slight amendments, to the present day. One of its provisions is that every sixteenth year the question of a revision shall be submitted to the people. It was so submitted in 1866, and decided in the af firmative; but when a revision was prepared by a convention elected for the purpose, the people rejected their work. In 1882 the question of revision was negatived by popular vote. Thus since 1850 no disposition has been manifested to tinker the constitution, but conservative ideas have steadily prevailed. The most important amendment was made in 1875, in the repeal of the provision forbidding licenses, which was adopted in order to make way for heavy taxation of the liquor traffic, after prohibitory legislation had been in existence for twenty years. Now and then complaints are made of the system which makes the judges elective, but these are based not so much upon experience as upon theory, and no considerable disposition has at any time been manifested among the people to change the system. Those who note carefully the results have not perceived that the people have shown less inclination to be independent of party or of improper influence in the choice of judges than have been executive officers when vested with the appointing power.

A brief paragraph will bring us to the time of the great civil war. Robert McClelland was elected governor for one year in 1851 and was reëlected for two years in 1852, but resigned to

REPUBLICAN ASCENDENCY.

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become a member of the cabinet of President Pierce. Andrew Parsons, the lieutenant-governor, was left to serve out the unexpired portion of his term. Up to this time, from 1841, the Democratic party had been in power in the State, but in 1854 the newly formed Republican party obtained the ascendency and maintained it unbroken for twentyeight years, electing Kinsley S. Brigham governor in 1854 and 1856, and Moses Wisner in 1858. Austin Blair was elected in 1860 and became the "war governor" of the State; a title which by his integrity and patriotic vigor he made one of lasting honor.

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CHAPTER XVI.

THE STATE PROVIDES FOR UNIVERSAL EDUCATION.

THE founders of a state soon pass away; but in their aims and purposes, and to some extent in their personal characteristics, they build themselves into the structure they create, and give to it a character and individuality of its own. Ages afterwards it may be found that the germinal thoughts which took root under their planting are still growing and expanding, and that the ideas with which they quickened the early polity are dominant in the life of the mature commonwealth, though possibly those who act upon and give effect to them may have lost the recollection of their origin.

If the general education of the people is important to the state, Michigan was fortunate in the persons to whom the destinies of the territory were committed in its early days. In their minds, as we find them expressed in the laws they adopted and the institutions they founded, two ideas appear to have been dominant from the earliest period. These were that the means of rudi

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mentary education should be placed within the reach of every child in the political society; and that the opportunity for thorough culture should be given as speedily and as completely as the circumstances of the people would permit. And these ideas were never lost sight of until full effect was given to them after the admission of the State to the Union.

The early schools in the territory were of course French, and connected with the church. Their main purpose was to give religious instruction, and they were attended to some extent by Indian children. But private schools in which English was taught were in existence from the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary war; poor affairs, and scarcely worth remembering now. When Father Richard came, he made an endeavor in the direction of better church schools, and with considerable success. In 1804 he established a school for girls, with four young ladies as teachers, and also a Latin school for young men. Both of these were broken up by the great fire of the next year, but schools of less ambitious character were established shortly afterwards, and Father Richard in 1808 reports six of such schools, three of which were taught by Indian teachers. The instruction in the schools for girls embraced sewing, spinning, knitting, and weaving, and to the Indian children this part of the instruction was probably the most valuable. Father Richard thought his schools

ought to receive public assistance, and he applied to the legislature for the grant of a lottery franchise; but though the evils of lotteries were not so well understood then as now, his application failed of effect, and his schools continued feeble and of low grade.

The future promised better things. Before the territory was detached from Indiana, it had become the settled policy of the United States to reserve from sale the sixteenth section of every surveyed township, and to set it apart for the use of the township for the support of common schools. It had also become customary to make some smaller donation of public lands for the endowment of a university, and one township of such lands had been appropriated to Michigan, in contemplation of its becoming a separate government. But for a long time these donations must of necessity be of little value: value must be given to them by the settlement and improvement of the country, and in the mean time they would constitute the promise of an endowment for education rather than the endowment itself. All early education, if any was given at the public cost, must therefore be provided for by direct taxation of the people.

In 1809, while as yet the population of the territory was under five thousand, an act was adopted which provided for the laying off into school districts of all the settled portions of the territory, and for an enumeration of the children between