreme. On the sides and at one end of the room desks were made against the wall by boring holes into the logs and driving in pegs on which boards were fastened. In front of these desks were benches, made by splitting a log in halves and inserting legs under the convex side. Thus the pupils, while studying, sat with their backs to the teacher, and when the class was called they simply lifted their feet over the benches and faced the teacher. They were then ready to recite.
The course of study consisted mainly of the three R's, "readin, ritin and rithmetic." Spelling in many schools had an important place and geography and grammar were advanced studies. The modern appliances for teaching were unknown. The school that had a chair for the teacher, and a wooden bucket to hold water, with a cup from which the pupils could drink, was considered well equipped.
Each child provided whatever text book was convenient, and it was not unusual to find in the same school half a dozen different readers and as many arithmetics. There was little or no mental arithmetic in use and the student was put imme- diately. to ciphering. If he mastered multiplication the first year he did well, and before he finished his book he often had occasion to repeat the familiar "saw" of that day.
"Multiplication is a vexation, subtraction is as bad; The rule of three it puzzles me, and fractions make me mad."
No one expected to do more than conquer fractions and the rule of three. Neither gold or steel. pens were in use and the writing was done with the quill. Mending pens made the writing hour a busy time for the teacher. Writing paper came unruled and no pupil's outfit was really complete without a rule and plummet, which latter consisted of a piece of lead in the shape of a narrow and much elongated wedge, to be used in ruling the paper. Lead pencils were so little used as to be unknown to the pupils .;
Books that the present generation of children run across in the attics of the old home, when they go there to play on rainy days, were "standard" then. Dabol or Adam's arith- metic, Woodbridge, Olney or Mitchel's geography, Porter's or McGuffy's readers, Webster's or Townsend's spellers, were principally in use, while Kirkham, Smith and Murry were authorities in Grammar.
The teacher's wages were raised by the rate bill, and the
STOCK FARM OF E. G. RUST, SAGINAW TOWNSHIP.
RESIDENCE OF C. H. WATERS, SAGINAW TOWNSHIP.
RESIDENCE AND POULTRY FARM OF HERBERT W. SAVAGE, SAGINAW TOWNSHIP.
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inducements held out to enter the profession of teaching, included the privilege of "boarding around" and a salary ranging all the way from four or five dollars per month in summer, up to the extravagant price of fourteen dollars per month for a winter term.
The teacher was expected to take care of the school house as well as to instruct and manage the' school. It was the duty of the patrons of the school to furnish each his quota of wood for the fire place or the square box stove. This wood was frequently delivered in sled lengths and sometimes of a quality to condemn it for home use. It was the duty of the one who brought it to see that it was cut up into suitable pieces for the fire. As Prof. Sill has humorously said: "This duty was commonly met by the parent ordering the boys who attended school to do the work at recess and noon-time. This would undoubtedly seem an admirable and altogether sufficient provision by all who know the fondness of the aver- age boy for this kind of recreation, but it pains me to say that it occasionally failed. Then some pupil was sent to the nearest house to borrow an axe, and the master, after an oration to the scholars on the pleasures and benefits of man- ual exercise in general, and wood chopping in particular, which, so far as my memory serves me, was sadly insufficient in bringing out volunteers from among the bigger boys, with a sad heart and a far away look in his eye, repaired to the wood pile and made provision for his own and our immediate temporal comfort. Do not believe that our lack of readiness to volunteer as wood choppers arose altogether from laziness or from disinclination to do the master a kind act. We had a higher and nobler motive in the prospect of so edifying a sight as that of the teacher exploring the snow-drifts for the sticks, and then for the moment abdicating his unap- proachable greatness and actually chopping, and when we tired of this, the wild delights of letting pondemonium loose in a school house all unchecked by the eye and the rod of the master, was something to remember and rejoice in."
In the Michigan pioneer collection, W. R. McCormick has given as interesting a picture of some phases of early school life in Saginaw as can now be obtained from any source. "In the fall of 1837" he says: "my father sent me to Saginaw to school. I was to board with Major Mosley and do chores night and morning for my board. Major Mosley lived in one of the old block houses inside the fort. The fort was located where the Taylor House now stands and part of the block east of it. It was then the highest ground near the river, but is now graded down. The only schoolmates I then had who are now, (1874) living in the Saginaw Valley, were Michael Bailey of Bay City and Walter Cronk of Flint. The school house stood near where the jail now stands. I forget the first teachers name. He had to quit as the boys were too hard cases and ran the school to suit themselves. Thomas Simpson, now of California, was the ring leader. Our next teacher was Horace L. Beach. Mr. Beach was a kind heart- ed man and an excellent teacher. He had a lot of hard boys to contend with, but he was equal to the emergency and soon brought order out of chaos. Walter Cronk was living with his uncle, Judge Davenport, and going to school. One day he and I fell out about something while in school, and he said he would whip me when school let out for noon. So while going out the door he gave me a kick which pitched me headlong off the icy steps. This got my "Scotch" up, and at it we went. Walter was more than a match for me, but acci- dentally I got my hand in his neckerchief and before he was aware of it I blackened both of his eyes. He got me down and was paying me back with interest when the master came out and marched us both into the school house. He told us then to go home and he would settle with us after dinner; but Walter's eyes looked so bad he was ashamed to go home for dinner, and he stayed at school.
At this time, south of where the court house now is, and a little west of Michigan Ave., there was a thicket of blue beeches. I took a hasty dinner and hurried back to school, where I found Walter, and we made up friends, in the mean- time glancing out of the back window looking for the master, we saw him coming out of the blue beech thicket with five good sized blue beeches over his shoulder. The boys all shouted that we would "catch it." The information was entire- ly unneeded as we had found out before what kind of a man we had to deal with. The master came in, sat down, and very cooly commenced trimming his blue beeches, we knew our hour had come. He called school and said: "Boys, step for-
ward, I want to settle this little affair." He wanted to know what we had to say why we should not be punished. I said I did not think I ought to be punished for I did not begin the fight, and as for Walter, judging by the looks of his eyes, he had been punished enough already. "Well" said the master, "I have a proposition to make, you see these whips and you see those six cords of maple wood at the door, you can cut that wood at recess and noon time, or settle things now." I did not like the idea of settling things now, so I said I would cut the wood. Walter partly concluded he would "settle things now," but on rememberance of past experience he concluded to help saw wood. At recess that afternoon we commenced the job on the six cords of wood, I sawing and Walter splitting, while the boys all stood around laughing at us. My father had sent an Indian down the day before to tell me to come home and help with the spring work. So that night I got Thomas Simpson to bring my books out of school, and the next morning I started for home with the Indian. Some two months afterwards I came down to Sagi- naw. At noon time I thought I would step over to the school house and see the boys. There was Walter sawing wood. He said he had "jumped the job" three times and everytime he had got a whipping, finally he had concluded to finish it I up. Not long ago I was talking with a friend in the city of Flint, and he said, "Have you seen Walter Cronk ?" replied, "No, not in over twenty-five years." "There he is now," said he "coming up the street, see if he will know you." When he came up, my friend said, " Walter, do you know this man?" He looked at me a moment and said, "Yes, he made me saw six cords- of wood about thirty years ago, and I got three whippings besides."
Mr. McCormick also tells us that it was the same winter the above incident occurred, that Mr. Beach offered to teach A the young people to sing if they would get up a class. class of twelve, six girls and six boys was accordingly formed.
The educational enthusiasm, which now finds vent in state and county institutes, teachers' and pupils' reading circles, child study, and kindred forms, was then expended almost entirely upon the spelling school, the singing school and the debating society. It is doubtful if one. can estimate their value at that early date too highly. They were the most important social institutions of the time. Merry loads of young people from one district would visit another and in the intercourse of the young people thus brought about, attachments were formed that still survive in many homes of the county.
For many years the schools of our county increased more in number than in efficiency. The wages paid offered little inducements for young men and women to educate them- selves for the profession of teaching. Young men used teaching as a stepping stone to law, medicine or the ministry. They taught the winter term, while instruction in summer was given over to the young women. School apparatus did not extend beyond the ill-assorted lot of books in the hands of the pupils, except in some cases in which a school might have a square yard of black-board, made up of matched lumber covered with black paint, and cubes or chunks of chalk, pur- chased in many instances by the pupils who used them, and erasers made by covering an oblong block of wood with a piece of sheep skin with the wool still on it. For thirty years after the state was admitted, the licensing of teachers was done by a township board. The reports of the superinten- dent of public instruction for this period, show that in many townships no examinations at all were held. Every one who applied for a license to teach received it. Uncultured teachers and unprogressive schools were the natural results of such a system. The township board was required by law to, elect one of its members " visitor" of schools, and it was his duty to visit each school in his township at least once a term and examine the work of the teacher by testing the pupils. But school supervision requires technical kuowledge as much as does the law, and the man who occasionally interest himself in educational affairs cannot do effective work supervising schools.
In 1867 a law providing for a county superintendent of schools went into effect and Rev. John S. Goodman was chosen to fill the office. He bent his energies to raising the standard of examinations. The result was a scarcity of teachers, and discontent on the part of the patrons. The work of raising the standard of teaching and increasing the efficiency of the country schools was slow and discourag-
ing. After six years of effort, or as late as 1873, Supt. Good- man made this report to the state: " Very few of our schools in the rural districts have any aids to instruction worthy of the name. A black-board, two feet by three in size and so glazed that it is hardly possible to make a legible mark there- on, is in many instances the only "aid to instruction" with which the school house is furnished. It is not in more than one-tenth of our district schools that you will find the whole of the following list : Chairs two, black-board (fit for use), chalk, outline maps, word chart or dictionary. Teachers in these schools do not generally have enlightened views on school organization and discipline, and not more than twenty per cent. of the teachers are seeking to become wiser by sub- scribing for educational periodicals or by reading along the line of their profession." Although gradual progress was being made under the county superintendent the office was unpopular througout the state and after eight years of trial it was abolished. In place of a county superintendent there was elected a superintendent for each township. This drift back to the township system was a total failure unless the experience derived from it be set against the loss to the schools in unity of plan and efficiency. A demand for im- provement in the rural schools led to the creation in 1881 of a county board of school examiners, to be composed of three members, whose duty it was to examine and license candidates. The secretary of this board was to visit the schools when occasion demanded. By the law of 1889 the secretary of the board was to give his whole time to the supervision, with the title of County Secretary of Schools. In 1891 the name of the officer was changed from County Secretary to Commissioner of Schools. The office is elective and was first held by M. T. Dodge. His successor, the present incumbent, is George Woolsey.
The reports of these gentlemen show that under the present system the rural schools are making gradual but steady progress. It is no longer true, as it was two decades ago, that not one in ten have proper school aids in the shape of black boards, dictionary, maps, globe, word charts, and etc. The old log school house has given away to brick and frame structures, as the accompanying table will show, uni- formity of text books, improved methods, a higher standard - of teaching ability, and a more professional spirit among teachers is doing, and will continue to do its work in placing on a more efficient basis the rural schools of our county. For more definite statistical information relating thereto, the reader is referred to the Miscellaneous School Statistics, taken from the last published report (1894,) of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and found at the close of this article.
When Mr. Goodman became County Superintendent in 1867, he found the village schools of the county in fairly ef- ficient condition. Steady improvement has marked their his- tory during the thirty years that have intervened. For many years the schools of Saginaw, East, and Saginaw, West Side, have ranked among the best in the State, and diplomas from the high schools on either side are accepted by the State Uni- versity for all courses. Graded courses have also been adopted and are definitely followed in the following schools through- out the county: Chesaning, Carrolton Township, 1 and 2, St. Charles, Zilwaukee Township, I and 2, Frankenmuth, Buena Vista, Merrill, Freeland, Bridgeport, Kochville Town- ship, 6, Crow Island and Oakley.
All the schools, whether graded or ungraded, receive the money for their support from these sources:
I. From the interest on the primary school fund.
2. From a one mill tax.
3. From school district taxes.
I. The origin of the primary school fund has been fully described in the first part of this article; its annual amount is about $1.50 per capita for all children of school age in the county. This fund is apportioned by the Superintendent of Public Instruction among the townships, and by the township clerks among the districts.
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