John D. Pierce 
 
 A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN 
 THE NORTHWEST 
 
Class . 
 Book. 
 
 Ml 
 
 ,Hfrg 
 
 Copyright^' . 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
JU1 
 
JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 "ROM A P 
 
 AINTINQ IN THE LIBRARY OF OLIVET COLLEGE, 
 COURTESY OF THE COLLEGE 
 
JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 FOUNDER OF THE 
 
 MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN 
 THE NORTHWEST 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES O. HOYT and R. CLYDE FORD 
 
 in the State NORM; 
 YPSILANTI, MICH. 
 
 Professors in the State Normal College, 
 
 YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN 
 THE SCHARF TAG, LABEL & BOX CO. 
 
 1905 
 

 !« :o veil 
 
 aug i2 iyuo 
 
 4e<^ /*". '7*^ 
 
 ^ /I9AH 
 copv a. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905. BY 
 CHARLES O. HOYT and R. CLYDK FORD. 
 
"It is my pride to have been one to help lay the founda- 
 tions of our present school system, and I want no better 
 monument to my name than this.'' 
 
 -John D. Pierce 
 
TO 
 
 MRS. HARRIET REED-PIERCE 
 
 THE VENERABLE WIDOW OF 
 
 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 AND TO 
 
 MRS. MARY A. EMERSON 
 
 H IS DAUGHTER 
 
 THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The chief idea underlying the preparation of this volume 
 has been to present to the people of Michigan a true account of 
 the life and work of John D. Pierce, our first Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction. Almost seventy years have gone since he 
 entered upon his educational work, and more than twenty years 
 since his death, and as yet no adequate study of his career has 
 appeared. His memory is deserving of better treatment from 
 the generation of to-day, and if this book shall contribute in any 
 way to bring about even a tardy recognition of his services, its 
 purpose will have been accomplished. 
 
 It is only proper to say that this study is based almost 
 altogether upon original material which the writers have made 
 use of for the first time, and whatever value it may have depends 
 in no little measure on this fact. The task of collecting, sifting, 
 and editing the data has been a difficult one, yet one which has 
 fully compensated for the trouble, for in many of the papers and 
 documents yellowed by age there have been discernible the 
 motive forces in the life of a great man. 
 
 Falling as Mr. Pierce's labors in education did in the period 
 coincident with the beginnings of our statehood, it has been 
 thought desirable as an introduction to his life and work, to offer 
 some preliminary observations concerning our national and local 
 educational inheritances, as well as to sketch briefly the course 
 of Michigan history up to the close of the Territorial days. 
 What Mr. Pierce did to establish our school system marks an 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 epoch in the civilization and culture of the Northwest, and it has 
 seemed only proper to call attention to those forces which cul- 
 minated in his achievements, and the conditions in which they 
 were wrought. The discussion has, therefore, been divided into 
 two parts, — Part One, devoted to origins, and Part Two, given up 
 to Mr. Pierce and his labors. 
 
 In this connection the authors wish to acknowledge their 
 obligations to many people who have contributed facts and 
 material: First, to Mrs. M. A. Emerson, and Mrs. Harriet Reed 
 Pierce, of Waltham, Mass., without whose assistance the writing 
 of the volume would have been impossible; to Miss Jane Hos- 
 mer, of Concord, Mass., Miss Florence B. Graham, of Green- 
 ville, Mich., Mrs. Prink, widow of the late Isaac E. Crary, of 
 Marshall, Mich., Rev. John P. Sanderson, Lansing, Mich., and 
 to Dr. Daniel Putnam, of the State Normal College. We also 
 wish to express our indebtedness to the Hon. Delos Fall, of 
 Albion College, who has kindly written the introduction which 
 follows, and who did so much himself while superintendent of 
 public instruction to revive interest in the career of Mr. Pierce. 
 
 C. O. IIOYT. 
 
 R. C. Ford. 
 
 Ypsilanti, MICH., June 1, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i. 
 
 ir. 
 
 in. 
 
 IV. 
 
 
 Introduction 
 
 PART I.— ORIGINS 
 America's Educational Inhkritanck 
 Sketch of Early Michigan History ' ~~. 
 Culture Conditions in Territorial Days ^^ . 
 Two Direct Sources of tiik Michigan School 
 System 
 
 TART II.— JOHN D. PIERCE: FOUNDER OF 
 THE MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 21 
 31 
 
 47 
 
 V. 
 
 Early Ykaks in New England . 
 
 
 56 
 
 VI. 
 
 First Years in the Ministry 
 
 
 66 
 
 VII. 
 
 With Tiie Pioneers in Michigan 
 
 
 73 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction 
 
 
 79 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mr. Pierce's Educational Doctrine— The 
 
 In- 
 
 
 
 dividual and the State 
 
 
 88 
 
 X. 
 
 Tin', Meaning and Aim ok Education 
 
 
 96 
 
 XI. 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 XII. 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Journal of Education 
 
 
 124 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Mr. Pierce's Second Appearance in Public 
 
 LlFK 
 
 130 
 
 XV. 
 
 East Years 
 
 (In Part Personal Reminiscences by 
 Dr. Daniel Putnam.) 
 
 
 139 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Quotations from Mr. Pierce's Education 
 
 AL 
 
 
 
 Writings 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 153 
 
 
 
 
 157 
 
 XI 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 John D. Pierce (From a Painting in the Library of Olivet 
 
 College) Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mrs. Harriet Reed-Pierce at the Age of Ninety-Six 4 
 
 Coat of Arms of the Pierce Family .... 30 
 
 Diploma of John D. Pierce from Brown University 60 
 
 The Pierce Oak 80 
 
 Commission of John D. Pierce as Superintendent of 
 
 Public Instruction 86 
 
 John D. Pierce's Handwriting in Middle Life . 102 
 
 The Journal of Education 124 
 
 Grave of Gen. Isaac E. Crary 136 
 
 Grave of John D. Pierce at Marshall, Mich. . 146 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 One Easter Sunday the writer made a pilgrimage to the City 
 of Marshall, Mich., and visited the graves of two men, who by 
 their services to the state were more than ordinarily distin- 
 guished. One grave was that of the first Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction of Michigan, the one man to whom more than to any 
 other, the state is under lasting obligations. To him must be 
 given the credit of laying the foundations of a system of educa- 
 tion which, from the time of the adoption of the state constitu- 
 tion to the present, has challenged the admiration of all intel- 
 ligent students of education. The grave of John D. 
 Pierce is marked with a simple monument, upon which is 
 inscribed the date of birth and death, and the fact 
 that the shaft was erected by the pupils and teachers of the 
 schools of Michigan. Here, then, are the mortal remains of the 
 man who in the early days of our preparation for statehood, 
 when plans for the future were to be outlined, standards erected 
 and a general educational policy adopted, declared that he would 
 have as the great object of the common schools "to furnish 
 good instruction in all the elementary and common branches of 
 knowledge for all classes of the community, as good indeed for 
 the poorest boy in the state as the rich man can furnish his 
 children with all his wealth." 
 
 The second grave visited was that of General Isaac E. Crary, 
 a member of the first constitutional convention, and chairman of 
 the committee on education, who did more than any other mem- 
 ber of that body to give form to the educational system 
 of the state. He was the leader in a movement which de- 
 pended for its success more or less upon political methods, and 
 he was able to command the attention of the convention. It may 
 
2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 safely and consistently be said that without the timely assistance 
 of Mr. Crary, many wise provisions for education would not have 
 been adopted. 
 
 There are three names which every teacher in Michigan 
 should learn to pronounce in logical order, and with a due 
 appreciation of their worth and the great part which they played 
 in the formation of the state, — Victor Cousin, Isaac E. Crary, 
 and John D. Pierce. 
 
 The first one, a Frenchman, was born in Paris and educated 
 at the Ecole Normale. Later he became a teacher. During a 
 visit to Germany in 1824-5 he was suspected of revolutionary 
 tendencies, and sent to Berlin, where he was detained for 
 six months. On his return to France, Cousin was elected to vari- 
 ous important offices, and after the revolution of 1830 was made a 
 member of the Council of Public Instruction. In 1832 he became 
 a peer of France, then director of the Ecole Normale and vir- 
 tual head of the University of France. In 1840 he was appointed 
 Minister of Public Instruction in the cabinet of Thiers. He 
 exerted great influence upon education, not only in his own 
 country but throughout the world. His efforts were directed par- 
 ticularly toward the organization of primary instruction along the 
 lines of the report which he had made concerning the conditions 
 of public education in Prussia and Holland. This report which, 
 as Dr. Hinsdale says, "was one of the most quickening educa- 
 tional documents ever written," appeared first in England, and 
 later in this country only a year before Mr. Pierce took charge 
 of educational matters in Michigan. 
 
 The history of any state is the cumulative history of the suc- 
 cessive generations of men who have made that state. In each 
 epoch of that history some man is providentially raised up who 
 has been fitted by previous preparation to meet the emergency 
 of the hour, and provide those factors which are needed for the 
 advance of civilization. So it has been with the commonwealth 
 of Michigan. At the time when this territory was knocking 
 for admission into the family of the states, when a constitution 
 was to be framed and adopted so that the future empire between 
 the Great Lakes might be inducted into a life of continual 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 progress, men appeared who were the providential instru- 
 ments in accomplishing this work. John Davis Pierce was the 
 man for the hour, and in his previous training, in the breadth 
 of his vision, in his ardent patriotism, were found factors which 
 were of the greatest importance to the future of the state. And 
 it was necessary that these qualities should find expression in the 
 state constitution, for without them the cause of education would 
 have been hampered throughout all succeeding years. 
 
 One or two facts will clearly show the close relationship 
 which, through a sequence of cause 'and effect, connects the 
 three names already mentioned into a chain, the forging of 
 which has most forcefully aided in the upbuilding of the com- 
 monwealth. M. Cousin's report was translated and circulated 
 in this country. A copy of it fell into the hands of Mr. Pierce 
 and Mr. Crary. Its salient features were incorporated in the 
 constitution, and provisions were made for a State Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, a complete system of elementary schools, 
 township libraries, and a state university. The present volume 
 deals with the life of a man, whose labors were destined to put 
 into successful operation the provisions of the constitution. How 
 well he wrought, and how grandly he fulfilled the mission which 
 Providence entrusted to him, will be known by those who read 
 the pages which follow. 
 
 The results of Mr. Pierce's labors, when viewed in the per- 
 spective which nearly seventy years give, are the glorious fulfill- 
 ment of a prophetic statement made in his first annual report: — 
 "To enter upon a high career as a State is undoubtedly an object 
 of paramount importance. It is so because it involves the repu- 
 tation of the State, and also the highest good of present and com- 
 ing generations. If we would preserve inviolate the sacred prin- 
 ciples of liberty, — of liberty, civil and religious, if we would 
 hand down to those who are to come after us a constitution, 
 government and laws, based upon the essential and unperishable 
 rights of man ; if we would rear a superstructure of elements 
 more durable than crowns or pyramids, we must dig deep and lay 
 broad and permanent the foundation of knowledge and virtue." 
 
 If now the question is raised as to whether we, as the direct 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 beneficiaries of his labors, appreciate as we ought the great ser- 
 vice rendered by this man, we must answer that toward him, as 
 toward many another man of great and beneficent deeds, 
 we have shown that ingratitude for which states and 
 nations are proverbial. A small and iucouspicuous monument 
 has been raised over his grave, his portrait hangs in the execu- 
 tive office of the State University, and with that the record of 
 recognition is ended. It may be said here, however, that a Com- 
 mission consisting of the present Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction, two ex-Superintendents, and two City Superinten- 
 dents, has been appointed to inaugurate a movement which 
 shall result in some fitting and worthy monument to his memory. 
 
 Di:i,os Fall, 
 Albion College, 
 
MRS. HARRIET REED PIERCE 
 AT THE AGE OF NINETY-SIX 
 
PART I. ORIGINS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 
 
 In order to understand and appreciate the significance of the 
 educational work of John D. Pierce, it will be necessary for us to 
 know, in addition to our knowledge of the political and social 
 conditions of early Michigan, something of the ideals and con- 
 ceptions of education prevalent in Europe and in the New England 
 states. We must see how these world ideas became American 
 ideals, and how they were adopted and appropriated, with cer- 
 tain modifications, by Mr. Pierce, and used by him as the fun- 
 damentals of the Michigan Public School System. We shall, 
 therefore, proceed to a somewhat cursory examination of the 
 facts and principles, as well as the methods that seem to make up 
 our educational inheritance. 
 
 A nation forms ideals which are expressed in institutions. 
 Institutions become realized ideals as soon as the people grow 
 conscious of their necessity, and see in them a means for the 
 satisfaction of desires. The world has come to see that great 
 national events or achievements are not the result of chance or of 
 some unseen and unknown force, but that they are builded upon 
 and grow out of the past. Every nation inherits the ideals of its 
 predecessors, together with some elements of institutional life, 
 and with this endowment, under new conditions in a new environ- 
 ment, it will evolve a new ideal by forming new associations and 
 organizations. This will, in turn, be transmitted to posterity, and 
 succeeding generations will repeat the process. A dominant life 
 ideal may enter into the consciousness of a group of individuals 
 with such intensity that freedom and independence will be 
 expressed in the peculiar character of the organized State, or a 
 religion, expressed by a particular creed will be realized in the 
 established Church, but in order to perpetuate this ideal and 
 transmit it to succeeding generations, it is necessary that a 
 
6 JOHN D. P1KRCE 
 
 system of education, expressed in a school, be well organized. 
 
 Less than three hundred years ago, certain peoples left the 
 parent country in Europe and sought an abiding place in the 
 unbroken wilderness of America, where they hoped to erect a 
 new home for themselves and their posterity. Each group was 
 actuated by its own controlling motive, and was more or less 
 influenced by the home ideal. Some came to these unknown 
 shores in search of gold, or were prompted by the love of adven- 
 ture. Some hoped to found landed estates, in imitation of the 
 home model, and some were in search of a place where they 
 might be free to think and act as their consciences dictated. 
 There were governments that sent their emissaries to the new 
 land, for the express purpose of conquest for both church and 
 state, but in no instance have these European countries ever con- 
 tributed anything to American civilization. Our forefathers, 
 however, remembered the past, and being controlled by the old 
 associations and acting under the influence of the old institutional 
 life, they formed new institutions and looked with hope into the 
 future. 
 
 It will be necessary, therefore, in order to understand the 
 principles governing the foundation and organization of 
 the educational system in America, first to direct our attention to 
 the fatherland and ascertain, if possible, what influences sur- 
 rounded these people. What were the problems, and what ideals 
 of education prevailed in Europe during the three centuries of 
 our American life? How had the people endeavored to realize 
 them, and with what result? If they had failed, can the cause of 
 this failure be construed into a motive for migration? 
 
 The controlling tendency in Europe was a movement away 
 from authority and toward individual freedom, — the development 
 of the individual by means of voluntary acts originating in man 
 himself, rather than by the performance of acts or duties 
 imposed upon him by an outer authority. This tendency 
 found a definite expression in four ways, and resulted in the 
 perception, by the individual, of certain fixed principles of 
 life, which came, at last, to control his actions, in spite of the 
 traditional authority of church, state, or school. 
 
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 7 
 
 a) A new philosophical method was discovered. This method, 
 when fully comprehended, was employed in the solution of all 
 classes of life problems, and was applied to every phase of 
 human activity. Descartes (1596-1650) , starting with doubt, 
 established the certainty of self, and demonstrated the dif- 
 erence between the results, upon the individual, of an act that 
 was self active, and one imposed by outer authority. 
 
 b) The development of science and a new scientific spirit and 
 and method. While this was, at first, bitterly opposed by 
 theology, it gradually wrought out a revision of church creeds, 
 and succeeded finally, either in working reforms in the old 
 church, or in establishing new ones. 
 
 c) Absolute and unlimited monarchies had been built up, 
 but, with the growth of new ideas and the consequent 
 development of man's reason, revolutions became frequent, 
 and absolutism was replaced by constitutional governments. 
 Thus the chasm between church and state was widened, and 
 a greater development of individuality was made possible. 
 
 d) It now became possible for the common people to come into 
 the possession of a great ideal. Each individual saw the pos- 
 sibility of seizing upon it, and making it his own by realizing 
 it in his acts. Everywhere there was a growing demand for uni- 
 versal and public education. School systems with new and 
 better courses were organized, and new books and better 
 school appliances came into ready use. Great teachers were 
 produced, and new and improved educational theories and 
 methods were evolved aud practically applied. 
 
 The Discovery of America, the Copernican System of Astron- 
 omy, the translation of Aristotle into the vernacular, and the 
 invention of printing made the free public school 
 necessary and possible, and marked the beginning of 
 modern education. In Prussia, the people took the 
 initiative and founded schools which were afterwards organ- 
 ized into a system and administered by the sovereign government. 
 Under Louis XIV., in France, the state originated and formu- 
 lated a system which was imposed upon the people. In America 
 
8 JOHN D. PIBB.CB 
 
 tlie people soon grew to know no king, and refused to recognize 
 any right other than that of the individual conscience, as it was 
 expressed by the will of the people. Their government was 
 organized on this basis, and universal education was the only 
 form compatible with this great principle. John D. Pierce 
 expressed this ideal when he said: "Let free schools be estab- 
 lished 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 when mind is allowed freely to come in 
 contact with mind. Children of every name and age must be 
 taught the qualifications and duties of American citizens and learn 
 in early life the art of self control. Therefore education must be 
 free aud public, and ultimately compulsory, and it matters not 
 whether the school maintenance be by public tax, private 
 means, or both." ' 
 
 American education has felt the direct influence of three 
 European countries, England, France, and Germany. In the 
 seventeenth century in the New England colonies, English 
 schools and systems were the models. The force of French 
 thought aud realism was beginning to be felt in the eighteenth 
 century, while the dominating influence that inspired the revival 
 of education in the nineteenth century, and did much to shape 
 its policv was of a distinctly German character. 
 
 The prevailing thought of Europe in the seventeenth century 
 regarding education was the development of a new philosophy on 
 a non-scholastic basis, and the organization of a school .system 
 that should be realistic rather than humanistic. The first pre- 
 pared the way for the second, and the second applied the prin- 
 ciples which grew out of the first movement. Descartes in 
 France, and Comenius, in Germany, were representatives of each 
 of these movements respectively, while John Locke, in England, 
 in attempting to harmonize the two tendencies, exerted an indirect 
 influence on early education in this country. His theory of 
 the development of the human mind, if accepted, would tend to 
 change humanistic into realistic methods, but his was a sys- 
 
 (i) First Annual Report \ 1S36, pane 31. 
 
AMKHK'A'S I'IM'OATIONAr, IN 1 1 B}R ITANCK 
 
 Icmii suited only to royally, and adapted to Hit: education of a 
 gentleman; it, therefore, found little favor in America, and 
 made no lasting impression upon men who claimed t<> in- free 
 and equal. Comenius' system, on the contrary, when under- 
 stood, was appreciated and adopted. He was obliged to evolve 
 his doctrine and to apply the same in the midst of the Thirty 
 Years War. He was forgotten hut afterward discovered and 
 appreciated hy the Germans. They incorporated his ideas into 
 their state system, and in this way his influence came to America. 
 John Amos Comenius was a member of the Moravian Brother- 
 hood, a sect following the religious teachings of John IIus. He 
 was horn in Moravia, in 1592, and died at Amsterdam in 1671. 
 He was educated at Herborn College, and came under the 
 influence of Ratke through the teachings of John Alsted. He 
 was a teacher, a pastor, and afterward a Bishop in the Moravian 
 Church. He suffered exile, afterwards visited England, where 
 he mingled with the great scholars of that country, and then 
 repaired to Sweden and prepared a series of text- hooks. Tradi- 
 tion tells us that he was at one time called to the Presidency of 
 Harvard College. Finally, his people having received no con- 
 sideration in the Treaty of Westphalia, he, like many others, 
 found a refuge in Holland, and here he spent his declining 
 years in peace. 
 
 His educational system has a distinct religious basis — educa- 
 tion being regarded as a preparation for eternity. He began hy 
 attempting to reform the poor methods of leaching Latin, in 
 vogue at that time, and hy going to nature for suggestions, he 
 dually evolved a plan for a system of universal education. He 
 embodied his entire system in the Great Didactic. In the series 
 of illustrated text-books which he prepared, he showed how 
 the child could be led from the study of meaningless words 
 to the study of real things. He graded the schools under bis 
 charge and bequeathed to posterity a plan for a system in which 
 it was possible for a child to advance step by step, from the most 
 elementary school, to the university. 
 
 He wrote and thought in advance of his age. It was more 
 than a century afterward before Europe was ready to incorporate 
 
10 JOHN D. PIERCK 
 
 his ideas iuto an educational system, and still another century 
 hefore American educators were ready or willing to adapt and 
 apply any of his principles under the new conditions. A com- 
 plete English translation of the Great Didactic was not made 
 until 1896, although it was originally written in the Czech in 
 1631, shortly afterward translated iuto Latin by Comenius him- 
 self, and subsequently translated into the German. ' 
 
 The revolutions of the eighteenth century in Church and 
 State were necessary before the idea of the development of the 
 individual, anticipated by Comenius, could find a reception in the 
 minds of the people, or become realized in the institutions of 
 church, state, or school. 
 
 The seventeenth century, like those previous, was an age of 
 extreme institutionalism, but gradually there had developed a 
 growing tendency toward a realization of the worth of the indi- 
 vidual as such. This led naturally to the consideration of great 
 and complex social questions. France seemed to be the best 
 suited for an attempt at a solution of these problems and the 
 establishment of certain empirical principles. The conditions 
 of its society were best adapted for the propagation of the 
 principles of liberty and equality, and the human paradox, Rous- 
 seau, was the best exponent of the old tendency in a new form. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau's life (1712-1778) affords an example 
 never worthy of imitation, yet at the same time, one the good in- 
 fluence of which has been far reaching. His purely subjective 
 individualism reflected the social life of his time, aud furnished 
 the world a striking illustration of the extreme reaction of an 
 individual against authority — the triumph of the supremacy of the 
 feelings over reason and blind submission. 
 
 The first half of his life was a passive or dependent one. He 
 lived a life of absolute freedom, aud performed only such acts as 
 his feelings prompted. He associated with the common people, 
 learued to feel as they felt, and with them rebelled against the 
 restrictions of a corrupt society, and chafed under the bonds of 
 convention and propriety. When he rebelled and lived accord - 
 
 i Mouroe— John Amos Comeuius. 
 
AMERICA'S KDTICATlONAIy INHERITANCE 11 
 
 ing to Nature, he gave the world a great object lesson in indi- 
 vidualism. 
 
 The second half of his life was productive, or creative. He 
 associated with people of high estate and came in contact with 
 some of the brightest intellects of the French court. He responded 
 to the impulse to write, and gave expression to his feelings rather 
 than to his reason. Accordingly, in the Social Contract and the 
 Kmile, although expressed in paradox, he showed how he would 
 reform society by educating a child according to nature, out of 
 society, and the application he would make of this principle to the 
 state and to the school. 
 
 A comparison of the Social Contract and the Declaration of 
 Independence will reveal more than one point in common, while 
 a study of the Fniile will show that he anticipated much that is 
 accepted today, regarding the individual development of the 
 child, according to nature. 
 
 Rousseau laid bare the defects and abuses of the society and 
 education of his time, and demanded reforms in the direction of 
 truth and simplicity. It has truly been said of him: — "It has 
 been given to few men to exert with their thought an influence 
 so deep and persuasive as that of Rousseau. This influence, due 
 to the fact that he took the 'motives' which were 'toiling in the 
 gloom' of the popular mind of his time, and made them flash, 
 with the lurid lightning of his own passion, before the eyes of an 
 astonished world, extended to all departments of human activity 
 — philosophy, science, religion, art, politics, ethics, economics, 
 and pedagogy." l 
 
 The central figure of the educational influence of the eighteenth 
 century was Henry Pestolozzi, who was born in Zurich, Switzer- 
 land, in 1746. With him, as with many another, the right man 
 found himself in the proper environment. A force was thus gen- 
 erated from which radiated an external influence. For contem- 
 poraries he had Kant and Hegel, Goethe and Schiller, Herbart 
 and Froebel, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Mann. He was 
 among the first to study educational problems on a psychologic 
 
 1 Thomas Davidson— Rousseau and Education According to Nature, p. 234. 
 
12 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 basis, and by so doing he anticipated the science of education, 
 which was later perfected by Herbart and his followers. His first 
 activity was in his little school for poor children at Neubof. It 
 was here, after the failure of this school, that for twenty years "he 
 lived like a beggar, that he might teach beggars to live like 
 men;" it was here that he wrote Leonard and Gertrude. This 
 book made the whole of Europe conscious of the need of a social 
 reform, and of the great truth that education is the only means 
 for the accomplishment of this end. We next see him as the 
 educator of the orphans at Stanz, where he learned the value and 
 place of industrial education. After establishing the common 
 school at Burgdorf, and exerting an influence upon Felleuberg 
 in the founding of his school at Hofwyl, we find him for the last 
 twenty years of his life as the educator of humanity at Yverdun. 
 It was from this school that influences radiated to every country 
 of the civilized world and acted as potent forces in reforming 
 educational method, and in influencing teachers everywhere to 
 do better things for the children. 
 
 Pestalozzianism offers suggestions along two lines: — practice 
 and theory, — practice in the organization and supervision of 
 schools, and theory in the methods of teaching and in the train- 
 ing of teachers. 
 
 Flchte, in his celebrated Addresses to the German People, in 
 calling attention to the work of Pestalozzi, shows that education 
 for all of the people is the only means by which a nation may 
 become free. Queen Louise reinforced this suggestion, and by 
 her influence made this organization possible. From hencefor- 
 ward we see a perfected Prussian Educational System, and Com- 
 enius is reinforced by Pestalozzi. 
 
 German, French, and English tutors, together with their 
 pupils, had been in attendance at the famous school at Yverdun, 
 and upon their return to their homes had done something to 
 inaugurate educational reforms. Americans began to visit 
 Europe for the purpose of study and observation, and we next see 
 these various influences spreading across the sea, where they are 
 to operate under new and decidedly different conditions. It 
 
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 13 
 
 now remains to be seen how the schools of the United States 
 were influenced by these European forces. 
 
 The educational system of America rests, fundamentally, upon 
 our peculiar form of government. How did the young republic 
 in the western hemisphere, in its endeavors to establish a new 
 and hitherto untried form of government, transform and adapt 
 the ideas of education of the old world to the peculiar conditions 
 found in the new? One may well wonder how the national ideal 
 was evolved. At first, it was undetermined and was imperfectly 
 understood; but with time it grew so strong and became so 
 prominent in the consciousness of the people that we can look 
 about us today and see its full and perfect realization. 
 
 The line of march was from Europe to the eastern colonies, 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vir- 
 ginia, and, with increased facilities for transportation, thence 
 westward to the Northwest Territory. The people of the new 
 state of Michigan, being themselves "Easteners," held 
 pretty definite notions as to schools and the value of education. 
 Their ideas, it is true, were the European thought modified by 
 the conditions of early colonial life and doubtless, until the time 
 of Mr. Pierce, they were not directly influenced |by Europe. 
 These people had, however, a controlling motive in 
 founding a school system by modifying other systems to fit the 
 needs and conditions peculiar to this new environment. 
 
 In order to understand how the American people came 
 into possession of its educational inheritance, it is neces- 
 sary first to know how much direct influence was exerted upon 
 the American school, and the sources through which it came; 
 and, in the second place, it is equally as necessary to know how 
 much, that is regarded as American, is original. We shall then 
 be prepared to understand the origins of our system. If the 
 nature of the past experience of the pioneer is known and his 
 motive can be understood, it will not be a difficult matter to 
 explain his acts or trace the steps in the development of local 
 institutions. 
 
 It has already been shown that education in the United States 
 
14 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 had felt the stimulating inspiration of three principal European 
 educational influences; (1) That in the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries, through the entire colonial period and to the 
 War for Independence, England and Holland furnished the ideal 
 and suggested the means which dominated the inception of the 
 school system; (2) During, and immediately subsequent to, the 
 period of the Revolution, French thought and institutions modi- 
 fied the then existing schools very materially, exerting some 
 influence in the formation of new systems; and (3) in the nine- 
 teenth century German schools and teachers became known and 
 different plans of organization and improved methods of 
 teaching were introduced into this country. In this way, what 
 may be called the American Renaissance in Education began. 
 The date of this revival may be placed at 1837, the year in which 
 Horace Mann became Secretary of the Board of Education in 
 Massachusetts, and one year after John D. Pierce had entered 
 actively upon the duties of Superintendent of Public Instruction 
 in Michigan. 
 
 In the original colonies, the forces that acted in the founding 
 of schools were decidedly different as to motive, and exceedingly 
 diverse in character. In New York, schools were first established 
 by the Dutch and for many years, in fact until the time when 
 New Englanders began to move westward, they were conducted 
 strictly according to Dutch models. The Swedes founded schools 
 in Delaware, the Germans in Pennsylvania and, after the Revo- 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots in South Carolina. 
 Even the Moravians founded numerous settlements and estab- 
 lished schools according to some of Comenius' ideas. 
 Such a settlement was founded near Detroit. All these 
 schools, however, had been established in accordance with the 
 ideals of these various nationalities, and they exerted little or no 
 influence upon communities of English descent. Our schools were 
 founded and developed along the lines of English tradition and 
 afterward were modified by the other European systems. The Eng- 
 lish people continued to migrate to North America and not infre- 
 quently sent their sons and daughters to Europe to be educated. 
 
 Without doubt the New England Puritans represented, in a 
 
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 15 
 
 large way, the ideas and ideals that prevailed in England in the 
 seventeenth century. Tyler says regarding them that "The 
 proportion of learned men among their numbers was extraordin- 
 ary. It is probable that among them in those early days, between 
 1630 and 1690, there were in New England as many graduates of 
 Cambridge and Oxford as could be found in any population of 
 similar size in the mother country." 1 
 
 These man had been trained in L,atin, Greek, Hebrew, math- 
 ematics, rhetoric, and physical, mental, and moral science, having 
 been prepared for the university in the English grammar school. 
 How natural then that, in the founding of Harvard College, they 
 should attempt to reproduce one of the colleges of Cambridge 
 University, that Eaton or Winchester should be the model 
 for the grammar school, and that the minister, the educated man 
 of the community, should act in the capacity of a tutor in prepar- 
 ing a boy for college. 
 
 As to elementary schools, it can be said that there was 
 no considerable number uutil it was ordered that in every 
 township, where the number of householders had increased 
 to fifty, there should be appointed some one to teach the children 
 to read and write. 2 No such ideal as this was to be found in the 
 mother country. This may have been a realization of the con- 
 ception of elementary education with which Protestantism had 
 made men familiar. Comenius, as the champion and advocate of 
 modern elementary education, it will be remembered, was well 
 known in England and why not in America? The New England 
 Puritans were educated, original, and inventive, and impelled by 
 a tremendous life motive, they exercised this genius by put- 
 ting into operation common elementary schools. Fundamentally, 
 these schools were Michigan's model. In many ways the early 
 conditions of Michigan were similar to those of New England, 
 and, as a large majority 3 of the early settlers of this state were 
 
 1 History of American Literature. Vol. 1, p. 98. 
 
 - Hinsdale. Documents Illustrative of American Educational History. Report 
 of the Commissioner of Education— 1892-1893, p. 1232. 
 
 3 In the Constitutional Convention of 1850, of the 96 delegates, 34 were 
 horn in New England, and 43 in New York. 
 
16 JOHN D. pierce; 
 
 of New England extraction, how natural that they should open 
 schools after this eastern pattern. 
 
 The monarchical and aristocratic governments of the old world, 
 bound up by the traditions of ages, did not afford a good cul- 
 ture ground for the development of a common elementary school. 
 The freedom and self reliance that would of necessity 
 be developed in the forming of a new civilization in a new 
 country were needful for such an institution. The subduing of 
 a wilderness and the erection of new homes, the forming of a 
 new government, with a firm belief in its perpetuation, all 
 demanded the elementary public school. 
 
 America came into immediate contact with French ideas about 
 the time of the War of Independence. We had known some 
 thing of these through England, but, when the ties with the 
 mother country were broken and we turned to France for assist- 
 ance, cultured men of science began to visit this country 
 in the spirit of scientific observation. Franklin, Adams and 
 Jefferson were more than diplomats, they were scholars of the 
 highest type and, being held in high esteem at foreign courts, 
 were offered every facility for coming into close relation with the 
 best in science and literature. 
 
 The founding of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 
 in 17S0 also marks an important step. The French ideas of phil- 
 osophy and science had taken too firm a hold on American life to 
 be easily dislodged, and their effects were seen and felt in numer- 
 ous ways. Thomas Jefferson was enthusiastic in regard to every- 
 thing pertaining to education and, while serving as minister at 
 Paris, he was occupied in studying educational systems, organi- 
 zation of schools, institutions of higher learning and courses of 
 study, and his contributions to the advancement in education 
 were of the highest importance. 
 
 The story of French influence on education in Michigan 
 affords us an interesting chapter in our history. Hinsdale says, 
 "The first attempt to organize education in Michigan savors 
 strongly of Freuch influence." In 1S17, the territorial legisla- 
 ture passed an act, drawn up by Joseph Woodward, to establish 
 
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 17 
 
 the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania. Although writ- 
 ten in an extremely pedantic style, this was a plan of remarkable 
 comprehension. It was doubtless suggested by the University of 
 France, which was founded in 1806. This act was repealed in 
 1821 and a new one enacted in its stead. By the provisions of 
 this, the institution was named the University of Michigan. 
 This peculiar legislation was marked with liberality and good 
 judgment. In 1837, when Michigan became a state, the influ- 
 ence of Germany began to be felt in America, and we shall see 
 that the Michigan system of public instruction was readjusted 
 according to Prussian ideas, embracing provisions for primary, 
 secondary and higher education, supported and supervised by 
 the state. 
 
 It would be a difficult task indeed to give any kind of a just 
 estimate of the extent or value of German influence upon Ameri- 
 can education, in the organization of school systems, in the 
 modification of those already established, and in the reform of 
 courses of study and methods of teaching. That this influence 
 has shown itself an important factor in our educational history, 
 no one, who has given the subject serious attention, will deny. 
 
 Dr. Franklin, who visited Gottingen in 1766, was probably 
 the first American to investigate a German university, and 
 George Ticknor was doubtless the first American, studying in a 
 German university, who has left us an account of his work and 
 observations. Many other names might be included in the list 
 of those who studied at Gottingen, Halle, or Berlin previous to 
 1837, notably those of Everett, Bancroft, Longfellow, Motley, 
 and others. This was the beginning of the direct German 
 influence. 
 
 In 182:3, Dr. Cogswell and Mr. Bancroft founded the famous 
 Round Hill School in Massachusetts, and this was the first 
 school in this country to be directly influenced by German ideas. 
 This school was opened after Dr. Cogswell returned from Eu- 
 rope, where he had visited the schools of Fellenberg at Hofwyl, 
 and Pestalozzi at Yverduu. He has left some interesting and 
 valuable statements respecting these visits, and seems to have 
 
18 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 been more favorably impressed with the work and results of the 
 former than with the latter institution. This may have been 
 due to the intensely practical character of this school, and 
 to the ideas of family life employed in its management, ideas 
 which he afterwards introduced into the Round Hill School. 
 He said: "There was the greatest equality and at the same time 
 the greatest respect, a respect of the heart, I' mean, and not of 
 fear. Instructors and pupils walked arm in arm together, played 
 together, ate at the same table, and all without any danger of 
 their reciprocal rights. How delightful it must be to govern 
 where love is the principle of obedience." 
 
 The Fellenberg School was originally agricultural and indus- 
 trial in its charactei and, because it offered the suggestion of a 
 self-supporting school through the work of the pupils, it pre- 
 sented many ideas for the founding of schools of this character 
 in the United States. Regarding Pestalozzi, he said: "I do not 
 believe his system, carried to the extent he does, is the true 
 method of storing the mind with knowledge. It would exclude 
 memory altogether as a medium of instructing and make use of 
 reason alone, which is absurd." 
 
 It is evident that he did not fully comprehend Pestalozzi's 
 educational aims or methods, and it was necessary that they 
 should be better understood before any permanent influence could 
 come from this source. It was necessary for organization to pre- 
 cede methods of instruction, and, so it was not until 1860, that 
 this influence directly effected our schools. Its introduction was 
 due to the efforts of Dr. Sheldon of the Oswego Normal School. 
 
 In 1818-1819, Prof. John Griscom, of New York City, visited 
 all of the important European countries and, upon his return, 
 embodied the results of his observations in a book entitled: "A 
 Year in Europe." This report had an indirect influence upon 
 the early Michigan System. In 1838, the state of Ohio commis- 
 sioned Prof. Stowe to study the foreign school systems. His 
 report was full of suggestion, and coming into Mr. Pierce's 
 hands proved of no little value to him in his later work. He gave 
 this report publicity in his Journal of Education. 
 
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL INHERITANCE 19 
 
 M. Victor Cousin's Report of Public Instruction in Prussia 
 exerted more influence than any other upon the founding of the 
 Michigan school system ; in fact it may be said to have been the 
 model used. It was the first complete and comprehensive report 
 of European schools that had been available to the English reader. 
 In 1831, M. Cousin, at the instance of his government, visited 
 Prussia and other European countries, and the series of com- 
 munications which he made constitute the report. In 1834, it 
 was translated into English by Mrs. Sarah Austin and published 
 in London. It appeared in New York in 1835 with a preface 
 prepared by J. Orville Taylor, and was published by Wiley and 
 Long. The book before us bears this imprint, and is the 
 identical copy which was owned by John D. Pierce, and which 
 was studied by Mr. Crary and himself as they sat upon a log, 
 back in the pioneer days, in the city of Marshall, and planned 
 our school system. 1 It is very evident that this report influenced 
 them to a great extent. This becomes more apparent when one 
 takes the trouble to compare its essentials with those of the first 
 constitution of Michigan, or with Mr. Pierce's educational 
 utterances. 
 
 We have now traced the source of many of the ideas that 
 lie at the foundation of our educational systems, both national 
 and state. They were all influences that were felt in Michigan, 
 either directly or indirectly, and their careful consideration 
 dispels the commonly accepted fallacy, that the American 
 School System was of a spontaneous growth, indigenous to the 
 soil, or that it was evolved or invented by some man or group 
 of men, to fit the needs of a people. Education is adaptation, 
 and in every instance where a group of people migrate to a 
 new land, they take with them their educational ideas and 
 ideals. The adaptation of these to time and place produces the 
 school as one of the fundamental institutions. In his way a 
 new ideal is evolved. 
 
 In 1837, certain important and urgent needs were evident 
 i See Chapter VIII. 
 
20 JOHN D. PIERCK 
 
 in the country and, under the leadership of a lew master minds, 
 they were met and satisfied. There was a demand for: — 
 
 1. Something looking toward a better and more perfect organ- 
 
 ization of schools — including better supervision, a more 
 complete maintenance, and a more perfect system of grad- 
 ing. 
 
 2. The establishment of agricultural, industrial and manual 
 
 training schools. 
 
 3. Better and more liberal courses of study and better methods 
 
 of instruction. 
 
 4. Trained teachers and the consequent demand for normal 
 
 schools. 
 
 5. District and public libraries and better text books. 
 
 The educators of Kurope had perceived these problems, and 
 such men as Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Franke, Fellenberg 
 and Pestalozzi had offered a solution. When the same questions 
 presented themselves to the pioneers in the new world, the 
 experiences of the old educators were adjusted to the new con- 
 ditions by the alert and inventive genius of such men as Jeffer- 
 son, Franklin, Mann, Barnard, and Pierce, and thus was wrought 
 out, in our public school system, our exceedingly complex edu- 
 cational ideal. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SKETCH OF EARLY MICHIGAN HISTORY 
 
 We people of Michigan pride ourselves on being a sturdy and 
 self-reliant folk. We are proudof our state, both ior what she is 
 and what she may become ; we live in the present and our gaze is 
 fixed on the future, not on the past. Perhaps this explains why 
 we have a seeming disregard for our traditions, and consequently 
 no real appreciation of our history, or, at any rate, of the 
 romance in our history. For it is true, — we have had a romantic 
 past, so picturesque, so adventurous, so heroic, that it deserves to 
 be remembered by us and kept fresh in the remembrance of our 
 children. 
 
 Now and then it is a good thing for us to take stock of our 
 inheritance, and try to realize through what stages of progress 
 we have risen to power and become great. We are not so very 
 far removed from our political beginnings — our fathers can 
 remember them, and our grandfathers achieved them — yet we 
 can scarcely comprehend the changes that have occurred since 
 that time. Nowhere else in this wide world was the ownward 
 march of history swifter, or carried more changing conditions in 
 its train, than in the Northwest, in the nineteenth century. And 
 if we turn our gaze backward a little further into another century ( 
 we find ourselves in a period the story of which is as strange 
 to our ears as if it were the chronicle of another land. 
 
 The seventeenth century was a brilliant age for Old France, 
 but none the less so for New France on this side of the ocean. 
 The king and his courtiers at home might gamble, and write 
 verses, and frequent the drawing-rooms of beauties and blue- 
 stockings, but in America his Majesty's representatives had 
 more serious purposes. They gambled only with the hazards of 
 death in the wilderness, wrote only to tell the story of their suf- 
 ferings, their only salons were the log houses of missions and 
 
 21 
 
22 JOHN D. TIERCE 
 
 trading posts, and the wigwams of the Indians. Verity, the 
 pioneers of France in the New World, — priests and chevaliers, 
 were of heroic stamp, and they left their names not only as land- 
 marks in the geography of the Northwest, but also to mark eras 
 in its history. 
 
 In the year 1632, Pere Sagard, a Jesuit missionary, looked 
 out upon the waters of Lake Huron, the first of that splendid 
 number of devoted priests who did such valiant service in the 
 exploration of the region of the Great Lakes. Nine years later 
 Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jogues penetrated as far as the 
 present site of Sault Ste. Marie, and were followed in 1660 by 
 Menard, who boldly skirted the southern shore of Gitchee Gumee, 
 the Great Water, as far west as the northern part of Wisconsin, 
 where he died the next year. "I put my trust in that Provi- 
 dence," he wrote, "which feeds the little birds of the air and 
 decks the wild flowers of the wilderness." 
 
 Menard was followed in 1666 by Claude Allouez, a man 
 equally full of religious zeal, but at the same time a keen 
 observer and explorer, and the map which he helped make of 
 Lake Superior, under the name of Lac Tracy, is a marvel of 
 accuracy and skill. A year or two later, at Allouez's request, 
 came Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette, and the Ottawa 
 Mission became a permanent establishment, with its center on 
 the river not far from the outlet of Lake Superior. The station 
 was called Sainte Marie du Sault, in honor both of the place 
 and of the faith, and was without doubt the first real settlement 
 in Michigan. 
 
 The beginnings of work at the Sault had been unostentatious, 
 but a touch of pageantry came in the year 1671, when Monsieur 
 de Lusson, representative of the Governor-General of New 
 France, arrived to take formal possession of the region. The 
 Indians had come from far and near, and in the council house 
 with the French sat fourteen chiefs who listened in stolid dig- 
 nity to the proclamation of the king. On a height over the 
 river a cross was raised, and the arms of the great Louis were 
 tacked upon it. Then as the priests sang the Exaudiat, the 
 
SKETCH OF EARXY MICHIGAN HISTORY 23 
 
 shield of France was suspended above it all, and amid the 
 solemn silence that fell, Father Allouez, pointing to the cross, 
 said: "It is He of whom I have always spoken to you, and His 
 name and word I have borne into all these countries. But look 
 likewise at that other post to which are affixed the armorial bear- 
 ings of the great chieftain of France whom we call king. He 
 lives beyond the sea; he is the chief of the greatest chiefs, 
 and has not his equal in the world. . . . No one now 
 dares to make war upon him, all nations beyond the sea hav- 
 ing most submissively sued for peace. From all parts of the 
 world people go to listen to his words and to admire him, and he 
 alone decides all the affairs of the world." ' Surely the Grand 
 Monarque could have wished for nothing more eulogistic than 
 this. 
 
 But in the same year that the king's representative at the 
 Sault was taking possession of all the lands west of Montreal, 
 forces were at work which were to interfere seriously with the 
 actual occupation of this part of New France. The Ottawas, and 
 theHurons, who lived around the shores of the Great Lakes, were 
 beset by two fierce enemies, — the Iroquois on the east, and the 
 Sioux from beyond the head waters of the Mississippi. Since 
 late in the year 1669, Marquette had been in charge of the mis- 
 sion at La Pointe, situated not far from the present city of Ash- 
 land. In the spring of 1671, news came to the little station that 
 the terrible Sioux were on the war path, and the Indians living 
 in the vicinity were panic stricken. They did not think of 
 defense — flight was their only safety. Accordingly they collected 
 their belongings, burned their fields so that they might not suc- 
 cor the marauders, and to the number of several hundred 
 embarked in canoes for the Sault. After a short stay here the 
 Ottawas proceeded to join their kinsfolk on Manitoulin Island, 
 while the Hurons and Father Marquette repaired to the Island of 
 Michillimackinac, lying between Lake Huron and Lake Michi- 
 gan, where a mission called St. Ignace was already in existence. 
 This retreat must have been a sorrowful one to Marquette, for it 
 
 1 Les Relations des Jisuilcs, 1670 1. 
 
24 joiin X). PIERCE 
 
 meant the total abandonment of a hopeful Geld, which, as 
 Thwailes says, for over a hundred years was now to be left to the 
 fnr trader and the savage. l 
 
 The coming of Frontenac, the greatest of the Governor- Generals 
 of New France, in 1672, marked a new era for the region of the 
 Great Lakes. He undertook at once to establish military posts at the 
 Sault and at Mackinac, in order to maintain the dominion of the 
 crown throughout the country by force, if necessary. He also 
 began a war to the death upon the implacable Iroquois, who had 
 so long terrorized the eastern borders and rendered impassable 
 the waterway of Niagara and Lake Erie, leading to the Far West. 
 Moreover, he entered heartily into ambitious schemes of explo- 
 ration, and it was with his encouragement that Joliel and Mar- 
 quette set out upon a quest for the discovery of the Father of 
 Waters. 
 
 The story is an interesting one. On the 17th of May, a 
 memorable day in our history, they left the mission station of St. 
 Ignace, and just a month later they glided down the smooth 
 waters of the Wisconsin and out upon the bosom of the Missis- 
 sippi. The object of the journey was now achieved, hut one of 
 the discoverers, Marquette, was destined to pay for the experi- 
 ence with his life. His privations had brought upon him a 
 disease, which though fought off for a time, at last struck him 
 down. In the spring of 1675, after two years of arduous missionary 
 work among the Indians of the Wisconsin country, he launched 
 his cauoe once more upon the waters of Lake Michigan, hoping 
 if possible to reach St. Ignace to die. hut his desire was not 
 realized, for the summons of death overtook him on our beautiful 
 west shore, somewhere near the present site of Ludington. 
 
 With the crushing of the Iroquois in New York, and the 
 defeat of the English before Quebec in 1693, the French began to 
 plan to utilize the strategic importance of the hake IJrie route to 
 the West. In the summer of 1679 h,a Salle had reached Mack- 
 inac in the Griffon^ by way of the lower lakes. Hennepin, who 
 accompanied him, writes enthusiastically of the region along the 
 
 i Father Marquette. New York. 1903. 
 
SKJ'.TCH OK KARLY MICHIGAN HISTORY 25 
 
 Detroit River: — "The 11th we went further into the Straight, 
 and pass'd hetween two small islands, which make the finest 
 prospect in the World. This Streight is finer than that of 
 Niagara, being thirty leagues long, and everywhere one League 
 broad, except in the middle, which is wider, forming the lake we 
 have called St. Clair." ' 
 
 As time went on, the advantage of a post at this point became 
 more and more apparent, and in 1701, Cadillac, who for som<- 
 years previous had been commandant at Mackinac, brought from 
 Montreal a company of soldiers and workmen, and laid the 
 beginning of Fort Pontchartrain, later known in our history as 
 Detroit. 
 
 The French occupation of the country of the Great Lakes was 
 now practically complete, the three posts of Sault Ste. Marie, 
 Mackinac, and Detroit, guarding the only routes by which the 
 region could be entered. Still this occupation did not mean 
 development in any real sense, and the next three-quarters of a 
 century in Michigan history beheld no permanent conquest of the 
 wilderness. Coureurs de hois and voyageurs penetrated the 
 interior in every direction to barter with the Indians, a few more 
 soldiers and traders came to Mackinac and the Sault, and up and 
 down the river near Detroit, the white log cabins of a few habitant 
 fanners began to show against the background of the unbroken 
 forests; but this was not settlement that weighed much in the 
 destinies of the land. Detroit alone grew, and yet not without 
 great difficulty, for the military regime was tyrannical, and the 
 inhabitants were burdened with feudal obligations and traditions. 
 
 but there were other forces at work which made the French 
 occupation in the West precarious and unsuccessful. The Kng- 
 lish were beginning to encroach upon the trade of the country. 
 The Indians, too, under the constant scheming and allurements 
 of the English, were getting restless and impatient. When the 
 final struggle should come for the supreme control of the con- 
 tinent, the French were not to be in a position to hope much 
 
 1 The second London edition of Father Hennepin's A New IJiicovety of 
 a Vait Continent, 1698. 
 
26 JOHN D. l'IKRCK 
 
 from their western posts, since with these it was a struggle for their 
 own preservation. 
 
 At last there came the trial of strength, a life and deatb 
 grapple between two different races and civilizations. First 
 Quebec fell, then Montreal, and with it all Canada. It seems 
 tbat Vaudreil, the Governor- General, had counted some on a 
 stubborn defense beyond the Lakes, but on the 29th of Novem- 
 ber, 1760, the lily-emblazoned flag of France was pulled down at 
 Detroit, and with the surrender of the place passed away the last 
 vestige of the sovereignty of New France. Though it was not till 
 1763 that the treaty between France and England was signed, 
 which definitely disposed of the French possessions east of the 
 Mississippi, Michigan actually came under British rule with the 
 taking of Detroit, the only settlement in all the country of the 
 Great Lakes at all worth a struggle. 
 
 As we have indicated, it had never been the policy of the 
 French crown to develop or colonize the western country. This 
 is all the more evident when one remembers that after more than 
 a hundred years of contact with the region, there was nothing to 
 show for it at its surrender except a few mission stations among 
 Indians that were growing worse rather than better, aud some 
 scattered military posts, which did not contain more than 3,000 
 white inhabitants, all told. 
 
 The farmers along the Detroit River could hardly grow enough 
 to feed the garrison, aud transportation was still by means of 
 batteaux and canoes, for there was not a sail on the Great Lakes. 
 Spiritual needs had been provided for, but not so, intellectual 
 needs, and hardly ability enough could be found to draw up and 
 attest properly the legal documents of the settlement. And the 
 printing press? There was none in Michigan, as Judge Cooley 
 says, for the simple reason that there was none in all New 
 France. ' 
 
 But half-hearted and listless as had been the efforts of the 
 French at colonization, conditions were not materially improved 
 during the first years of British control. No attempts were made 
 
 1 Michigan — A History of Governments. Boston, 1S99. 
 
SKETCH OF KARI,Y MICHIGAN HISTORY 27 
 
 to conciliate the French settlers, or secure new ones, and the 
 management of the Indians was characterized by lack of intel- 
 ligence, sympathy, and tact, The result came in the sudden out- 
 burst of savage fury on the part of Pontiac and his minions, which 
 in 1763 swept the whole Northwest, and almost succeeded in 
 annihilating the English power. Pontiac had reserved 
 Detroit for his own vengeance, since it was within easy reach of 
 his village, yet by rare good fortune, of all the fortified outposts 
 in Michigan, Detroit was the only one that was able to withstand 
 the shock. Treachery, from which the Indians had hoped so 
 much, proved here their own undoing. 
 
 Michigan was not an active field of operations in the Revolu- 
 tionary War, though the inhabitants of the scattered settlements 
 watched the progress of events with eager interest. Nevertheless, 
 the authorities at Detroit were constantly at work arousing the 
 hostility of the Indians, and even fitted out marauding expedi- 
 tions and scalping parties to prey on the remote American settle- 
 ments in the Ohio valley. Nor did the capture of Hamilton, 
 Lieutenant Governor of Detroit, at Vincennes, by Clark, and his 
 subsequent removal to Virginia, in irons, succeed in putting a 
 stop to this guerrilla warfare. In 1780, Captain Bird, of notorious 
 fame, headed an expedition, made up in part of Detroit militia, 
 that ravaged a portion of Kentucky, but though the excitement 
 in the eastern colonies was raised to fever heat by the outrages, no 
 campaign against Detroit was attempted. 
 
 By the treaty of 1783, which concluded the war, it 
 was recognized that Michigan lay within American ter- 
 ritory, but the British made no move to evacuate any of the 
 forts. The commanders at Detroit and Mackinac were not notified 
 by their government that any change of sovereignty had taken 
 place, and in spite of protest and remonstrance they continued to 
 hold these important places till 1796. 
 
 In the meantime Congress proceeded to make arrangements 
 for the government of the newly acquired region, as if there were 
 no question as to possession. In 1787 the whole district north of 
 the Ohio was organized into a territory, with General St. Clair as 
 
28 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 governor. But administration was not easy. The increasing tide 
 of immigration from the eastern states began to make the Indians 
 feel uneasy and insecure ; and the British did all in their power 
 to turn this feeling into animosity. Open hostility came in the 
 year 1790, and the infant territory was exposed once more to all 
 the horrors of border and savage warfare. In two preliminary 
 campaigns the American forces suffered humiliating defeat, but 
 in 1794, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne succeeded after a 
 desperate battle in crushing the Indian power completely. When 
 finally the British reluctantly handed over Detroit, it was Wayne 
 who took command. Michigan was now for the first time really 
 a part of the United States. 
 
 The Ordinance of 1787, under which the Northwest Terri- 
 tory was organized was a great document, and worthy of the 
 genius of statesmen. "No charter of government in the history 
 of any people has so completely withstood the tests of time and 
 experience," is the opinion of Mr. Cooley. 1 And as one reads, 
 he can readily see that it was well calculated to infuse new life 
 into the Northwest. Feudal traditions, absolutism, disregard of 
 human rights and needs, which had characterized the white man's 
 rule for a century and a half, were now to give way to enter- 
 prise, ideals of progress, and assertion of individual freedom. 
 The third article alone fully sustains Dr. Hinsdale's claim 2 that 
 the Ordinance should be ranked with the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence as "one of the most memorable documents that passed 
 the doors of the old Congress." Let us quote the part which 
 refers to education — a prophecy which was later to be realized so 
 thoroughly in the work of that great pioneer educator who is the 
 subject of this volume: — 
 
 "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good 
 government, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
 means of education shall forever be encouraged." 
 
 The new order of things was destined to reach Michigan last. 
 The century was almost gone before the English withdrew, and 
 
 1 Michigan — A History of Governments. Bostou, 1899. 
 
 2 The Old Northwest. New York. 1888. 
 
SKETCH OF EARI.Y MICHIGAN HISTORY 29 
 
 Indian troubles, which generally had their origin in British 
 machinations, continued for some years to retard settlement. 
 Detroit was still the only point of any importance, and it 
 had as yet made no real progress. In the year 1805 when 
 Michigan was set off from Indiana and made into a territory by 
 itself, the total white population of the whole region was not 
 reckoned to exceed 4,000 souls. 
 
 The first Governor of Michigan Territory was General William 
 Hull, a man who had made an excellent record in the East, but 
 was unfitted in every way to cope with the problems in the 
 strenuous life of the frontier. And his assistants in the govern- 
 ment were refractory and jealous. The Indians under Tecumseh 
 were verging toward open hostility, and on the horizon could be 
 heard the mutterings of war. The place demanded a man of iron, 
 and Hull was a man of straw. 
 
 It was evident from the beginning that the coming struggle, 
 unlike the Revolution, would involve the country of the Great 
 Lakes, and measures were at once taken by the Government to 
 defend Detroit with a large force. This Army of the Northwest, 
 as it was called, was put in command of General Hull. After 
 various blunders and grandiloquent proclamations, and a feint at 
 an invasion of Canada, not quite two months after war was de- 
 clared, Detroit was surrendered to the British without firing a 
 shot. It was not in the face of overwhelming odds, or after a long 
 siege, or because of the temper of the troops. From a military 
 point of view the chances of success were good. But here let us 
 take the words of the Detroit Gazette 1 of the year 1819: — 
 
 "It is rational to suppose that nothing less than a miracle 
 could have saved the British army from capture or destruction. 
 At such a moment, when the arm of the patriot was nerved for 
 contest, when the enemy which he had eagerly sought was before 
 him, under circumstances so favorable, and he exulting in a 
 proud triumph for his country, with what agonized sensations 
 did he behold a white flag floating over the Star-Spangled 
 Banner!" 
 
 1 Reprint byC. M. Burton, Detroit, 1904. 
 
30 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 History has not rehabilitated the character of General Hull. 
 Benedict Arnold earned the odium of his countrymen because 
 he was a traitor, and General Hull because he was a coward. 
 
 During the next year Michigan paid dearly for the calamities 
 at the commencement of the war. The hand of the English 
 from Detroit rested heavily on the desolated Territory, and the 
 infamous massacre of the Raisin, in January, 1813, was only a 
 sequel of the story. But with Perry's victory on Lake Erie, a 
 change came. General Harrison and his army could now be con- 
 veyed to Canada. On the 5th of October, 1813, was fought the 
 Battle of the Thames, which avenged the ignominious surrender 
 of Detroit, the woes of the British occupation, and the horrors of 
 the River Raisin. Michigan ceased to be a contested ground, 
 and was now ready, after long waiting, to enter upon its heritage 
 of progress. 
 
PEIRCE COAT OF ARMS. 
 
 COAT OF ARMS OF THE PIERCE FAMILY 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CULTURE CONDITIONS IN TERRITORIAL DAYS 
 
 On the 29th of October, 1813, General Lewis Cass was made 
 governor of the Territory of Michigan, with his capital at Detroit. 
 This appointment was extremely fortunate for the development of 
 the vast and unknown region, for the new governor was intel- 
 ligently alive to its needs and possibilities. In order that the 
 Territory might be opened up to exploration and settlement as 
 speedily as possible, he at once began to negotiate treaties with 
 various Indian tribes, by which their title to extensive tracts was 
 extinguished, and a way thus inaugurated for the operation of 
 government land laws. Of course, the first step toward inducing 
 settlers to locate in the Territory was to be able to assure them of 
 the legality of their holdings. 
 
 As earl}- as 1S12, an act of the general government had set 
 aside two million acres in Michigan as bounty lands for soldiers, 
 but when at the end of the war, surveyors entered upon the task 
 of defining these grants, they reported the country of southern 
 Michigan a swampy, pestilential region, with not one acre in a 
 hundred fit for human habitation. A second examination seeni- 
 iugly confirmed this, and in 1816 the law was amended so that 
 the claims of soldiers might be satisfied by lands in Illinois aud 
 Missouri. Such reports, no doubt, helped to delay actual set- 
 tlement for a few years, nevertheless the surveys went on. In 
 1817 the sale of as small parcels as eighty acres was authorized, 
 and the next year there were lands in the Territory on the mar- 
 ket. In 1820 the minimum price was changed from two dollars 
 an acre, as it had been fixed in 1796, to a dollar and twenty-five 
 cents, and in 1830 the right of pre-emption was given to actual 
 settlers. 
 
 To further facilitate matters of administration and pave the 
 
 31 
 
32 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 way for the beginning of popular government, General Cass com- 
 menced at once to lay out counties and road districts. The 
 General Government was induced to make an appropriation ior 
 the building of a semi- military road around the western end of 
 Lake Erie, from Sandusky to Detroit, and within the Territory 
 itself a few great highways were constructed. One notably, the 
 old "Chicago Pike," from Detroit to Chicago, was destined for 
 many years to serve as a channel along which rolled a mighty 
 tide of colonization westward. 
 
 Another factor which contributed greatly to encourage settle- 
 ment was the revolution wrought by steam in the navigation of 
 the lakes. On the 27th of August, ISIS, the fust steamboat 
 1 cached Detroit, and it was not many years before there was a 
 daily service during the summer months between Buffalo and 
 points west. This increase in the facilities of transportation on 
 Lake Erie, coupled with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, 
 made the journey from New York and New England compara- 
 tively easy, and people were attracted more and more by the 
 opportunities awaiting them in the wilderness. By the year 
 1S30, Michigan could boast a population of 31,639, as compared 
 with S, 765 in 1820, and 4,762 in 1810, certainly a substantial and 
 significant gain. In the fifteen years that had elapsed since the 
 close of the war more had been done to promote the real develop- 
 ment of the country of the Great Lakes than in all the two hun- 
 dred years preceding. It was evident now that statehood was 
 not far off. 
 
 It is not our purpose to discuss at any length the political 
 evolution of the commonwealth. But in order to appreciate the 
 conditions under which our educational beginnings weie made 
 and gradually transformed into a vital part of our theory of state 
 government, it may be well worth while to try to convey a notion 
 of what pioneer life was, and of the cultural and social 
 elements which manifested themselves in our civilization between 
 1825 and 1S40, w hen the Territory was waking from its lethargy, 
 and taking upon itself the dignity of an integral part of the 
 nation. 
 
CUI/rURK CONDITIONS IN TERRITORIAL DAYS 33 
 
 The pioneer inhabitants of Michigan arc almost entirely of 
 native American stock, largely from New York and New Kug- 
 land. And this was fortunate. A sturdy vigor was needed to 
 conquer the wilderness, and a correct appreciation of the obliga- 
 tions of the individual, society, and government, such as pre- 
 vailed in our Kasteru states, was necessary to form the founda- 
 tion of an enduring civilization in the new land. In the early 
 days of the territory the French element naturally predominated. 
 The habitants, on their neat little farms along the Detroit River, 
 were a thrifty, contented, but unprogressive folk. And the good 
 burghers of Detroit, many of whom could boast of aristocratic 
 and blue blood, were for the most part satisfied to live in the 
 complacent ease of their own traditions. There was nothing in 
 the descendants of the old regime calculated to wrest a state 
 from the grip of primitive conditions. These people hated 
 nothing so much as taxes, to paraphrase Judge Sibley, and 
 would rather vegetate undisturbed in their own little communities 
 than contribute to the support of a free government. In 1818 the 
 possibility of having a legislative assembly for the Territory was 
 lost through the hostility of the French vote. 
 
 But the Yankee settlers were different. There was nothing so 
 precious to them as law and order, and the blessing of organized 
 government. And they brought into the woods of Michigan the 
 same ideas and ideals that their fathers had fought to preserve 
 in the trying years of the Revolution, and they themselves had 
 contested for in 1812. Their new life in the West was an 
 arduous one, full of privations and discouragements, and we of 
 this generation, who stand on thethreshold of the most remark- 
 able century in human history, have no adequate idea of their 
 sacrifices. But there they are, — those years — three-quarters of a 
 century agone, and in them lie the beginnings of our institutions. 
 
 Detroit, which did not reach a population of 2,500 till after 
 1830, was the gateway by which most of the settlers came into the 
 Territory. They arrived here by boat after a week's voyage from 
 Buffalo, unless the)' were fortunate enough to come by steamboat, 
 or after a long and dreary overland journey through Canada. 
 From this point they pushed on into the interior, usually along 
 
34 JOHN D. PIEKCE 
 
 one of the two or three routes: northwest, toward Pontiac and 
 Flint, or westward on the old Chicago road, or toward the south- 
 west in the direction of Adrian. When the roads failed, they fol- 
 lowed trails if they could, or made their own way with a guide. 
 As late as 1S36 it took two weeks to go from Detroit to Battle 
 Creek, and in the fall of the year a week was necessary to make 
 the trip from Plymouth to Detroit and return. 
 
 The conveyance was usually a covered wagon drawn by oxen. 
 In it were all the pioneer's worldly possessions, — household 
 goods, provisions, farming tools, seed for the first crop. If the 
 new-comer was well-to-do he brought with him a cow or two, 
 and a few fowls crowded into a box. On the more travelled parts 
 of the route he and his family stopped at night at some tavern 
 which increasing immigration into the Territory had called into 
 existence. Later, when night overtook them, they camped by 
 the wayside and cooked their meals in the open air. In this way 
 they reached the scene of their new home. But let us quote the 
 story 1 of such a journey begun October 1, 1825: 
 
 "The Erie Canal was not yet completed. At Lockport the 
 goods of our party were landed and transported seven miles 
 around the unfinished part and reshipped. At Buffalo they 
 shipped on board the steamboat Fioneer for Detroit, where they 
 arrived just one week from the time they started. Detroit at that 
 time was a little old French town, containing at most but a few 
 hundred inhabitants. Five years later it had by the census but 
 2222. 
 
 "Our pioneers left their families in Detroit and proceeded to 
 view their lands and provide means to get their families to them. 
 But few days were spent in this, and soon all were shipped 
 aboard a small boat and were floated and rowed down the Detroit 
 River to the mouth of the River Rouge. They were rowed and 
 towed up this to the Thomas settlement, about ten miles from 
 Detroit. From thence they were transported by a wagon drawn 
 by three Indian ponies, owned by Alanson Thomas, to the house 
 
 1 "My Recollections of Pioneers and Pioneer Life in Nankin, Mich,," by 
 M. D. Osbaud.— Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Vol. 14. 
 
CULTURE CONDITIONS IN TERRITORIAL DAYS 35 
 
 of Benjamin Williams, on the south side ot the river, near the 
 west line of the town of Dearborn, where the two families got 
 accommodations till houses could be built on their lands. 
 
 "My father, by the aid of his hired man, was able to get his 
 house in a condition that justified moving into it Jan. 5, 1826, but 
 it was then without doors or windows. A pack of wolves occupied 
 it the night before, and dug in the ashes and gnawed the bones 
 left of the workmen's dinner." 
 
 In 1833 a party of 63 persons left New York State for what is 
 now Ionia, Mich. This is the narrative: — l 
 
 "This company left German Flats, Herkimer County, New 
 York, April 25, on the boat Walk-in- tke- Water, of Utica. This 
 boat was propelled, or rather towed, by horses, the company hav- 
 ing five. A small stable was in the bow of the boat for their 
 accommonation. The cabin was located in the stern with the 
 kitchen, the midships being used for dining hall, sleeping place, 
 and storage of goods. They reached Buffalo, May 7, where the 
 boat was disposed of. A vessel called the Atlantic was chartered 
 to take the great bulk of the goods to Grand Haven. At Detroit 
 this boat received a supply of flour and pork . . . and then 
 proceeded to its destination. There was at that time at Grand 
 Haven a small block house. 
 
 "The families, with horses, wagons, and a few of the most 
 necessary goods, took passage on the steamer Superior, reaching 
 Detroit May 10. On the 12th, having everything in readiness, the 
 caravan started, a covered wagon to each family. My impression 
 is that there were two horses and four ox teams. When night 
 came it was sometimes necessary to pitch a tent, perhaps a tent 
 for each family. They reached Pontiac, May 14th, Fuller's in 
 Oakland County on the 15th, and Gage's on the 16th. They 
 camped in the woods on the 17th, were at Saline on the 18th and 
 19th, and camped out from the 26th to the 28th. A part of the 
 way it was necessary to cut their own road. During the last 
 stage of the journey a child of Samuel Dexter was taken sick and 
 
 1 "The First Settlement of Ionia," by P. H- Taylor, Michigan Pioneer and 
 Historical Collections. Vol. 14. 
 
36 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 died while the wagons were moving. The company came to a 
 halt near or at Muskrat Creek, where the babe was buried. The 
 death and burial of this child was the one marked event of the 
 whole journey. 
 
 "On May 27th the company reached Grand River, near 
 Lyons; forded the river and travelled across the prairie to Gen- 
 eroville, where they again forded and camped for the night. On 
 the morning of the 2Sth they started again, following an Indian 
 trail on the north side of the river, crossed Prairie Creek very 
 near where the dam now is, and came to their final halt before 
 noon, having been on the road from Detroit from the 12tli to the 
 28th." 
 
 Frequently the settler came to a log house already prepared. 
 More often, however, one had to be built after arrival on the site 
 of the homestead. In the case of the company whose Odyssey 
 we have quoted at such length, bark wigwams which were 
 bought from the Indians sheltered the people till they erected 
 cabins of their own. 
 
 As a rule, the log house of the early days was an unpretentious 
 structure. There are log houses in the state yet, but such 
 as still do service for dwellings are regal in their appointments 
 compared with the typical cabin of three-quarters of a century 
 ago. DeTocqueville, a famous French student of American 
 institutions, in 1831 spent what he called "Quinze Jours au Desert 
 — Two Weeks in the Wilderness" — in Michigan, and has left us 
 a description of the usual settler's home. It was thirty feet 
 long, twenty feet wide, and iifteen feet high, with one room and 
 one window; a fireplace, over which hung a rifle and a deer skin; 
 on the wall a map of the United States; near by on a shelf a few 
 miscellaneous books, among which was a much-worn Bible, and 
 sometimes a copy of Milton, or Shakespeare; the furniture a 
 rickety table, some boxes, and a few rude chairs; in a corner 
 leaned some agricultural implements, and a bunch of grain or 
 seed corn dangled from the rafters. 
 
 This coincides with another picture left us by a pioneer. 1 
 
 1 "My Recollections of Pioueers aud Pioneer I.ife in Nakin, Michigan.' 
 by M D. Osband— Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections., Vol. 14. 
 
CULTURE CONDITIONS IN TERRITORIAL DAYS 37 
 
 "Judging by my recollections the house was 1Sx24 feet on the 
 ground. I have spoken of the walls and roof. The cracks be- 
 tween the logs were stopped by triangular pieces of wood fitted 
 and fastened in, and they were all plastered, outside and inside, 
 with clay mnd. This, if properly done, effectually prevented any 
 circulation of air through the walls. The house was built on the 
 south bank of the river and fronted south. It had but one out- 
 side door— located in the middle of the south side. There was 
 one twelve-light window of 7x9 glass in each of the sides. The 
 door was a battened one, and it and the windows and their case- 
 ments were stained red. The brick fireplace and hearth were in 
 the middle of the east end; an iron crane hung to the north 
 jamb, suspended from which were several pot hooks, on which 
 the kettles were hung when used in cooking. The bricks of the 
 fireplace were laid in clay mortar. The ground story contained 
 but one room; this room was used for kitchen, dining-room, 
 bedroom, and parlor, and sometimes, as was common with us, for 
 a shop. In cold weather my father brought his work-bench into 
 the house whenever he had sash or doors, coffins, or other small 
 articles to make." 
 
 "In the southeast corner stood a ladder leading to the attic. 
 The dishes, and other culinary apparatus, together with a chest 
 holding provisions, were kept in the northeast corner. The two 
 west corners held each a bed, with a trundle bed under one of 
 them. A trap door in the floor led to the cellar. The kitchen 
 table set against the north wall, and over it hung the looking- 
 glass. Between the bed and against the logs at the west side of 
 the room stood a cherry bureau, a leather-covered trunk, and a 
 candle stand. Standing about the room were a half-dozen 
 straight-back, splint-bottom chairs, including a large and a 
 small rocker, several three-legged stools, and a cradle. This 
 last article was as indispensable among the pioneers as else- 
 where, in every thrifty family. This particular one was made by 
 my father of white wood boards, and after the most approved 
 plan of the times. ... In time of use, the flax and wool 
 spinning wheels were also on this floor. At other times they 
 were both in the attic." 
 
38 JOHN D. PIKRCK 
 
 "Suspended from a beam overhead by two hooks hung the 
 trusty flintlock rifle. Hanging against the south wall, east of the 
 window, were during the cold season, halves and quarters of 
 venison. Strips nailed to the undersides of the beams overhead 
 were frequently covered by small pieces of lumber used in mak- 
 ing sash, axe helves, gun-rods, etc., and were utilized by my 
 mother as a convenient place for drying fruit in the season." 
 
 The real trials of pioneer life came in the first years before 
 the clearing of the farm had progressed very far. Salt pork and 
 flour, relieved somewhat by wild game and fruits, were the staple 
 provisions, and when these failed they could be replaced only by 
 a long journey to some trading post or store, and at prices that 
 were almost prohibitory. If things went well, and ague did not 
 incapacitate the newcomer, he might succeed in getting land 
 enough cleared by the second year to raise a small crop of wheat, 
 corn, and potatoes, but when harvest time came it was a serious 
 problem to convert the little grain thus gained into flour, Says 
 the Hon. George Willard: — l "To illustrate the inconvenience 
 arising from the distance of mills from most of the early 
 settlers, and the difficulty of reaching them when there were no 
 roads and bridges, a former resident of my own city .... 
 who settled on Climax prairie in 1831, relates that he was nine 
 days in going and returning from the nearest grist mill, located 
 at Flowerfield, in St. Joseph County." 
 
 "Judge Sands McCamly, the pioneer of Battle Creek, was 
 obliged to use the grit of pounded corn for his family bread sup- 
 pi v, but requiring a change of diet for an invalid son, he made 
 three journeys of fifty miles each to John Vicker's mill at Vicks- 
 burg . . . before his effort proved successful. As late as 
 July, 1836, I recall a somewhat trying experience with the flour 
 question. The barrel brought from the East to the log cabin in 
 Battle Creek township, was empty. Not a pound of flour or meal 
 was to be bought or begged in the neighborhood. The last short- 
 cake had been baked and eaten, and the head of the family . . . 
 
 i "The Making of Michigan." — Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collec- 
 tions. Vol. 17. 
 
CUI.TURK CONDITIONS IN TERRITORIAL DAYS 39 
 
 had repaired to the nearest mill, located at Marshall. The place 
 was thronged with pioneers on the same errand. No flour was to 
 be obtained by purchase except what came from the miller's toll, 
 and this was divided among the waiting crowd at intervals with 
 rigid impartiality. After waiting until the second day my father 
 received his share, for which a liberal price was paid, and returned 
 home, a distance of thirteen miles with just thirteen pounds of 
 flour. Bread has never in my life tasted quite so well as the few 
 loaves sparingly made at intervals from that grist." 
 
 Another early settler of Branch County adds: — "Then, 
 1831, we pounded our corn in a hominy block, and when I went 
 to mill the round trip made 150 miles, and when I wanted a bar- 
 rel of salt I had to go to Detroit, making the round trip 240 
 miles." 
 
 Sickness was the pioneer's worst enemy. As long as he kept 
 his health he was usually able to keep the wolf from the door, 
 but once he or his family was stricken, the prospect was appalling. 
 DeTocqueville was impressed by this fact. He reported the fol- 
 lowing conversation with the inn keeper at Pontiac: — 
 
 "I said to him: The soil of all forests abandoned to them- 
 selves is swampy and unhealthful. Does not the pioneer who 
 exposes himself to the miseries of solitude endanger his life?" 
 
 " 'The clearing of the land is a dangerous enterprise,' 
 replied the American, 'and it is almost always the case that the 
 pioneer and his family fall victims to the fever of the woods. 
 Sometimes, when one is travelling in the fall one may come upon 
 a cabin where everybody is down with the fever, from the settler 
 to his youngest son.' " 
 
 "And what becomes of these unfortunates thus afflicted by 
 Providence?" 
 
 "' They resign themselves to their fate and hope for better 
 things.' " 
 
 "But do they not hope for any assistance?" 
 
 " 'Almost none.' " 
 
 "Could they not at least have medicines?" 
 
 " 'Sometimes the nearest physician is sixty miles away. They 
 have to do as the Indians do — die or get well, as God wills.' " 
 
40 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 At our breakfast table we can read a morning paper filled 
 with the happenings of the past twenty- four hours throughout the 
 whole world, and the fact occasions no surprise. We get our 
 mails regularly and quickly, we can talk with distant friends, if 
 necessary, by telephone, or telegraph. But the early settler in 
 Michigan, when once he entered the wilderness, was cut off from 
 his friends and relatives more completely than would be true, 
 now, were he to live in the uttermost parts of the earth. "What 
 wonder," as an old pioneer has said, "that the parting scene 
 when our company left their old home resembled friends standing 
 over the open graves of their loved ones." The nearest postoffice 
 was frequently forty or fifty miles away, and money was scarce 
 and postage rates were high, — twenty-five cents regular letter 
 rate, — and not always paid by the sender. Once when Bellevue 
 was the only postoffice in Eaton County, a letter arrived from 
 Bennington, Vt., with this address: — 
 
 "For Kalamo, I'm bound, Uncle Sam, 
 
 To Bazateel Taft, in Michigan; 
 When you get there you'll see his log fence, 
 Then ask him for the twenty-five cents." 
 And Mr. Taft paid it. 
 
 The early schools of the Territory were found chiefly in 
 Detroit, or among the French farmers up and down the river, 
 but they were little more than catechism classes to prepare the 
 children for their first communion, and do not deserve to be con- 
 sidered in any discussion of an educational system. But with the 
 coming in 1798 of the Rev. Gabriel Richard, a cultured and public- 
 spirited priest, a new era dawned for education in the settlement. ' 
 In 1804 be was instrumental in establishing a classical school in 
 charge of his assistant, Father John Dilhet, and about the same 
 time founded a ladies' seminar}'. Upon the organization of the 
 Territorial government in 1805, some provision was made looking 
 to the establishment and support of schools, but there never was 
 
 1 See Life and Times of Rev. Gabriel Richard," by J. A. Girardin— Michi- 
 gan Pioneer and Historical Collections, Vol. I. ; also a series of articles on Early 
 Education in Detroit, by C. M. Burton, published in The Gateway, 1904. 
 
CUI,TUKK CONDITIONS IN TMRKITORJAI, DAYS 41 
 
 any well defined system, and it is hard to determine just how 
 many schools were actually organized in that period. There 
 are many records, however, to show the operation of some in 
 which the common branches were taught, and the names of 
 several men and women who were teachers of that day have 
 come down to us. 
 
 But Father Richard cherished ideas of higher education, also, 
 which were far in advance of his day, and as early as 1806 he 
 petitioned the Territorial Legislature to create a "college in 
 which will be taught the languages ancient and modern, and sev- 
 eral sciences, etc." He petitioned the Legislature again in 1808 
 concerning a proposed academy for young women, and gave a 
 statement of the work he had already accomplished: "Besides 
 two English schools in the town of Detroit, there are four primary 
 Schools for boys and two for young ladies, either in town or at 
 Springwells, at Grand Marais, or at the River Huron." He also 
 requested that the Territorial government assist him in the 
 building of this school by setting aside for the purpose one of 
 the four lotteries of $4000 each, authorized in 1805. But it was 
 not done. 
 
 The War of 1812 interrupted all public affairs in Detroit, and 
 the schools suffered along with other interests, but when peace 
 was declared there was a noticeable awakening in educational 
 matters. Some of the schools of this later period, such as the 
 Goff, the Dan forth, the Brookfield, though providing instruction 
 in hardly more than the common branches, were well and favor- 
 ably kiinvn. One, the Laueasterian School, started in 1818 
 under the scholarly Lemuel Shattuck, enjoyed unusual popularity 
 and came to be, perhaps, the most celebrated school in the Ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 But the organization in 1817of the "Catholepistemiad, or Uni- 
 versity of Michigania," was the crowning product of Detroit 
 influences in our territorial education. And here again the pro- 
 gresive views of Father Richard are visible, though he was 
 ably seconded by the Rev. Mr. Monteith, a Presbyterian clergy- 
 man, and Judge Woodward, Chief Justice of the Territory. But 
 it took years for the university to develop into anything as pre- 
 
42 JOHN D. PIKRCK 
 
 tentious as its marvellous name, and not until Michigan became 
 a state, with the interests of popular education in charge of John 
 D. Pierce, were steps taken which ultimately resulted in making 
 of the university a school of learning, the crowning glory of our 
 educational system. 
 
 Let us now for a moment turn our attention to the common 
 schools of the Territory as they came into existence at the close 
 of the War of 1812, over the vast extent of wilderness, to keep 
 pace with the rapid progress of settlement. 
 
 The early settlers from New York and New England took 
 kindly to all efforts which tended to maintain the district school. 
 It was an institution that they were familiar with, — in it the most 
 of them had received their modicum of learning. But the coun- 
 try was sparsely settled, and a poverty which we cannot imagine 
 prevailed. As Mr. Van Buren says: ' "There was no want of a 
 disposition to establish schools, but a want of means, and a want 
 of a sufficient number of children in a settlement to constitute a 
 school. But the settlers did all they could." 
 
 It was generally the case that wherever a few families were in 
 close enough contact, it was not long before somewhere nearby, 
 at the intersection of the roads, or trails, a log schoolhouse was 
 erected. It was always a rude and unattractive structure, but 
 every bit as good as the homes from which the children came. 
 Here is a picture of one,' 2 as an old settler has drawn it: — 
 
 "The house was usually covered with shakes. The door was 
 made of rough boards, hung with wooden hinges, and fastened 
 with a latch of the same material. The windows were made of 
 twelve-lighted, seven-by-nine glass, the sash placed horizontally 
 instead of perpendicularly. The floor was made of rough boards 
 where they could be obtained, but frequently logs split in two 
 and hewn smooth were made to answer this purpose. For seats, 
 slabs with legs to them were universally used, which answered 
 the double purpose of seats and sleds to ride down hill on. The 
 
 ' "The I,og Schoolhouse Era in Michigan"; Michigan Pioneer and His- 
 torical Collection. Vol. 14. 
 
 '- "Schools of Wayne County at an Early Day," by J. S. Tibbits. Michigan 
 Pioneer and historical Collections. Vol. I. 
 
CUI/TURK CONDITIONS IN TKRRITORIAI, DAYS 43 
 
 desks were constructed by placing boards upon pins driven into 
 the walls of the house. No stoves were used in those days, but 
 instead an ample fireplace was constructed by sawing out a few 
 logs at one end of the house, and filling up the hole thus made 
 with stone and mud, which formed the back of the fireplace. 
 Sometimes the luxury of a brick hearth was indulged in, but 
 usually this consisted of dried clay and sand. The chimney, of 
 course, was built of sticks, plastered on the inside with mud." 
 
 The curriculum of that day was limited— it usually meant 
 nothing more than training in the three R.'s, and spelling and 
 grammar. There was a dearth of text-books, and those used 
 were frequently heirlooms of an earlier generation, and as varied 
 as the pupils who made up the schools. Nevertheless, a few 
 books may be regarded as the standards of that period, some of 
 which enjoyed a deserved popularity. The older readers of these 
 pages will recognize them: Webster's Speller, Murray's English 
 Reader, Daboll's Arithmetic, and Greenleaf's, or Murray's 
 Grammar. 
 
 Teachers' wages were low, — for men, who as a rule taught in 
 the winter schools, twelve or fourteen dollars for a month of 
 twenty-four days, and board — that is, "boarding around"; 
 women who taught in the summer received less — six or seven 
 dollars and board. 
 
 Not much is to be said for those early backwoods schools 
 from the standpoint of appliance and pedagogy, jet crude 
 as they were, they did their work well, and afforded a training in 
 mind, manners and morals, which was a sure foundation for the 
 coming state. 
 
 There is one other factor in the civilization of the territorial 
 days which must not be overlooked, — the pioneer preacher. The 
 first settlers were a god-fearing folk who brought with them to 
 the new land the regard for religion and the church which was so 
 noticeable in New England in that day. And along with them 
 came the frontier preacher to share their hardships and joys. 
 Though often their superior in education and culture, he was no 
 less self-sacrificing than they, expected no better lot, and 
 worked for the same rewards. The story of some of the early 
 
44 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 circuit riders and missionaries is an inspiring part of our history, 
 and we may perhaps dwell upon it a little because it may help 
 us later to estimate correctly the career of John D. Pierce. 
 
 The French of Detroit and the southeastern section of the Ter- 
 ritory were faithfully ministered to by their priests, some of 
 whom, like Father Gabriel Richard, were prominent men. But 
 Catholic influence did not affect the Protestant immigrants from 
 the Fast, and as the Territory was settled, the religious educa- 
 tion of the people was left almost wholly in the hands of the 
 pioneer preachers. The Methodists were usually first on the 
 ground, zealous in revivals and camp meetings which almost 
 always resulted in the starting of little church societies. De Tocque- 
 ville said in speaking of religious conditions in 1S31: — 
 
 "Almost every summer some Methodist preachers come to 
 visit the new settlements. The rumor of their arrival spreads 
 from cabin to cabin with incredible rapidity; it is the great news 
 of the day. At the time appointed, the settler, with his wife and 
 children, set out along the paths hardly yet distinguishable from 
 the forest, to the meeting place. It is not in a church that the 
 faithful assemble, but in the open air under the forest trees. A 
 pulpit of rough blocks, big trees levelled for seats, . . such 
 the ornaments of this rustic temple. The pioneers and their 
 families camp in the surrounding woods. Here for three days 
 and nights the company engages in religious worship, rarely 
 interrupted. It is a sight to see with what ardor these people 
 devote themselves to prayer, with what devotion they listen to 
 the solemn voice of the preacher. In the wilderness one fam- 
 ishes for religion." 
 
 And not only the Methodists, but also the Baptists, Presbyterians, 
 Fpiseopalians, and other sects kept pace with the conquest of the 
 wilds, all harmoniously working together to inculcate those 
 principles of religion and morality upon which all good govern- 
 ment rests. The Rev. R. C. Crawford, in some of his remin- 
 iscences ' of pioneer ministers tells how the Rev. Richard Cadle 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church used to come out into Oak- 
 
 1 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Vol. 17. 
 
CUI/TURK CONDITIONS IN TKRRlTORIAI, DAYS 45 
 
 land county to hold service in his grandfather's log house. It was 
 a matter of wonderment to the boy that a man so neatly dressed 
 and so handsome in features, would leave his home in town, ride 
 sixteen miles over rough roads, "and spend an hour in a log cabin 
 with a dining table for a pulpit, in preaching to a handful of 
 adults and children, and not even hint that a collection to defray 
 travelling expenses would be acceptable." And when the circuit 
 rider came, he too preached at the grandfather's log house, using 
 the same table for his pulpit. 
 
 In 1831, the Rev. O. C. Thompson, direct from Princeton 
 Theological Stminary, came to the Territory on an evangelistic 
 tour. He visited all the inhabited portion of the country 
 near Detroit, calling at almost every house, and he pays a fine 
 tribute to the hospitality of the pioneer families. As there were 
 already a few settlements in the western part of the Territory, he 
 set out in that direction, and late in the autumn found himself at 
 Jackson. Unable to make his horse ford the streams of his route, 
 he had to continue his way on foot — the beginning of a 200 mile 
 journey. But let us emote: — l 
 
 "West of Jackson it was next to impossible to distinguish the 
 main roads from the Indian trails and the paths of the new 
 settlers. I became lost in the openings, and was obliged to make 
 my dinner that day on raw turnips which I found growing on a 
 deserted homestead. Late in the afternoon of the second day's 
 tramp I entered a ten-mile stretch of woods, beyond which I was 
 told I would find accommodations for travellers. The sky was 
 overcast with clouds, and the rain began to fall before I had 
 accomplished half my task. The night set in fearfully dark and 
 gloomy, and the stillness was broken only by the howling of 
 wolves. I began to feel that my situation was anything but 
 pleasant, and might be sadly disastrous, sol quickened my steps. 
 Just then the noise of wagons and teamsters on the road before 
 me was a glad and welcome sound. As I came up with the 
 teams I found there were several families of immigrants benighted 
 like niyseif, and all bound for the same house of entertainment 
 
 1 Observations and Experiences in Michigan Porty Years Ago." — Michi- 
 gan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Vol. 1. 
 
46 John i). PIERCE 
 
 beyond the woods. Among these immigrants was the Rev. J. I). 
 
 Pierce and family; his wife whom he had mariird recently, 8 
 highly intelligent lady from a wealthy family ill the Stale ol New 
 
 Yoik, was sitting iii her silks in an open wagon, drenched to the 
 
 skin with pom in^ rain." 
 
 Such weie some ol the main e\ perieuees of the pioneer 
 
 preachers oi Michigan. John D. Pierce, likeothers, entered upon 
 
 the new and ti \ ing life ol the wilderness with faith and fortitude, 
 and he was destined to play a great pari in the Inline development 
 ol the new region. II he did more than others, it was not 
 
 because he was more zealous and ambitious, but rather because 
 the Providence of God marked him for ^reat things, and he had 
 ability t<> do that whereunto he was chosen. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TWO DIRECT SOURCES OB THR MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 Michigan's school system, under the state government, has 
 been a gradual evolution, n cannot be said to have been the 
 creation of one man, or of any one group of men, in one time or 
 place. There were leaden in thought who comprehended the 
 complex conditions and surmounted the difficulties which con- 
 fronted them, but in doing this they were more or less con 
 sciously influenced by the work thai bad been done by others, 
 
 both at home and abroad. 
 
 We now purpose (1) to examine briefly into the 
 development of the school system, through the territorial 
 
 period up to and including the provisions for education 
 to be found in the first state constitution, (Some reference 
 
 lias already been mad'- in Chapter III. to the educational COndi 
 
 tions) ; and (2) to submit a brief analysis of Cousin's Report of 
 Public Instruction in Prussia. The first study will dr. 'lose the 
 educational foundation upon which Mr. Pierce erected our school 
 
 system ; the second will B( I . to I UOW the ' OUN e of many of his 
 
 educational doctrines and principles, and doubtless will i real 
 some of tin- educational agencies which enabled him to accom 
 
 plisb such wonderful results. 
 The Ten ilorial Siliool System. 
 
 There seem to have been four logical steps marking the 
 development of territorial education: (l) the foundation of the 
 system, (2) the Catholepistemiad, (3) the establishment of the 
 university, and (4) the founding of the district system. I.ct us 
 uow examine the legal provisions connected with each of these 
 stages. 
 
 The fi-st law relating to schools in the Territory was, without 
 doubt, enacted in tin- year 1809. Regarding this, Justice Cooli 
 
 47 
 
'IS John n. rnou-i 
 
 Bays: 1 "The act provided lor tin- laying off into school districts 
 ot all the settled portions ol the Territory, and for an enumera- 
 tion oi the children, between the ages ol four and eighteen, in 
 each ol the districts. From Huso districts annual reports were 
 required ol the moneys expended in the support oi schools and 
 in the construction of school buildings. The Territorial gov- 
 ernment w.is to levy an annual t.i\ of not less than two, or more 
 than four dollars foi each child reported within the ages men- 
 tioned. The sum collected was to be apportioned among the 
 districts; not, however, in proportion to the number of children 
 in them respectively, but in proportion t«> the sums expended in 
 tin year preceding, foi school purposes." 
 
 No further school legislation was enacted until 1817, when the 
 Territorial government incorporated an institution, which was 
 known as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania. 
 it lias already been shown how this originated. 1 The act was 
 couched in language crude and pedantic, but, as has been said, 
 "the authoi had grasped certain principles which won- of the 
 vcrv highest importance, and which, from this time, became 
 incorporated in the polity of the Territory and subsequently of 
 the State also." 
 
 The main provisions found in the act are as follows: — 8 
 
 1. The establishment of auniversitj with thirteen professors, 
 to be appointed by the governor and to be paid an annual salary 
 from the treasury oi Michigan, tt was provided that more than 
 one professorship might be conferred upon the same person, 
 
 J. The professor ol universal science was the president, and 
 he, together with the othei professors, had the power to regulate 
 all the concerns of the institution, to enact laws for that purpose, 
 
 to provide for and appoint all officers 01 teachers under them, 
 
 to establish colleges, academies, schools, libraries, museums and 
 laboratories and to provide for and appoint all school officers 
 throughout the various counties, cities, towns, townships, or 
 
 1 Justice Cooley v i , • ■ •■/.•«/, 
 
 ■' See page II 
 
 Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-1898, Vol i. p 601, 
 
SOURCES 01' Tine MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 4') 
 
 other geographical divisions of Michigan. All teachers were to 
 
 )>c paid a fixed salary from the treasury of Michigan. 
 
 3. The public taxes were increased fifteen per cent and from 
 the proceeds of the public taxes, fifteen per cent was appropriated 
 for the benefit of the university. Further, it was authorized to 
 prepare and draw four successive lotteries, deducting from the 
 prizes the sum of fifteen per cent for the benefit of the institu- 
 tion. The proceeds of the preceding sources of revenue, and "I 
 all subsequent sources, were to be applied to the procuring of 
 buildings and the establishment of libraries. 
 
 We have little evidence that the provisions of the act of 1X17 
 were extensively carried out, bid, in 1821, some important 
 changes were made, which subsequently developed into the fab- 
 ric of our school system. A board of twenty-one trustee:., of 
 which the governor was a member rx-offido, was ^'ven the con- 
 trol of the university, thus transferring the management from 
 
 the professors to an independent centralized body. This board 
 of trustees was ^ivcm the power to organize such schools, col- 
 leges and academies as they deemed proper. An important step 
 was also taken in regard to school maintenance; the trustees 
 were left to depend entirely upon the income of the lands espec- 
 ially devoted to educational purposes and upon voluntary con- 
 tributions from private individuals, instead as formerly, upon an 
 income from a general las Upon the property of the territory. 
 
 This extreme centralization paved the way for the next step, 
 which resulted in the inauguration of the district system. Prev- 
 ious to the year 1827, the people had had no voice in the man- 
 agement of (he schools, but everything had been in the hands of 
 a central power. In this year, however, a law was passed which 
 took the control of the common schools out of the hands of the 
 university trustees and conferred certain well defined rights and 
 powers upon the people and imposed upon them grave responsi- 
 bilities. By the provisions of this act, every township containing 
 lifty families was required to support a school. Townships having 
 a greater population were required to maintain the school for a 
 greater length of time and to make it of a more advanced char- 
 acter. This law is, in many respects, the duplicate of the ordin- 
 
50 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 ance of 1647, enacted in Massachusetts. The voters of a town- 
 ship could order a division of the township into districts with a 
 hoard of three trustees to manage the local affairs. The exam- 
 ination of teachers and the supervision of schools were placed in 
 the hands of a board of school inspectors in each township. 
 
 In 1828, the law was further amended by providing for the 
 appointment, by the governor, of a superintendent of common 
 schools for the territory. He was required to report annually on 
 the condition of school lands and the amount of money received 
 from the rent of them. By this law, the district system was 
 defined. It provided for a board of "Commissioners of Common 
 Schools" in each township, whose function was to attend to the 
 distribution of all money derived from the rental of the school 
 section, and to arrange the boundaries of the districts. There 
 was also a board of five, designated as "Inspectors of Common 
 vSchools," which examined and licensed teachers and performed 
 the functions of supervison. 
 
 Dr. Daniel Putnam summarizes the educational conditions at 
 the close of the Territorial period as follows: — ' 
 
 1. "Provision for higher education by a university existing in 
 the state, and in anticipation of a prospective endowment from 
 seventy-two sections of land donated by Congress and three sec- 
 tions given by certain Indian tribes. 
 
 2. Provisions for secondary education by means of schools to 
 be established and supported by the trustees of the University. 
 
 3. Provision for elementary schools, to be held at least three 
 months of the year, controlled and supported by the various 
 school districts, with the aid derived from the rents of the school 
 system. 
 
 4. Provision for a Territorial Superintendent of Common 
 Schools, appointed by the governor with the consent of the leg- 
 islative council." 
 
 During the Territorial period, centralization had gradually 
 given away to extreme individualism. This condition made a 
 central organizing agency necessary and this could be possible 
 
 ' Primary and Secondary Public Education in Michigan, p. 17. 
 
SOURCKS OF THK MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTKM 51 
 
 only under a state constitution, because, under the Ordinance of 
 1787, in accordance with which Michigan was governed, the gov- 
 ernor and judges did not have the power to enact original laws, 
 but only power to adopt and publish such laws of the original 
 States as might be necessary and suited to the circumstances; 1 
 consequently the educational provisions of the constitution of 
 1835, while recognizing the rights and duties of the people, 
 assumed the responsibility and undertook the organization and 
 control of the school system, by conferring upon the Legislature 
 power to enact and execute such laws as may be necessary. 
 
 The following article was adopted: 
 
 "1. The Governor shall nominate, and by and with the advice 
 and consent of the Legislature, in joint vote, shall appoint a 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction, who shall hold his office 
 for two years, and whose duties shall be prescribed by law. 
 
 2. The Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, 
 the promotion of intellectual, scientific, and agricultural im- 
 provement. The proceeds of all lands that have been, or, here- 
 after, may be granted by the United States to this State for the 
 support of schools, which shall hereafter be sold or disposed of, 
 shall be and remain a perpetual fund; the interest of which, 
 together with the rents of all such unsold lands, shall be inviola- 
 bly appropriated to the support of schools throughout the State. 
 
 3. The Legislature shall provide for a system of common 
 schools, by which a school shall be kept up and supported in each 
 school district at least three months in every year, and any 
 school district neglecting to keep up and support a school, may 
 be deprived of its equal proportion of the interest of the public 
 fund. 
 
 4. As soon as the circumstances of the state will permit, the 
 Legislature shall provide for the establishment of libraries; one 
 at least in each township, and the money which shall be paid by 
 persons as an equivalent for exemption from military duty, and 
 the clear proceeds of all fines assessed in the several counties for 
 
 1 Dr. Hinsdale: Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-1898. 
 Vol. 1. p. 601. 
 
52 .John i>. rn.KCic 
 
 any breach <>f the penal laws, shall be exclusively applied for the 
 9uppoi t ol said libi aries. 
 
 5. The Legislature shall take measures for the protection, 
 improvement, or other disposition <>f such lands as have heen or 
 may hereaftei be granted by the United States to this State- for 
 the support of a university; and the funds accruing from the 
 rents or sale of such lands, or from any other source for the pUl 
 posa aforesaid, shall be and remain a permanent fund for the 
 
 su|i|)oit <>f said University, with such branches as the public 
 convenience may hereafter demand for the promotion of litera- 
 ture, the aits and sciences and as may be authorized by the 
 
 terms of such grant ; and it shall he the duty of the Legislature, 
 as soon as may he, to provide effectual means for the improve- 
 ment and permanent security ol the funds of said University." 
 Cousin's Report of t lie Prussian Schools. 
 
 lua previous chapter reference has heen made to this report, and 
 it has heen shown how it hecanie a part of America's educational 
 inheritance, and how it came into the hands of Mr. Pierce. ' As 
 it doubtless influenced him in transforming the old territorial 
 plan into the new system, we now wish to examine it more in 
 detail in order to hrin^ its main principles clearly before the 
 reader. 
 
 Mr. Taylor's preface to the report is exceedingly suggestive 
 
 and interesting, in so far as it directs the attention of the reader 
 
 to educational tendencies and dangers in America, and hints at a 
 remedy, lie emphasizes the necessity of the different stati 
 ing the school fund at a sum sufficient for the entire support of 
 the schools; speaks of the necesssity for trained teachers, and 
 urges the desirability of a separate oflicer of public instruction, 
 lie shows the value of public libraries and su^c,csts the publica- 
 tion, by the government, of an educational magazine so be sent 
 to all of the schools. In conclusion, he shows that the district 
 school is the source of national intelligence and that universal 
 education is the only true security of life and properly. 
 
 The Report proper naturally divides itself into four parts as 
 follows: — 
 
 1 .See paste 19. 
 
SOURCES OF THE MICHIGAN school system 53 
 
 1, General organization of public instruction ill Prussia. 
 
 2. Primary instruction. 
 .3. Secondary instruction. 
 
 4. Higher instruction or Universities. 
 
 The American edition of the Report, being the one that came 
 into the hands of Mr. fierce, deals witli tlie first two parts only. 
 In the analysis of these two, marked emphasis is placed 
 upon those facts and principles that appear to have exerted an 
 influence upon the founder of the Michigan system. 
 
 Let it be remembered that the Prussian system is a highly 
 Centralized one and, therefore, the one officer of tin- greatest 
 rank and endowed with almost unlimited power is the Ministi i 
 of Public Instruction. This office embraces everything relating 
 to science and in consequence all schools and libraries and all 
 kindred institutions, such as botanical gardens, niM,eumS| cabi- 
 the lower schools of surgery and medicine, and academies 
 of music, all come, cither directly or indirectly, under his BUpei - 
 vision. The superintendence of ecclesiastical affairs is likewise 
 united to that of public instruction. 
 
 The minister has around him a council, which is divided into 
 three sections, which correspond to the three branches of his 
 office, viz: — a section for churcn affairs, composed ol a certain 
 number of councilors, mostly clergymen, with a director at their 
 head; a section for public instruction, also composed of a certain 
 number of councilors, almost all laymen, with a director; and a 
 section for medicine, with its councilors and director. From 
 time to time, the minister meets with these councils and directs 
 their work and it is through this central administration that all 
 the parts of public instruction are directed throughout the whole 
 extent of the monarchy. 
 
 Prussia is divided into ten provinces. Each of these provinces 
 is divided into departments which comprise an area of greatei 
 or less extent. Each department is again sub-divided into what 
 are called circles, and each circle is divided into parishes. 
 
 Almost every province has its university, with its own man - 
 aging board and authorities elected by itself. It is under the 
 superintendence of a Poyal Consistory, nominated by the min- 
 
54 JOHN D. PIKRCE 
 
 ister of instruction aud in direct communication with, and 
 responsible to him. He is the only mediator between the uni- 
 versity and the minister. 
 
 In every province, under the direction of the supreme presi- 
 dent, is an institution which is both connected with, and depend- 
 ent upon the Ministry of Public Instruction, and, in a way, in its 
 internal organization, is a copy of the councils mentioned above. 
 They are called Provincial Consistories aud, as the Ministry is 
 divided into three sections, corresponding to the three lines of 
 administration, so we see here a similar sub-division into (1) a 
 section for ecclesiastical affairs, called the Consistory, (2) for 
 public instruction, called the School Board, and {?) for affairs 
 connected with public health, called the Medical Board. The 
 functions of the school board are of interest to us because its 
 domain is secondary instruction ; it has to deal with the gym- 
 nasia and those higher common schools and progymnasia which 
 form an intermediate link between primary and secondary educa- 
 tion. All seminaries, devoted to the training of teachers, come 
 under its jurisdiction, and it has a will in all the more important 
 questions relating to primary instruction. Attached to the School 
 Board is a Commission of Examination, composed of the pro- 
 fessors of the university. Its function is two-fold: to examine 
 pupils of the gymnasia who wish to enter the university, and to 
 examine those who apply for situations as teachers in the 
 gymnasia. 
 
 By the law of the land, every parish must have a school, and, 
 by virtue of his office, the pastor is its inspector. Associated 
 with him is a committee of administration and superintendence, 
 composed of some of the most important persons in the parish. 
 In the chief town of the circle, there is to be found, also, 
 another inspector, whose authority extends to all of the schools 
 of the circle. He, also, is a clergyman. 
 
 In Prussia, all public servants are paid for their services and 
 as no post whatever can be obtained without passing through 
 the most rigorous examination, they are all able and enlightened 
 men. And, as the)' are taken from every class of society, they 
 
SOURCES OF THE MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 55 
 
 bring to the exercise of their duties the general spirit of the 
 nation. 
 
 Primary instruction is parochial and departmental; at the 
 same time, it is subject to the authority and direction of the min- 
 ister of instruction and is responsible to him. This double char- 
 acter is consequent upon the very nature of those institutions 
 which require both the superintendence of local powers and the 
 guidance of a superior hand, harmonizing the whole. This 
 double character is represented by the school councilor, who has 
 a seat in the council of the department and is responsible both to 
 the ministry of the interior and to that of public instruction. 
 
 All secondary instruction is under the direct care of the school 
 board, the members of which are nominated by the minister of 
 public instruction. All higher instruction has for its organ and 
 its head the royal commissary, who acts under the immediate 
 authority of the minister. Nothing, therefore, escapes the eye 
 and power of this officer and yet each of these departments of 
 public instruction enjoys a sufficient liberty of action. The 
 universities belong to the state alone, secondary instruction to 
 the provinces, and primary instruction to the ministerial depart- 
 ment and to the parishes. The aim of the entire organization of 
 the school system is to leave the details to local powers and to 
 reserve to the minister of public instruction and his council the 
 direction and general impulse given to the whole. 
 
 Under the organization of primary instruction, the report 
 deals quite in detail with many topics of a practical character. 
 It discusses the duty of parents to send their children to the 
 primary schools and the duty of each parish to maintain such 
 a school at its own cost. Much attention is devoted to the 
 question of the training of teachers, mode of appointment, pro- 
 motions, grading, etc. Finally, accompanying the report, were 
 plans of school- houses, outlines of courses of study, and pro- 
 grams of work, all of which would be very suggestive to one 
 about to undertake the organization of a new system. Special 
 reference will be made to these as necessity requires in making a 
 comparison of the systems. 
 
PART II. JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 THE FOUNDER OF THE MICHIGAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 KVkl.Y YEARS IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 The Pierce family is an old one in New England, John Pierce, 
 the fust cf the line in America, having settled at Watertown, 
 Mass., in the year 1637. The conditions of life in the pioneer 
 
 days of the colonics, though hard and primitive, only served to 
 hring out the more native vigor of this race, and as one examines 
 the records of the family he is impressed with the fact that its 
 men and women have been unusually sturdy in mind and body. 
 The most of them have lived quiet lives, content only if they 
 were worthy citizens and industrious and upright parents. Rut 
 some like Gen. Benjamin Tierce, one time governor of New 
 Hampshire, his son Franklin l!. Pierce, president of the United 
 .States, and his cousin, the subject of this volume, have had dis- 
 tinguished careers, and played creditable parts in the history of 
 their country. 
 
 John Davis Tierce, the only son of Gad Tierce and Sarah 
 Davis Tierce, was born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, Feb, 18, 
 1797. When we recall that Washington was still president at 
 that time we realize a little better, perhaps, how far back in our 
 history the life of this man takes us, and how young we are as a 
 people among the nations of the earth. 
 
 The father, Gad Pierce, was a typical Yankee, tall, of power- 
 ful physique, and intelligent, but somewhat restless. Only a short 
 time before the boy was born the father had moved from Paxton 
 in Worcester county, Mass., to New Hampshire, drawn thither 
 by the presence of relatives and some evanescent hope of improv- 
 ing his worldly condition. But in this he was disappointed, for he 
 was seized with inflammatory rheumatism soon after his arrival 
 
 .S6 
 
KARI.Y VICARS IN NKW KNGI.AND 57 
 
 in his new home, suffered from it for two years, and died, leav- 
 ing his wife and two children, John, a haby two years old, and 
 Sally four, in financial straits. This calamity resulted in the 
 breaking up of the home, for the widow saw no way of support- 
 ing herself and the children together. Accordingly, she resolved 
 to carry the boy back to his kinsfolk in Massachusetts. She 
 made the journey on horseback, carrying her baby before 
 her, and in Paxton handed him over to his grandfather, David 
 Pierce, It is a pathetic picture, the lad at such a tender age, 
 carried away from home and across the New England 
 hills. Not long after the mother's return to New Hampshire 
 she married a Mr. Poster who already had a large family of chil- 
 dren, so there never was any place for the step-son, and he was 
 thus left to grow up without a mother's care. 
 
 The grandfather, David Pierce, was a Tory, who because of his 
 fondness for the English church remained loyal to the king. 
 Prom what we know of him he must have resembled a country 
 squire; he wore knee-breeches and buckled shoes, and insisted on 
 his grandson's doing the same. But though the boy wore Eng- 
 lish clothes the heart underneath was Yankee through and 
 through. About 1807 the old man died, bequeathing to his 
 grandson one hundred dollars which he was to receive at his 
 majority. 
 
 The lad. ten vears old and homeless a second time, now passed 
 into the family of an uncle where he was not especially welcome. 
 His grandfather, though old and out of sympathy with childhood, 
 had been kind and had cherished a real affection for him. But 
 all at once this was changed. There were already several chil- 
 dren in his uncle's family, his aunt regarded him as an intruder 
 and a burden, — and from now on love and sympathy were to be 
 absent from his childhood. 
 
 For the next few years his lot was a bitter one. Though but 
 a mere boy, he was obliged to work like a farm hand the whole 
 year through for his food and clothing. He slept in an attic 
 room under the roof, and the snow of the dreary winters often 
 drifted to the very window. Then there were the long hours 
 when he helped to 6hovel out roads, and clear paths, 
 
58 JOHN D. PIKRCK 
 
 or toiled in the wood-lot, chopping the year's supply of fire- 
 wood for the big fire place. There was actual physical suffering 
 for him in those days. The lunches he took into the woods were 
 insufficient to satisfy the hunger of his rapidly growing body ; 
 and he often returned at night with frosted hands and feet. In 
 the summer time he worked in the fields, trying with the other 
 members of the family to wrest a living from the rock-ribbed 
 hills of Worcester count}'. Such was the round of toil through the 
 year, a cheerless, disheartening one for a boy who already had 
 a taste for books and reading, and was beginning to dream dreams 
 of the great world without. 
 
 In these years he received a little schooling— not much— and 
 this was his only pleasure. During the winter months he was 
 allowed to attend school two months each year, just enough to 
 give him some knowledge of the common branches. Later the 
 village library was accessible to him, and he luxuriated in the 
 delight of losing himself in its books. He borrowed books, too, 
 from any one who would lend, and tramped miles to get them. As 
 a man, John Pierce often remarked that he had read every book 
 within ten miles of Paxton. 
 
 But no one must think that the boy was unlike other boys, 
 fond only of dreaming and reading, and eschewing the sports of 
 boyhood. With all his fondness for books he was a real boy, — 
 stalwart and athletic, noted for that physical endurance which 
 seven generations of New Rngland forebears had bred into the 
 Pierce family. And so we find him taking part in all the out- 
 door sports that he could manage to get leisure for, and 
 he was regarded by his fellows as a leader and champion. He 
 was an all-around, well developed boy, such as would have 
 delighted a Greek of Pythagoras' days, for a perfect harmony 
 had been established between his bodily, intellectual and moral 
 powers. His muscles were hard from rough toil, but his mind 
 was keen and receptive, he was gentle and genteel, and his heart 
 was pure. His bringiug-up had resulted in giving him confidence 
 in his own powers and in making him rely upon himself. From 
 the tenacity with which he held to his high purposes he was 
 called by his acquaintances "Stubborn John." 
 
ICARI.Y YKARS IN NKW KNGI.AND 59 
 
 The religious strain in young John Pierce's nature did not lie 
 very far below the surface. Coupled with his thoughtful, studi- 
 ous bent of mind was a deep seriousness which early made him 
 susceptible to religious impressions, and at the age of eighteen 
 or so he passed through that soul experience which is termed 
 "conversion" — an experience, by the way, which one comes up- 
 on so very frequently in the life histories of the prominent men 
 of New England in that early period. 
 
 The result of this conversion was to beget within him two 
 ambitions, namely, to acquire more education, and finally to 
 become a minister of the gospel. With this thought in mind, he 
 asked and obtained his uncle's permission to go out to work for 
 himself. Accordingly, he hired out to a Mr. Grosvenor, a neigh- 
 bor, with whom he remained till he had accumulated one hun- 
 dred dollars. This with the one hundred from his grandfather's 
 estate made the funds for his college course. 
 
 But he was not yet ready for his college course — his prepara- 
 tion had been deficient, still it was not beyond hope of remedy. 
 And so one December day he walked fourteen miles across the 
 country, buying a Latin grammar on the way, and that night 
 knocked at the door of the Rev. Enoch Pond for his first lesson 
 in Latin. 
 
 It was fortunate for the young country lad that he came under 
 the influence of a man like Enoch Pond, for probably no one was 
 better calculated to direct him. Mr. Pond was a young man 
 himself at that time, only twenty-six, but already becoming 
 known as a clear, polemical thinker and writer. After 
 graduating from Brown in 1813, he had studied theology 
 and in 1815 had become pastor of the church at Ward (now 
 Auburn) Mass., where he remained till 1828. In 1832 he accepted 
 the chair of systematic theology in the seminary at Bangor, 
 Me., and remained connected with that institution up to the year 
 of his death in 1882. He was the writer of no less than twenty- 
 eight different works, some of them enjoying more than a nomi- 
 nal fame, and many exercising much influence on the thought 
 and polity of the Congregational church in New England. There 
 was not enough difference in age between teacher and student 
 
60 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 to affect in any way the bond of sympathy between them, and for 
 almost a year the relation lasted. Probably from this dis- 
 tance of time no one can know exactly what young John Pierce, 
 the serious-minded, speculative, enthusiastic seeker after knowl- 
 edge, derived from the already mature mind and soul of Enoch 
 Pond, yet no doubt much that guided him in his longing for 
 higher learning and the higher life. Still the student with all 
 the admiration he felt for his ttacher did not lose his independ- 
 ence of thought. It is quite possible that Mr. Pond may have 
 drawn him toward the Congregational pulpit and have directed 
 him toward Brown University to continue his studies, for already 
 he himself was well and favorably known in the church, and 
 Brown was his Alma Mater. But he could not prescribe the 
 young man's theology. A little later we shall see — not many 
 years either— John Pierce actually expostulating with his former 
 teacher over theological matters. 
 
 Brown University at the beginning of the last century was 
 already widely known for the quality of its work and the liberal- 
 ity of its scholastic atmosphere. Then, as now, it was under the 
 direction of the Baptist church, but exercised no control over 
 religious opinions, and so in September, 1813, John Pierce, fresh 
 from the tutelage of Enoch Pond, with $200 in his pocket, entered 
 its halls as a freshman. Providence was not far from his home 
 — all the one he had — and there was a hope that he might return 
 to the community where he was known, to do some teaching 
 when his funds should run low. And the expected happened. 
 But notwithstanding the fact that he was compelled to interrupt 
 his college work each year to teach a district school three or 
 four months, at the end of his course in 1822, he graduated 
 among the first eight in a class of thirty-six. On his diploma, 
 a faded old parchment, eight by ten inches in size, one may with 
 patience read as follows: — 
 
 "VOBIS NOTUH SIT, quod Brovmensis Universitatis in America 
 
 Pretests Johannem Pierce, gradum primum in AHTIBUS 
 
 decoravit, etc., etc." 
 
 During the year following his graduation, from 1822 to 1823, 
 he served very successfully as principal of the academy at 
 
HARJ.Y VliAKS IN NHW I'.NCl.ANl) 61 
 
 Wrentham, Mass., in Rev. Enoch Pond's birthplace, it is quite 
 posiible that the latter may have helped him serine tin position. 
 Late in 1823 lie entered Princeton Theological Seminary for 
 liis course in theology. This institution was a Presbyterian 
 school just coming into prominence, and generally regarded as 
 standing ior a conservative form of Biblical criticism, it is now 
 hard to tell what drew John Pierce thither; it may have been 
 
 this very renown for orthodoxy, or perhaps merely a desire for a 
 different intellectual atmosphere. At any rate, it did not resull 
 in what he hoped, for he left in January, 1826, after a few 
 months' stay. I ii this short time the relations between himself and 
 
 the President had become strained over an essay of Mr. Pierce's 
 which betrayed an unwillingness to accept certain features of 
 Calvinistic theology. The young man, therefore, decided to 
 leave. When urged to remain he remarked that he would not 
 stay longer as "the speckled bird to be shot at." On the min- 
 utes of iln- seminary faculty this entry was made: "Mr. John 
 Pierce was dismissed in good standing in January last." 
 
 It has always been believed even by members of the family 
 that Mr. Tierce returned from Princeton to continue his theolog- 
 ical studies with Rev. Ivnoch Pond, but recent investigations 
 have shown that he studied through 1S24 with Rrof. Calvin I'ark 
 of Brown. In this year, also, lie was licensed to preach by the 
 Congregational society, and the following year took charge of a 
 church. 
 
 Id was now twenty-seven years old, and his school prepara- 
 tion was finished. Hi- had completed his studies at a later age 
 than most young clergymen of his day, but no training could be 
 better calculated than his to develop the powers of the individual. 
 In the first place he had brought to his college work a sound 
 and mature body, and a consuming eagerness for knowledge. 
 The years in which his mind had starved served only to render 
 his faculties all the keener upon actual contact with learning, 
 and we find him, when his school work was done, an independ- 
 ent, thinking man, holding to views which he could justify, with 
 a determination characteristic of one who had been dubbed in 
 his youth "Stubborn John." 
 
62 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 His studies had resulted not merely in makiug a theologian 
 of him, they had developed a speculative bent of mind which led 
 him to pause inquiringly before every subject. Like Terence he 
 could say, "I am a man, and every thing that concerns man is of 
 interest to me." He was also a philosopher and a student of 
 civilization, and later, when the occasion demanded, a philoso- 
 pher of education, ready to form the school system of a great 
 state. 
 
 It is interesting to read the little which has been pre- 
 served from that early period of his writings. His 
 style, particularly in writings of a literary nature, is 
 ponderous, sometimes involved, but there is no con- 
 fusion of thought. When once he had investigated a subject 
 certain conclusions stood out clearly in his mind, and it took 
 good reasons to shake them. His language is the language of 
 the educated man of his day, inclined sometimes to be Johnson - 
 Ian and florid in rhetoric, but accurate and forceful. The 
 reader will be interested, perhaps, to read some extracts from 
 the early products of his pen. The first is taken from a sermon 
 of the year 1825, preached from Ephesians, 6:4, "But bring them 
 up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
 
 "3. It is important (the education of children) because the 
 general interests of the community are depending upon it. The 
 whole nation is composed of families. Hence the state of the 
 whole must be as the state of the individual families of which it 
 is composed. Obedient children usually make good citizens and 
 good subjects and good rulers having been accustomed from their 
 early days to observe the rules and regulations of the family, and 
 to submit themselves to its government they are prepared to 
 regard the laws of the land and to yield obedience to its consti- 
 tuted authorities. Such children are prepared, when they arrive 
 to years of maturity, to govern themselves, and hence they are 
 qualified to make good husbands and wives, good parents and 
 guardians. Such persons are qualified to enter upon the active 
 scenes of life with honor to themselves, and with a fair prospect 
 of being useful members of society. They have been accustomed 
 to habits of industry, they have been taught to fear the name of 
 
KARI/VT YEARS IN NEW ENGLAND 63 
 
 the Lord and to reverence His ordinances and institutions. We 
 do not say that all who are well brought up do as they ought ; 
 but we do say, and we think the affirmation warranted by gen- 
 eral observation and experience, that very few who have been 
 well governed and instructed from their early days ever disap- 
 point the reasonable expectations of their fond parents. But the 
 case is far otherwise with such children as have not been well 
 brought up— as have not been restrained and instructed in earl)' 
 life. Disobedient children usually make bad citizens, bad sub- 
 jects and bad rulers. Not having been taught and made to obey 
 at home — not having been accustomed to submit to family gov- 
 ernment, they are not prepared to regard the laws of their coun- 
 try, or to yield obedience to its lawful authority. They have 
 never been taught to govern themselves, and hence they are under 
 the government of their feelings, and consequently exposed to 
 all manner of excess. Should we visit our common jails and 
 state prisons, and houses of correction and learn the history of 
 their forlorn and wicked inmates, we should find that twenty - 
 three out of twenty- five were once unrestrained and disobedient 
 children, beside being exposed to run into all manner of evil, 
 and in addition to being bad citizens, subjects and rulers, such 
 children make bad husbands and wives, bad parents and guard- 
 ians. Since then so much is depending as it respects the general 
 interests of society and the proper management of children, how 
 important that parents and heads of families bring up their 
 children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
 
 The second extract is from a fragmentary paper on Dugald 
 
 Stewart (17 1828), the Scottish philosopher, and may be 
 
 referred to his years at Brown. 
 
 "To give the true character of Dugald Stewart, as a philoso- 
 pher and as a writer, would require an accurate knowledge of the 
 state of metaphysical science when he commenced his specula- 
 tions upon the subject. Such knowledge we do not possess. 
 Hence, therefore, a few general observations is all that can reas- 
 onably be expected. That Mr. Stewart is, both as a philosopher 
 and as a writer, a man of no ordinary rank must be admitted bj 
 all who have read his works with any degree of candour and 
 
64 JOHN D. I'IKRCK 
 
 attention. It will not be pretended, except by enthusiastick 
 admirers, that Mr. Stewart excels all others, either in delicacy 
 of taste, elegance of composition, accuracy of discrimination, or 
 fertility of invention — that a considerable share of each really 
 and justly belongs to him cannot be denied — that he is nothing 
 more than an elegant commentator, without originality of 
 thought and without a comprehensive arrangement of subjects, 
 will hardly be believed, even though it should be said, except by 
 such as are entirely swayed by prejudice, and wholly destitute 
 of soundness of judgment — such an observation could not be 
 made except by those who envy him his great celebrity, or who 
 were totally incapable of understanding the subjects concerning 
 which Mr. Stewart has written. II is works, however, will 
 always be admired, whenever they are so fortunate as to fall into 
 the hands of unprejudiced readers. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "But waiving all considerations of this nature, it is proposed 
 t<> examine Mr. Stewart's speculations respecting the founda- 
 tion of reasoning. The common theory upon this subject is that 
 all reasoning, whether moral or demonstrative, is founded upon 
 axioms, or rests ultimately upon truths intuitively certain. In 
 mathematicks, says Dr. Rcid, the first principles from which we 
 reason are a set of axioms which are not only intuitively certain, 
 but of which we find it impossible to conceive the contraries to 
 be true Dr. Campbell maintains the same, and also that all 
 moral reasoning may be reduced to this general axiom, that 
 whatever is is, or that it is impossible for the same thing to be 
 and not to be. In short, the general supposition has been that 
 all correct conclusive reasoning proceeds from axioms, or rests 
 ultimately upon a set of truths intuitively certain. But notwith- 
 standing the weight of authority maintaining this doctrine, Mr. 
 Stewart has controverted the point, and shown conclusively that 
 no kind of reasoning is founded upon axioms as intuitive truths, 
 but on very different grounds — in mathematical science demon- 
 stration is built entirely upon definitions — and in all the other 
 sciences reasoning is founded on well ascertained facts— defini- 
 tions holding the same place in mathematicks as facts in all the 
 
K,ARJ<Y VHARS IN NJCW ltNGr<AND 65 
 
 other branches of knowledge. Definitions and assumed facts 
 Mr. Stewart calls the principles of reasoning, because from them 
 as a datum a train of reasoning may proceed. Axioms, or intui- 
 tive truths, he calls elements of reason, not because any truth 
 can ever be deduced from them, but because they form, as Mr. 
 Stewart expresses it, a part of those original stamina of human 
 reason which are equally essential to all the pursuits of science, 
 and to all the active concerns of life. It is true, indeed, in math- 
 ematical science that unless such intuitive truths as these — things 
 equal to the same are equal to one another, if equals be added to 
 equals the wholes are equal, the whole is greater than its parts, 
 or any of the nine first elements in Euclid, — be admitted there 
 can be no demonstration; but it is equally true that no inference 
 or conclusion can be deduced from any of them or from all of 
 them, or from all of them together, therefore no demonstration 
 can be founded upon them. J,et any one make the attempt and 
 see if he can deduce from any number of mathematical axioms 
 an unknown truth." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST YEARS IN TIIK MINISTRY 
 
 After continuing his theological studies through the year 1SJ4 
 John Tierce — the Reverend John Tierce now — was ready to enter 
 upon the duties of the actual ministry to which he had looked 
 forward ever since his conversion. In January, 1825, he was 
 elected pastor at Sangerfield, Oneida county. New York. 
 
 The future looked bright for the young clergyman. He had 
 prepared himself at great pains for a career which now was 
 dawning; it was time, also, for the happy consummation of a 
 romance. Back in Holden, Massachusetts, not far from Paxton, 
 where he had spent his boyhood, Millicent Estabrook, his 
 betrothed was waiting. In his student years at Brown he had 
 gone back to his home county to teach a winter school, and with 
 other conquests had won the heart of a pupil. She was a young 
 woman of more than usual thoughtfulness, and had dreamed of 
 sometime becoming a foreign missionary, but she relinquished 
 her hopes to become a preacher's wife. On February 1, 1825, 
 she and Mr. Pierce were married, and later they made a short 
 trip to Boston where Mrs. Pierce's brother. Col. Estabrook, was 
 collector of the port. The trip coincided with the visit of Gen. 
 Lafayette to the city, and the young couple were fortunate enough 
 to be presented to the distinguished Frenchman at a banquet in 
 his honor, to which they were invited. 
 
 The Sangerfield period of Mr. Pierce's life was a most import- 
 ant one, and full of far-reaching consequences in the shaping of 
 his future. We shall, therefore, dwell upon it at some length. 
 
 Accompanied by his young wife and his mother, who had 
 come now to make her home with him, Mr. Pierce reached the 
 scene of his labors early in the year aud at once began his pas- 
 toral duties. But he wanted still to be teacher as well as 
 preacher, and in connection with his church organized a school 
 
 66 
 
FIRST YEARS IN Tiuc MINISTRY 67 
 
 in which hoth he and Mrs. Pierce taught. Two years now 
 slipped by, years that were busy, but not altogether happy ones. 
 Up from the western part of the state, like a storm-cloud ready 
 to burst, came an epidemic of fury and fanaticism that left much 
 trouble and disturbance in its track. It reached the little com- 
 munity in Oneida county where John J). Pierce wis laboring, 
 and ravaged there as elsewhere. 
 
 To appreciate the situation at this time one must recall some 
 of the events in connection with the formation of the Anti- 
 Masonic party in American politics, a party which arose as the 
 result of the excitement aroused by the mysterious disappearance 
 of one William Morgan. Morgan, an American by birth, had 
 come from York, Upper Canada, and settled in Batavia, New 
 York. Towards the middle of 1826 it was rumored that he was 
 about to publish a book exposing the secrets of Masonry, and 
 under color of some criminal process he was lodged in the county 
 jail at Canandaigua. On the 12th of September he was liberated, 
 but as he was leaving the jail he was seized by unknown parties, 
 forced into a carriage and spirited away. His fate remains a 
 mystery to this day. In the subsequent investigation it was 
 proved that he was taken blindfolded in a closed conveyance to 
 the Niagara frontier, but his further whereabouts could not be 
 traced. Popular excitement claimed that he was abducted by the 
 Masons, and upon refusing to withdraw his book and renew his 
 oath of secrecy, was drowned in the Niagara River. 
 
 Morgan's book, however, appeared and was followed by 
 others of a similar character, and while the revelations generally 
 fell far short of expectations, under the stress of public feeling 
 there speedily developed a powerful opposition to Masonry and 
 other secret societies. All western New York was in a turmoil, 
 the agitation even extended to other states, and in the end 
 took on a political and national significance. 
 
 When this movement reached Oneida county and Sangertield, 
 there was sure to be trouble in the little church, for John D. 
 Pierce was a Mason, and had been one for several years. Con- 
 siderable dissatisfaction at once began to manifest itself, and 
 there were some who claimed that they ought not to retain a 
 
68 JOHN D. FIERCE 
 
 pastor who was a member of a secret order. About this time, 
 also, occurred the death of Mrs. Pierce, 1 and this sorrow added to 
 his other trials led Mr. Pierce to ask for his dismissal. Some 
 differences in doctrine had been discovered by those who were 
 opposed to the pastor, but the fact that he refused to sever his 
 connection with Masonry in this time of panic was without doubt 
 the real grievance of the congregation. Later, when the difficul- 
 ties were all temporarily adjusted, the whole history of the 
 unpleasantness was written down and the old manuscript is now 
 drawn upon for its evidence. In regard to Masonry, Mr. Pierce 
 says: — 
 
 "The second reason urged for my dismission is Masonry. 
 On tbis subject I have but little to say. If it was not sufficient 
 to procure my dismission two years ago when I offered to be dis- 
 missed, it is no reason why I should now be dismissed. Besides 
 I have conformed to the letter and spirit of the resolution of the 
 Association passed at the last meeting. And while I see fit to do 
 so, I have nothing more to do with it than other men; and tbat 
 is, the right of thinking my own thoughts on the subject, and of 
 declaring them when asked or not, as I deem most proper. 
 Under these circumstances if you say that it is a good reason 
 why I should be dismissed, you declare to the world in effect that 
 I am no longer a fit person to preach the gospel — ." 
 
 When the matter came to a vote, however, the congregation 
 almost unanimously asked Mr. Pierce to continue as pastor. 
 The arrears in salary were paid, and his financial support for the 
 future put on a sound and permanent basis. Believing that 
 everything militating against the success of his work had been 
 removed, he now began to plan for a home in Saugerfield. In 
 1829 he married Miss Mary Ann Cleveland, an amiable and 
 accomplished young woman, daughter of Gen. Cleveland of 
 Madison, New York, and built a house and furnished it. But 
 alas, his expectations for a peaceful pastorate were doomed to be 
 disappointed. Hardly was he settled in his new house before the 
 smouldering elements of discord broke out with new fury, and 
 
 ' Mrs. Pierce ami her infant son are buried in the cemetery at Sangerfield. 
 
FIRST YEARS IN THE MINISTRY 69 
 
 early in 1830 the church petitioned the Association for Mr. 
 Pierce's dismission. 
 
 The objections urged against him were differences in doctrine, 
 Masonry, and loss of usefulness, and his defense lies before us. 
 In many respects it is a striking document. Mr. Pierce takes up 
 his doctrinal beliefs one by one, compares them with the views 
 held by the complaining members of the church, and then pro- 
 ceeds to elucidate, justify and defend them. He argues well, 
 and cites authorities from Augustine to Luther, and Calvin, and 
 on down to Jonathan Edwards and other later writers. The 
 earnestness with which he does this shows how important trivial 
 considerations of theology were thought to be seventy- five years 
 ago. Whether "the essence of all sin is selfishness," or "depravity 
 belongs exclusively to the heart," as Mr. Pierce was accused of 
 believing, does not seem a very momentous thing now, nor much 
 calculated to interfere with pastoral success. 
 
 That Mr. Pierce's orthodoxy should have been challenged at 
 this time seems all the more strange in the light of a letter which 
 he wrote to his old friend and teacher, Dr. Enoch Pond, the 
 same year. It appears that Dr. Pond had accepted the editor- 
 ship of The Spirit of the Pilgrims, a publication recently estab- 
 lished in Boston, and designed to promote the interests of 
 orthodoxy in the church. When Mr. Pierce heard of this he 
 addressed him a letter beginning thus: — 
 "Rev. & dear Sir: 
 
 Ever since I left your friendly abode where I commenced 
 my course of study, I have cherished a high respect for you as a 
 man of learning and as a Christian minister. I have regarded 
 you as t advocate, unyielding and firm, of t leading & essential 
 truths of t gospel. It was, therefore, with deep concern that I 
 learned the other day th you had recently left your people to 
 take charge of t. S. of t. P. In some circumstances such an 
 arrangement would have given me much satisfaction, because I 
 believe you are well qualified to conduct ably a work whose ob- 
 ject it shall be to inculcate and defend t great and fundamental 
 doctrines of divine revelation. But I cannot, so far, regard t. S. 
 of t. P. in this light. I think t. P. would be unwilling to own 
 
70 JOHN D. PIKRCU 
 
 such a work. It professes to be highly orthodox; but is ortho- 
 doxy wh embraces in its arms errors of every description. In t 
 first No. it professes to give an outline of t gospel. But how 
 meagre a view of t gospel this! There is nothing in it discrim- 
 inating — nothing wh t rankest Arminian may not assent to. T 
 universal decrees of and agency of G — his sovereignty — election 
 and reprobation — & disinterested benevolence, or t essence of true 
 religion find no place. Are those things wh always distinguish t 
 gospel from all false schemes of religion to be excluded? Are 
 these things to be left out of a work wh claims to bet. S. of t P., 
 which prophets & apostles took so much pains to establish & 
 defend, etc.?" 
 
 As to Masonry, we have already seen Mr. Pierce's rejoinder. 
 But the third objection made against him was the one, we may 
 believe, which touched him most keenly, and in the light of his 
 subsequent career for fifty years, seems now like a burlesque on 
 the judgment of some very well-meaning, and no doubt pious 
 people. 
 
 "The third reason urged for my dismission is loss of useful- 
 ness. If my usefulness is lost, how came it to be destroyed? Is 
 it my fault? Has my deportment among the people been such 
 as to destroy it? Or is it the fault of members of the church? 
 Have they not said and done many things which must greatly 
 have tended to injure it? There is evidently a fault somewhere, 
 if my usefulness in this place is at an end. If it is owing to 
 unchristian conduct in me, then I ought to humble myself before 
 God — plead guilty and be silent. But is my usefulness at an end? 
 The subject certainly demands investigation, and it is my inten- 
 tion to go into it so far as to show that if it be lost, the respon- 
 sibility of it does not rest with me. So much is done in justice 
 to myself." 
 
 The appeal to the Association resulted in a complete vindica- 
 tion of Mr. Pierce on every point. Particularly was his theology 
 pronounced sound and in accordance "with the confession of 
 faith of this Association, and with the doctrines which are, and 
 have been long known in this region and in New England under 
 the name of the orthodox doctrines or Strict Calvanism." 
 
FIRST YEARS IN THE MINISTRY 71 
 
 The Association, however, in light of all the circumstances ) 
 agreed that it would be for the best to dissolve the relations 
 between pastor and people, but that Mr. Pierce should receive 
 compensation for the financial loss he would incur through such a 
 settlement. As this proposal represented Mr. Pierce's wishes, it 
 was assented to by both parties, and in this way the matter 
 was closed. 
 
 In the summer of 1830, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce removed from 
 Sangerfield to Goshen, Conn., where a sister of Mrs. Pierce was 
 living. Mr. Pierce acted as teacher in an academy for a time, 
 and also preached as occasion offered, in the pulpits of the sur- 
 rounding towns. But neither the young pastor nor his wife was 
 contented. Mrs. Pierce said the only business of the place was 
 going to mill and to meeting, and discussing the merits of quar- 
 rels that were a hundred years old. It was just at this time that 
 the call of the West began to be heard in New England, and 
 along with many others Mr. Pierce harkened to the voice. Hav- 
 ing been appointed by the American Home Missionary Society to 
 work in Illinois, or Michigan, he set out in the early part of 1831 
 to spy out the land before moving his family into the new coun- 
 try. His wife returned for the time to her father's home 
 in New York, and his mother, who did not wish to undergo the 
 privations of frontier life, went to live with a daughter in Massa- 
 chusetts. l 
 
 At this point we can hardly forbear to moralize a little over 
 some of the strange turns in human destiny. Doubtless in the 
 life history of almost every individual there comes somewhere a 
 parting of the road involving decisions of much moment in one's 
 after life. If John D. Pierce's pastorate at Sangerfield had 
 proved a pleasant one, he doubtless would never have turned his 
 face toward the wilderness. We do not imagine that he would 
 
 1 Mrs. Sarah Davis (Pierce) Foster died May 23, 1348, aged eighty-four, and 
 her grave is in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord. After her return from 
 Oneida County. New York, she lived for some years with Mr. Pierce's only 
 sister Sally (Seep. 57). wife of Edmund Hosmer, of Concord, friend of Thoreau, 
 Emerson, and Hawthorne, and himself a thinker and scholar. Mrs. Hosmer, 
 who was the mother of ten children, all prominent and successful in life, died 
 July 8, 1890, at the age of ninety-five. 
 
72 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 have lived an obscure life in New England, like so many clergy- 
 men of his day and generation, content to vegetate in some quiet 
 community, and ambitious only to preserve a strict quarantine 
 against new theological ideas. He would have grown in any 
 environment, but he would probably have had no opportunity 
 to inaugurate a great system of education for a commonwealth. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WITH THE PIONEERS IN MICHIGAN 
 
 Mr. Pierce departed for the West in May, 1831, and by the 
 first of June had reached Detroit. Here he met a committee of 
 the Home Missionar}' Society, with whom he consulted in regard 
 to future operations and a desirable field of labor. In the course 
 of the discussion the question of church government and affilia- 
 tion, and the formation of new churches, was brought up, and the 
 remark was dropped that it was expected that he would join the 
 Presbyterian Church and not attempt to organize any Congrega- 
 tional societies; Congregationalism might do for New England, 
 but it was not adapted to the wilderness. The young clergy- 
 man's answer was emphatic. He was satisfied, he said, that Con- 
 gregationalism was the Scriptural mode of church government, 
 and that if it was adapted to the primitive times in New Eng- 
 land it would not be less so to the new settlements of the west. 
 
 From Detroit he journeyed inland, but let us quote his own 
 words: — l 
 
 "Leaving Detroit, I spent four Sabbaths at Ann Arbor, and 
 then passed on to Marshall, recently established as the seat of 
 justice for Calhoun County. Arriving here the last of June, I 
 found one or two shanties and a double log house partly done. 
 The next day, it being the Sabbath day, July 1st, 1831, by con- 
 sent of the owner of the log house a meeting was appointed. The 
 entire community assembled; not one of the settlers was absent. 
 When the congregation came together it numbered about twenty- 
 five. Some present were non-residents in search of locations, 
 land lookers as they were then called. The novelty of the scene 
 induced all to attend. There was one congressman and one 
 judge from the east, and others were men of learning and intel- 
 
 1 "Congregationalism in Michigan." Michigan Pioneer and Historical 
 Collections. Vol, 12, p. 354. 
 
 73 
 
74 JOHN D. riKRCK 
 
 ligence. At that time there were three white females in the 
 country, two at Marshall, and one twelve miles west. I never 
 preached to a more attentive congregation. This was my text, 
 found in Gen. 3:10: "And he said, I heard thy voice in the 
 garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." 
 It was in}' purpose to show that without a revelation from God 
 man had reason to despair of being saved. This was the first 
 Christian assembly, and the first sermon ever preached in all that 
 region for hundreds of miles in extent, where the red man and 
 his companion hunter, the wolf, had roamed as free as air for 
 ages." 
 
 Mr. Pierce had originally intended to locate in Chicago, but 
 on this preliminary trip he was so attracted to Marshall, after 
 staying there some three months, that he determined to return 
 east for his family and settle there. Late in the autumn he was 
 back again in Calhoun County, bag and baggage, transporting his 
 goods from Detroit by ox teams. In Chapter III, page 45, we 
 have quoted from Rev. Mr. Thompson's account of how he met 
 Mr. Pierce and his party in the woods west of Jackson when he 
 was moving in from Detroit. We now continue the narrative: — 
 
 "Pate in the evening we saw the light of the long-looked-for 
 tavern, as it shone through the chinks of the logs, a sight most 
 welcome to us. Our caravan halted before the door — only there 
 was no door there, a blanket being where the door should be. 
 The shanty was only partly covered with shakes; the rain was 
 pouring in at one end, and a cook-stove stood on the ground in 
 the middle. The stove was soon put in requisition, and the 
 coarse fare was a great relief to us hungry, weary mortals. After 
 supper we prepared to retire for the night, but where to retire to 
 was the question. Some of the company packed themselves 
 away in the only bedstead, others under it on the ground, their 
 husbands next, and the remainder of us occupying a little more 
 than the remainder of the dry ground in the shanty. Sleep soon 
 came to the relief of the weary bodies, — at least it was so with one 
 of the number. The morning came, a dark, gloomy morning; 
 the rain was still falling, so we made another requisition on the 
 potato pile and pork barrel, after which Mrs. Pierce sang so 
 
WITH TIIK PIONKKRS IN MICHIGAN 75 
 
 beautifully as few persons can sing, 'Home Sweet Home,' and 
 then turned her face to the wall and wept. .... 
 
 That day we reached Marshall, consisting then of one log house, 
 and another in process of erection; a few immigrants had planted 
 themselves in the beautiful and fertile laud of that vicinity. The 
 next day being the Sabbath, we had public worship; a young 
 Methodist clergyman by the name of Pilcher preached in the 
 morning, and the Rev. J. D. Pierce, one of our company, in the 
 afternoon. These meetings were held in the unfinished log 
 house of Mr. Sidney Ketchum." 
 
 It had been Mr. Pierce's intention to settle somewhere 
 beyond Marshall, near Battle Creek, where he had purchased 
 some land, but upon his arrival from the east he was urged by 
 the people of the little settlement to locate there and make his 
 home in their midst. There were already eight college-bred 
 men there, — this fact appealed to him — and then the people 
 promised to do what they could toward his support. To show 
 their purpose they gave him a village lot with a double log house 
 upon it, which he immediately occupied. 
 
 Mr. Pierce did not come into the territory like so many in the 
 pioneer period without money or equipment. His father-in-law, 
 General Cleveland, of Madison, New York, a gentleman of 
 wealth and prominence, had fitted the couple out with abundant 
 supplies and furniture, and they were able to begin housekeeping 
 under comparatively favorable circumstances. The double log 
 house was fitted up to the extent of its possibilities, and since it 
 was the most commodious house in the little settlement, it 
 speedily became a stopping place for travellers and land-lookers. 
 With all her aristocratic training, Mrs. Pierce was a frugal 
 housewife, and she saw here a way to add an honest dollar now 
 and then to the income of her missionary husband. As one 
 reads the accounts of the settling of Calhoun County, he comes 
 upon many tributes to the good accommodations of the Pierce 
 house. But Mr. Pierce was first of all a preacher, and his house 
 served also for a church. For the first two years meetings were 
 held in it almost every Sabbath. And when the Methodist 
 circuit-rider appeared on his quest for souls, as he did soon, two 
 
76 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 services a week were kept up in the little village with cordial 
 relations. The first winter some sixty persons remained over in 
 Marshall. In the spring more settlers came, and the double log 
 house, big as it was, could hardly contain the strangers. But here 
 is Mr. Pierce's own chronicle of the fateful year: 
 
 "In May, 1832, the First Congregational Church was formed, 
 consisting of seven members. Mr. Steven Kimball was chosen its 
 first deacon. It was in July of this year that the cholera, 'the 
 pestilence that walketh in the darkness, and the destruction that 
 wasteth at noonday,' came, and two of our members died. That 
 was truly a day of gloom. Such a one I hope never to see again. 
 One of the victims was my own wife, a noble Christian woman, 
 whose lifeless form I was under the necessity of preparing for the 
 grave with my own hands, assisted by one man, and he a stranger. 
 Her death was occasioned by her sympathy for others in distress. 
 She visited a family that had just moved in from Detroit to escape 
 the dreaded cholera, from whom a son had just been taken to the 
 grave, 'for the express purpose,' as she expressed it, 'of tryingto 
 comfort them a little. On entering the house she found the 
 mother dying, the father prostrate, and another son coming down 
 with the disease, who soon after died. She was deeply moved. 
 On her return she said, 'I cried like a child when I saw how 
 afflicted they were.' Immediately after, she too was taken with 
 all the fearful symptome, and it soon became evident that she 
 must go, and in about twenty hours was on her way to her last 
 resting place; but she died in hope, — having no fear of death, — 
 praying for her two little ones. I niay add that when it was 
 known that the cholera was in our midst, many fled the place. 
 There remained about seventy persons. Of this number eight 
 died, ten others were severely attacked, but recovered; and all 
 within the compass of eight days." 
 
 Thus Mr. Pierce was a second time bereaved, and two babes were 
 left without a mother's care. Not being able to provide for his 
 own children properly in Marshall, he took them in the fall of 
 1832 to his wife's home in Madison, N. Y. He spent the follow- 
 ing winter there and elsewhere preaching, but the next year 
 returned to Michigan and took up his labors again in the same 
 
WITH THE PIONKKRS IN MICHIGAN 77 
 
 field. About this time he began preaching occasionally in Homer 
 township, where a little church of twenty members was built up, 
 and later he helped establish a church in Richland, Kalamazoo 
 County. He also journeyed about through the surrounding 
 settlements, preaching in school houses, private dwellings, or 
 taverns. In 1874 Mr. Pierce attended a pioneer gathering in 
 Marshall, and in the course of some remarks touching his early 
 days there, said: — 
 
 "I held the first meeting and organized the first church also, 
 in both of the counties of Branch and Eaton, and married the 
 first pair and preached the first funeral sermon in Calhoun and 
 Eaton counties. I have travelled a hundred miles to marry a 
 pair and to preach a funeral sermon." 
 
 During this year (1833) he married Miss Harriet Reed, who had 
 been a member of his Sangerfield church, but was at this time 
 teaching at Hamilton, N. Y., where she had formerly been a stu- 
 dent. Although her tastes were literary, and her life up to this 
 time had been devoted to study and education, under the enthus- 
 iasm of Mr. Pierce she was eager to try pioneer life in the west, 
 and no disenchantment came when brought face to face with 
 actual conditions. The women of Michigan in that primitive 
 time were of heroic stamp, and no story of our early history is 
 complete which does not recognize their courage. No sacrifice was 
 too great for them, no danger too threatening, and side by side 
 with their husbands they entered the wilderness, and left there 
 the heritage of their virtue aud fortitude. 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Pierce reached Marshall in the summer 
 of 1833, they found the place astir with activity and enterprise, 
 and they entered heartily into the life of the community. Mrs. 
 Pierce in her new home showed the same enthusiasm and devo- 
 tion to duty that had characterized her in her school work in the 
 East, and became at once a faithful help-meet to her husband. 
 Wherever sickness'ravaged the settlement she hastened with com- 
 fort and assistance; she was always a friend of the poor and 
 needy, and bestowed a bountiful hospitality upon the stranger 
 within her gates. During the absence of her husband on his 
 preaching trips, and later when engaged in his public official work 
 
78 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 for the state, she was the prudent housewife and manager, and 
 directed with skillful hand the various business interests which 
 devolved upon her. Almost three-quarters of a century has 
 passed since she first saw that little collection of log houses on 
 the banks of the Kalamazoo River. Most of the men and women 
 she knew there in that early day have long since been sleeping 
 with her husband in that beautiful cemetery on the river bank, 
 but she has been spared, venerable and honored, to live over into 
 the new century. And now at the age of 96, — she was born Sep- 
 tember 20, 1S09 — she greets the appearance of this volume with 
 lively interest, having done much in many ways to make its pub- 
 lication possible. 
 
 Mr. Pierce came to Marshall as a missionary, and we have 
 told of the zeal with which he looked after the religious interests 
 of the community. But he was a public-spirited citizen as well 
 as clergyman. No atmosphere of false ecclesiastical dignity sur- 
 rounded him. When the first frame house was erected in Marshall, 
 during the "raising" he held the foot of one of the corner posts of 
 the structure; ho was postmaster of the place and kept all the 
 mail in the case of the family clock; he also traded in lands, and 
 in 1832 we find records of his selling 160 acres near what is now 
 Battle Creek, to Moses Hall, for fourteen shillings an acre. He 
 with others built the mill at Ceresco on the Kalamazoo River, and 
 he it was who named the place after Ceres, the goddess of agri- 
 culture. He also owned a farm, and was interested in every- 
 thing that related to the intellectual and political progress of the 
 community. He belonged to various debating and literary socie- 
 ties. There is before us as we write, the faded pages of an essay, 
 "The Earth — Its History and Final Destiny," which begins: — 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Marshall Lyceum!" 
 
 When the Democratic Expounder was started in 1838 he 
 became a regular contributor to its pages. Some of his articles 
 from the time of the "Railroad War" we shall have occasion to 
 refer to in a subsequent chapter. But let us now follow his career 
 in public life during the first few years of Michigan's statehood. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 
 
 On the 29th of June, 1832, a law was passed by the Territorial 
 legislature authorizing an election in the following October to 
 decide "whether it be expedient for the people of the Territory to 
 form a State government." The resulting vote showed an over- 
 whelming desire for the change. But the coming of the cholera, 
 and the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, conspired to retard 
 any definite move in that direction, and so it was not till January, 
 1835, that an act was passed providing for the election of dele- 
 gates which should assemble in Detroit in May to formulate a 
 constitution and state government. This convention met, and 
 after much discussion submitted a constitution which was adopted 
 in October of the same year. The new constitution did not differ 
 materially from those of the other states carved out of the North- 
 west Territory except in its provisions for education, which in 
 the convention had been in the hands of Isaac E. Crary, the 
 chairman of the committee on education. 
 
 Mr. Crary was in every way a distinguished man, and his 
 memory deserves well of the citizens of Michigan. He came of 
 good Puritan stock, and was born in Preston, Conn., Oct. 2, 
 1804. At the age of twenty he entered Washington (now Trinity) 
 College where he graduated. Later he read law, was admitted 
 to the bar, and practiced for two years. During this period he 
 was also associated with George D. Prentice in editing The New 
 England Review of Hartford. In 1832 he removed to Marshall, 
 where he at once became prominent in local affairs. Upon the 
 reorganization of the 6tate militia in 1836 he was appointed major- 
 general of the third division. Here is the origin of the title of 
 "General" by which he is usually known. In Congress he was 
 once twitted by Tom Corwin of having seen no other battle than 
 that of the "Watermelon patch" in the wilds of Michigan. 
 
 79 
 
80 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 Mr. Crary's career in Washington in the service of the state 
 was an honorable one. He did yeoman service in the Constitu- 
 tional Convention to which reference has been made, and also in 
 the National House of Representatives. Much of the work car- 
 ried out so successfully by Mr. Pierce when Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction was made possible by his encouragement and 
 cooperation. Some people hold that Mr. Crary has never received 
 due recognition for the share he had in the establishment of our 
 school system, and that he rather than John D. Pierce should 
 get credit for the plan. A good deal of investigation has per- 
 suaded us that there is no real ground for this belief. Mr. Crary 
 and Mr. Pierce were intimate friends. They counseled together 
 on all phases of educational work, as Mr. Pierce's own words 1 
 will show, but that Mr. Crary was ever more than an enthusias- 
 tic adviser of Mr. Pierce is nowhere apparent. Mr. Yanliureu's 
 tribute to him is a fair one: "There was not a particle of the 
 partisan in Isaac E. Crary. If he erred in his political course it 
 was error of his judgment and not of intention. That he was a 
 politician is true. But whether discussing party principles at 
 the hustings, or national affairs in legislative council, he was the 
 same candid, able counselor in the one case as the other. He was 
 foremost among our early statesmen in discovering the wants of 
 the new state, and his master hand is seen not only in its full 
 and thorough organization, but in the establishment of those 
 institutions that have made it a great and prosperous common- 
 wealth." 
 
 He died in 1854 and was buried in the cemetery at Marshall. 
 
 We have now come to Mr. Pierce's entrance into public life 
 and can do no better than to quote from his own account 2 of it, 
 which our observation touching the organization of the state gov- 
 ernment ami the career of Gen. Isaac Crary will, we hope, serve 
 to make clear. 
 
 "It was at this period of our history that the Michigan school 
 system had its inception and origin. Gen. I. E. Crary, a grad- 
 
 1 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, Vol. 17, p. 245. 
 - Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, Vol. 1. 
 
THE PIERCE OAK IN MARSHALL 
 
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 81 
 
 uate of an eastern college, and a warm friend of education, was 
 for a year or two an inmate of my house. The condition and 
 prospects of our new State were often subjects of discussion, and 
 especially of schools of various grades, from the highest to the 
 lowest." 
 
 "About this time Cousin's report of the Prussian system 
 made to the French minister of public instruction came into my 
 hands, and it was read with much interest. Sitting one pleasant 
 afternoon upon a log on the hill north of where the court house 
 at Marshall now stands, Gen. Crary and myself discussed for a 
 long time the fundamental principles which were deemed import- 
 ant for the convention to adopt in laying the foundations of our 
 State. The subject of education was a theme of especial interest. 
 It was agreed, if possible, that it should make a distinct branch 
 of the government, and that the constitution ought to provide 
 for an officer who should have the whole matter in charge and 
 thus keep its importance perpetually before the public mind. 
 
 "Up to this period, though I had often counseled with Mr. 
 Crary as to what ought to be done to promote the best interests 
 of our new State, yet I had not thought of ever occupying the 
 position provided for by the constitution, being constantly 
 employed in the work of a missionary of the American Home 
 Missionary Society. On his way to Washington General Crary 
 held a consultation with Governor Mason, and proposed my 
 name for the newly created office. The Governor expressed a 
 wish to see me on the subject, as we were then wholly unac- 
 quainted. I accordingly visited Detroit and had an interview 
 with the Governor, about the 20th of July. After discussing the 
 matter at some length, the result was that on the 26th of the 
 same month in 1836, I was nominated and unanimously confirmed 
 as Superintendent of Public Instruction." 
 
 After Mr. Pierce received his commission to office he deter- 
 mined to go east and study the operation of schools. As he says, 
 his object was "information in regard to schools, from the pri- 
 mary school to the University; their organization, management 
 
82 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 and support. The whole subject has been committed to my 
 hands. Besides, I had over a million acres of University and 
 school lands to look after. Such, then, was the responsibility 
 and such the interests involved, — interests not only for the then 
 present, but for the future. A failure, or even a bad beginning, 
 must necessarily affect the State in its educational interests for a 
 long time." 
 
 As ready money was scarce, Mr. Pierce sold his big log house 
 in Marshall for $600 to get funds for the trip. Mrs. Pierce, who 
 was in poor health at this time, accompanied him. They left in 
 August, going in a lumber wagon to Detroit, and thence by 
 steamboat to Buffalo. The rest of the way was made by canal 
 boat, train and stage. 
 
 In this connection it is interesting to note a prophecy made 
 by Mr. Pierce on this visit to New England. At a dinner party 
 given in his honor in Concord by his sister, Mrs. Hosmer, he 
 remarked that he had been three weeks on the road from Mich- 
 igan, but that he should live to see the day when the trip could 
 be made in one. The Concord philosophers laughed and said he 
 was visionary, yet he himself made the journey before his death 
 in a day and a half. 
 
 While in the east he conferred with man)' prominent men, 
 among whom he names John A. Dix, Secretary of State, and 
 Superintendent of Common Schools, in New York, Governor 
 William L. Marcy of New York, and Edward Everett, Governor 
 of Massachusetts. He was fortunate enough also to meet Presi- 
 dent Humphrey of Amherst while travelling by stage; he attended 
 Commencement exercises at Brown, then journeyed to Connecti- 
 cut where he met President Jeremiah Day of Yale. On his way 
 back across Massachusetts he visited the scene of his boyhood 
 at Paxton and preached there. He also found time enough to 
 attend the American Institute of Instruction held at Worcester. 
 
 Nothing shows the versatile genius of Mr. Pierce more than 
 the record of this trip. He had suddenly emerged from a remote 
 settlement on the frontier, laid aside the garb of a frontier mis- 
 sionary, and now was a keen observer and investigator of educa- 
 tional affairs. The men and institutions that he drew upon for 
 
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 83 
 
 ideas were widely known, and he knew exactly what help they 
 could give him. The fact, also, that he attended the Institute of 
 Instruction, and later the College of Professional Teachers at 
 Cincinnati, is significant. These gatherings were tbe two great 
 teachers' associations of America at that time, — the one in Mas- 
 sachusetts combining lyceum features with those of a convention, 
 the other more like a modern teachers' institute. The most vital 
 questions and needs of education were discussed at these meet- 
 ings, and John D. Pierce had suddenly become an educator. 
 And yet not suddenly ; his great nature was showing itself merely 
 in a new phase. 
 
 If Mr. Pierce met Horace Mann at this time — and it is doubt- 
 ful — it was surely at this meeting at Worcester, for a great ques- 
 tion was up at the session of 1836, a question that Michigan had 
 already settled, viz., the appointment of a superintendent of pub- 
 lic instruction for the state. It was voted at this meeting to 
 memorialize the legislature to that end, but when the matter was 
 finally worked out, instead of a superintendent there was aboard 
 of education, and Horace Mann was its first secretary. 
 
 The meeting of teachers at Cincinnati in October, which Mr. 
 Pierce attended on his way home, was a source of much encour- 
 agement to him. If the organization stood for anything it was 
 for the "diffusion of knowledge in regard to education, and 
 especially by aiming at the elevation of the character of teachers 
 who shall have adopted instruction as their regular profession." ' 
 For Mr. Pierce's own views on the teacher's profession and 
 training, the reader is referred to a subsequent chapter. 
 
 Upon his return to Marshall Mr. Pierce found that property 
 had risen in value, and he was obliged to pay $1500 for a house. 
 From a financial point of view the interruption of residence there 
 had been a costly experience. He now set about drawing up a 
 report to the legislature, and his recommendations were adopted 
 practically in their entirety. The way was thus ready for tangible 
 results. 
 
 Although he kept his office at Marshall much of the time 
 
 i Article I. of the constitution of the College of Professional Teachers. 
 
84 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 while he was Superintendent, still the fact that the seat of govern- 
 ment was at Detroit necessitated his absence from home for long 
 periods. Whenever he was in Detroit he boarded with Mrs. Rlihu 
 Newberry whose husband had come originally from SangerGeld, 
 New York. It was in this home that he became acquainted with 
 John Starkweather, later a clerk in his office. Before Mr. Pierce's 
 term of office expired Mr. Starkweather bought a school-land 
 farm near Ypsilanti, and in the course of time became one of the 
 prominent citizens of Washtenaw county. When Mr. Pierce 
 transferred his residence to Ypsilanti in 1853 he found a 
 staunch friend in Mr. Starkweather, and in the memorial chapel 
 erected by Mrs. Starkweather in the Ypsilanti cemetery, there is 
 a handsome window to his memory. 
 
 Mr. Pierce's incumbency of office lasted till the middle of 
 1841, almost five years, and in this time he launched the school 
 system of the state. He was an indefatigable worker. In order 
 that the common schools should be put on a secure basis in the 
 allotment of public money, he advocated that the control of the 
 sixteenth sections be taken away from the townships and given 
 over to the State. But this was a matter in the hands of Con- 
 gress, and Congress was notoriously hostile to the ambitions of 
 the new State. However, in Michigan's representative, General 
 Crary, the commonwealth had an adroit defender. When the 
 ordinance for the admission of the territory was drafted at Wash- 
 ington, Mr. Crary acted with the committee, and cleverly man- 
 aged to have the act worded so that the desired change might be 
 made. The result fully showed the wisdom of Mr. Pierce's 
 belief. "It infused new vigor into our new-born system," was 
 his comment, and the organization of district schools, with the 
 help of apportioned state funds, became a matter of pride in 
 every settled part of the state. 1 
 
 The question of the reorganization of the University was like- 
 wise a task that called for all his skill. Whether to center the 
 energies of the state upon one university, or to grant to an 
 indefinite number of institutions the right to bestow degrees, was 
 
 1 See Michigan Historical and Pioneer Collections. Vol. I, p. 40, et. so. 
 
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 85 
 
 the problem. In order to prepare for the contest that was sure to 
 come, he addressed a circular letter in the summer of 1837 to a 
 number of prominent men over the country. The replies were 
 unanimously in favor of one central university. This was 
 Bishop Mcllvaine's response: 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Long absence from home has prevented my answering 
 your letter sooner than the present. It requires but little time to 
 make up an opinion on the question you propose. I consider the 
 present multiplication of institutions called colleges, and 
 empowered to confer degrees, exceedingly detrimental to the 
 interests of genuine education. They so divide patronage as to 
 create competition, which instead of leading to the result which 
 some suppose must be the consequence, — of elevating the stand- 
 ing of the several institutions — produce precisely the opposite. 
 An uneducated community is to be courted and pleased, a com- 
 munity easily taken with name and promises, and lists of students, 
 new methods, short roads and cheap acquirements. 
 
 "Who shall please said community the most, becomes the 
 strife. The strong temptation then is to lower the terms of 
 admission, retain the names, but lower the amount of studies, 
 relax the discipline, confer degrees on persons not fit to be soph- 
 omores, and so make the honor of a graduate a miserable weed 
 instead of a classic laurel. 
 
 "The prima laurea liberates educationis has greatly withered 
 in these parts. Where such multiplications have taken place it 
 is difficult for an institution that wishes to maintain a dignified 
 stand to compete in patronage with others of less conscience in 
 such matters. 
 
 "I consider that with the property devoted to education in 
 Michigan, you have a most noble opportunity of taking and 
 holding dignified ground on this subject, of building a break- 
 water against the winds and waves by which other less independ- 
 ent institutions are in danger of being overwhelmed, behind 
 which the sciences and classics may anchor in peace, and have 
 otiuin cum dignitate. I would say, by all means improve it by 
 having but one place of conferring degrees in Michigan, and that 
 
86 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 a university perfectly endowed and furnished. Other States will 
 supply the little colleges. Be it yours to set the example of a 
 genuine university, a mother of learning, rejecting, not follow- 
 ing the opinions of the inexperienced on the subjects of education. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 C. P. McIi/vaine." 
 
 Mr. Pierce left no stone unturned to carry his point. He 
 wrote in defense of the plan, he lobbied for it, he spoke for it. 
 In 1838, while the matter was still in doubt he appealed to the 
 Legislature in a report which closed as follows: — 
 
 "Deeming the question above discussed to be one of vital 
 importance, the Superintendent has felt constrained, in the out- 
 set of that career of improvement on which the State seems dis- 
 posed to enter, to present to the consideration of the Legislatuie 
 his views in an extended form on the subject." 
 
 "It is to be borne in mind that the policy now adopted is 
 destined to affect the literary standing and character of the State, 
 not only for the time of the present generation, but so long as 
 the republic and its institutions shall be preserved; nay, more, — 
 so long as its name and the memorial of its deeds shall be read 
 in story or in song." 
 
 Time has proved the wisdom of John D. Pierce's efforts here, 
 and likewise in another matter which has almost escaped the 
 attention of our historians. No sooner had Michigan become a 
 State than a feeling of inflation seized the minds of our law 
 makers — they were ready to countenance any project from a 
 trans-state canal to wild-cat banking, and so it was not difficult 
 to get a law passed authorizing the regents to procure plans for a 
 great university building, — plans which should become binding 
 upon the state when approved by the governor and the superin- 
 tendent of public instruction. As finally presented by the arch- 
 itect the specifications called for the expenditure of half a million 
 dollars. Mr. Pierce would not approve them, urging as his 
 reason that it was not good sense to pay so much for a building 
 that the academic work would be crippled. A university consisted 
 not alone in buildings, but also in skilled teachers, libraries, and 
 appliances. 
 
m i 
 
 ?TiXS 7 .w $ S 
 
 T» all who fhall -<■ the* ,■• 
 
 ■ 
 
 'loSfriioi. 
 
 MR. PIERCE'S COMMISSION AS SUPERINTENDENT 
 OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 
 
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 87 
 
 The stand taken by Mr. Pierce called down upon him a storm 
 of denunciation, but he was unmoved, and his firm attitude 
 defeated the scheme. After the lapse of almost seventy years, 
 Ave now see how much wiser he was than his contemporaries. 
 
 In connection with what he did for education at this time, 
 one must not forget to mention his founding of The Journal of 
 Education. The publication lasted only two years, 1838-1840, 
 but in that time it circulated generally throughout the state in 
 the interests of education, and was an able advocate of our com- 
 mon and higher school systems. ! A more detailed account of the 
 Journal appears in Chapter XIII. 
 
 i Pierce— History of Calhoun County, Philadelphia, 1887, p. 32. 
 
MR. PIERCE'S EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 
 
 A man's philosophy will determine the character of his educa- 
 tional doctrine. The world may value him from the standpoint 
 of his ability to organize and direct its affairs, but beneath the 
 surface there are certain great principles which may never 
 have been formulated into a regular system. Such a man 
 would be regarded as a "doer of deeds," and his worth would be 
 estimated accordingly. If the results of his labors be subjected 
 to a close analysis, and each step be interpreted in terms of his 
 public life and utterances, the whole may be again formulated 
 into a definite theory of education. 
 
 Education, as an abstract term, stands for that maturing pro- 
 cess by which the individual child adjusts himself to the spiritual 
 environment, which is the achievement of the race. Society 
 creates an aim or ideal, and establishes schools for the realization 
 of it. Its agents devise ways and means by which the will of the 
 social whole becomes a reality. In this way, a school system 
 originates. The educator or the philosopher may be called a 
 leader, but in reality he is directed by the society, of which he is a 
 member. 
 
 It is hoped that an application of these simple principles will 
 assist us in the task of formulating the educational theory and 
 doctrine of John D. Pierce. The sources employed are: First, 
 the results of his labors as embodied in our magnificent school 
 system, organized under his master hand, and next his public 
 utterances as recorded in his annual reports, printed addresses, 
 and numerous unpublished manuscripts. 
 
 We have seen something of the man himself and the circum- 
 stances under which he was developed; we have examined the 
 great body of ideas which influenced him, and we shall now 
 
 88 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 89 
 
 make the attempt to assemble his thoughts in a systematic way, 
 and to formulate them into a related system and theory. 
 
 Education is, primarily, for the individual himself, and, 
 incidentally, for the perpetuation and glory of the state. Each 
 is mutually dependent upon the other. The individual, there- 
 fore, has a two -fold function and performs a double duty — a duty 
 to himself and a duty to others, through society. 
 
 As we look upon the beauties of nature and see the manifesta- 
 tions of the wisdom of a wise Creator, everything is hopeful. 
 "Whatever may have been the forbidding aspect of the past, and 
 whatever may be the indications of the future, a noble destiny 
 awaits the race. The earth is to be a delightsome land — a garden 
 of paradise, filled with a ransomed, joyous people." Man's high 
 destiny is certain, and the future is perfect. Man is, therefore, 
 placed in a beautiful environment. His universe is under a per- 
 fect and pre-established law, and everything moves with certainty 
 and in perfect harmony. Stability, beauty and order characterize 
 everything. Man has every faculty of soul, every susceptibility 
 of mind, and every taste combined in his noble existence. All is 
 nicely and delicately adjusted and adapted to the full enjoyment 
 of the same endless round of harmonious grandeur and existence, 
 and thus he stood forth in his original condition, fully matured, 
 and the noblest product of the Creator's workmanship. But 
 through sin he became incapable of the fullest enjoyment of 
 Nature and Nature's God, and, though he lived with his fellow 
 man in society, and seemingly is in perfect harmony with all 
 creation, this cannot be truly real until he, in the exercise of his 
 free will, accepts the ransom and follows the example of the Per- 
 fect man; — "A man more noble and exalted shall reign in right- 
 eousness. Behold the man, the perfection of beauty, — he shall 
 repair the ruin, and in him all the kindreds of the earth be 
 blessed." Mr. Pierce then proceeds to show that originally the 
 Church was the institution ordained for the purpose of leading 
 man into the perfect life, but, with the development of the state 
 through the home, the creation of the school became one of the 
 great institutions, to be used by the state to bring man back into 
 harmony with the universe, and, by so doing, consummate a 
 
90 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 double purpose— the perfection of the individual character, and 
 through it, make secure the perpetuation of the state. The 
 state, in caring for the individual, makes itself secure; the indi- 
 vidual, in accepting this bounty, is insured freedom and hap- 
 piness. This will afford a solution of the great world question — 
 of the relation of the man to the institution — and, at the same 
 time, recognize the equal importance of Church and State. The 
 one, cultivating the feelings; and the other, exercising the 
 powers of reason. Therefore, he says; "Let the school house 
 and the church be planted, as they ever have been, in every vil- 
 lage and hamlet throughout the length and breadth of our land, 
 and no tyrant can ever arise that shall be strong enough to 
 trample upon and tread down the rights of the people." 
 
 This was the philosophy of education which actuated Mr. 
 Pierce in the organization of the Michigan System. It will be 
 necessary, however, to examine his conception of the state and 
 the individual, and their mutual relationship, in greater detail, 
 before we can form an adequate idea of his meaning of education, 
 or understand the reasons for the means adopted in the realiza- 
 tion of its aim. 
 
 Nowhere in his writings does he clearly define the state. It 
 is left to the reader to infer his meaning from what he says 
 regarding the individual, and his rights and duties. He speaks 
 of the obligations and prerogatives of the state, and the relations 
 which exist between the individual and it. While the state 
 appears supreme, it is always the citizen that makes it what it is. 
 Our form of government assumes to be founded on those prin- 
 ciples. Knowledge is an element essential to its existence and 
 vigorous action; perpetuation of the government, and the sov- 
 ereignty of the state depend upon the intelligence of the citizen, 
 and education secures the state against the encroachment of 
 power, removes superstition and ignorance, and makes the man 
 free; therefore, education is an affair of the state. 
 
 The distinction between noble and ignoble birth is a fiction of 
 the imagination, because all men have one common Creator and 
 are born free and equal. "The blood of the hard-handed laborer 
 is just as royal as that of the king on the throne." Men are 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 91 
 
 equal and free under the law, but they can only maintain this 
 through the acquisition of knowledge. As the rich treasures of 
 learning are not gained by [inheritance, and as there is no such 
 thing as innate, inbred, hereditary knowledge, freedom and 
 equality depend upon education; and, as the care of the whole 
 depends upon the care for the individual, the glory and perpetua- 
 tion of the state depends upon qualifying the individual to think 
 for himself, to reason and judge correctly, and to pursue a just 
 line of policy and conduct in all things pertaining to his own 
 interests and public welfare. 
 
 The individual, Mr. Pierce shows, has certain rights as an 
 individual and certain others which he may claim as a citizen. 
 These rights are either natural or acquired. The possession of 
 rights involves the discharge of duty. These rights and duties 
 are carried forward into the state because, as the state is com- 
 posed of individuals, the individvals composing it must transfer 
 certain of their natural rights to the state, and are, therefore, 
 under obligation to perform certain duties imposed upon them by 
 the majority. The state, on the contrary, having been created by 
 man, and, having accepted or assumed these obligations, likewise 
 acquires rights and duties which the individual is bound to 
 respect, and which the state is equally as bound to observe. 
 
 It is on this philosophy that Mr. Pierce bases his argument 
 for free and universal education, The line of reasoning was not 
 original with him. It has been employed by others, but it is of 
 interest to us because he put the theory into practice. His con- 
 tention is for the stability of the government and the perpetuation 
 of the state. This stability depends upon the intelligence of the 
 citizen, who has been made such by the state, while intelligent 
 citizenship insures the greatest personal freedom. 
 
 How the people are to know and to preserve to themselves the 
 sacred rights which belong to the nature of man as a rational 
 and responsible agent, is a question ot thrilling interest. These 
 rights are individual, social, civil, political, and religious. Man's 
 greatest right is the right to think for himself; but in order to be 
 qualified to do this for the best good of himself and others, he 
 must be made intelligent. He says: "Under a free government 
 
92 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 like ours, the all important object to be gained is to qualify each 
 individual to think for himself, to reason and judge correctly, 
 and to pursue a just line of policy and conduct in all things per- 
 taining to his own interests and public welfare." Education, 
 therefore, is the only safeguard of public and private rights, and 
 the future permanence and character of our institutions depend 
 upon the degree of education in our citizen. The man can only 
 become the citizen through education. "He may be born to vast 
 estates, to untold riches and honor, and come into possession of 
 titles, coronets, scepters, diadems and crowns, but no man was 
 ever born a statesman, or a poet, or a philosopher, mechanic, or 
 teacher ..... all was acquired by education, 
 by the culture of the original faculties and susceptibilities of 
 human nature, and by close application to study." 
 
 Mr. Pierce saw a danger which threatened the state, and 
 which he hoped to avert by universal education. He saw clearly 
 the danger that would result from the concentration of wealth and 
 power in the hands of the privileged few, and he saw equally as 
 clear that the only remedy would be universal and free education. 
 "All classes must be thoroughly educated in the principles of true 
 wisdom and virtue, and be made fully acquainted with the great 
 doctrines of individual, civil, and political rights." 
 
 The various activities of life spring out of the many and 
 varied relations which the individual maintains under the differ- 
 ent institutions of civilization, — in the home, the state, or the 
 church. He must learn and practice these duties, that he may 
 enjoy his rights. There are duties which men owe to each other 
 as rational and moral beings; duties which they owe to the state 
 that sustains them, and duties which they owe to the government 
 of the state that protects them. These duties grow out of the rela- 
 tions which they bear to each other, to the state and to its gov- 
 ernment, and the child can only become the man, fitted to assume 
 and perform these functions, by education. He must live and 
 mature in and by the institutions which he hopes to serve, protect 
 and perpetuate, and which are bound to bestow upon him his just 
 and equal rights. Therefore, the state must educate for the sake of 
 the individual. 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 93 
 
 The state, according to his views, is much more than an aggre- 
 gate of individuals. He recognizes it as a spiritual creation, with 
 supreme rights and duties. It must be protected, and is under 
 obligation to protect; therefore, the state has the right to demand 
 obedience to certain of its prerogatives. The most important of 
 these, and the one which Mr. Pierce most often emphasized, is 
 education. The object to be attained is the welfare of the indi- 
 vidual and the security of the state. To secure this object the 
 individual must be educated, and hence the state has the right to 
 require it of all children and youth, and to impose upon all, to 
 whom their management and care is committed, the duty of edu- 
 cating them, and, if they cannot do it themselves, to send them 
 to the public schools. "This," he says, "is the very letter and 
 spirit of the Prussian law," and it was the essence of the argu- 
 ment employed by him when he recommended and urged the 
 school system which was adopted. 
 
 In thus stating a need for education, he laid the foundation 
 for a wise system. The individual stands ahead of the state, 
 because the safety and security of the government depends upon 
 the intelligence of the citizen. Mr. Pierce was exceedingly 
 optimistic in all things. He saw, with a clear vision, the great 
 possibilities of the State of Michigan, when her resources should 
 be fully developed. He saw that the labor expended in the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil, in the general improvement of the country, in the 
 formation of her institutions, and the support of government 
 would produce great results, and that, to maintain this supremacy 
 and advance to new vantage ground, educated men were neces- 
 sary. "We cannot do without them; without them we cannot 
 advance or even hold our present position." Yet he was appre- 
 hensive of danger, and saw a possible failure in the experiment 
 of government. The people were not yet far enough removed 
 from the great struggle for liberty to feel secure in it, 
 and it was his desire to build on a foundation so solid that dis- 
 aster could not overtake them. In the American colonies, the 
 transfer of sovereignty from crown to people was a successful 
 experiment because of the general diffusion of knowledge; 
 
94 JOHN D. FIRRCB 
 
 therefore, he again and again expresses the thought that univer- 
 sal education is necessary to perpetuate the institution. 
 
 In his first annual Report, after showing that instruction 
 should be co-extensive with universal suffrage, and that an 
 unenlightened mind is never recognized by thegeuius of a repub- 
 lican government, and that the will of the many is the supreme 
 law of the land and is generally obeyed, he reposes perfect con- 
 fidence in an enlightened public opinion, and believes that it is 
 sufficient to cure all evils and avert every danger. The question 
 is then raised: Can any plan be devised by which the principles 
 of virtue and knowledge can be so diffused among the great 
 body of the people as the existence and perpetuity of our insti- 
 tutions seem to require? This question can be answered in one 
 way only, viz., by a carefully planned system of free schools 
 which ought, therefore, to be the property and care of the 
 State. 
 
 In his third report, in speaking of this subject, he says: 
 "Our safety is not in constitutions and forms of government, for 
 no constitution within the power of man to devise can provide 
 such security, but in the establishment of a right system of gen- 
 eral education, is the development and culture of these moral, 
 and intellectual powers implanted in the nature of man. 
 Would Michigan attain a high rank and an honorable distinction 
 in this matchless confederacy of states, let perseverance be written 
 upon the walls of her capitol, and let this be the watchword of the 
 people, till every child in the state shall be thoroughly educated 
 and fitted to fulfill his duty faithfully to his country aud his God." 
 
 Having completed his work of organization, he still urges, in 
 his fifth report, the necessity of education in the following 
 words: "We must multiply our school houses, educate teachers, 
 furnish books, procure libraries, and provide, indeed, all the 
 necessary means of instruction for the whole population, or 
 increase greatly the number of our jails, penitentaries and stand- 
 ing armies." "We must educate, or forge bars, bolts and 
 chains." 
 
 Mr. Pierce's theory of the relation of the individual and the 
 state is fundamental, and, as will be seen, affords the surest basis 
 
Thk individual and the state 95 
 
 for a free and universal educational system. The importance of 
 the man and citizens, and the sacredness of his individuality, are 
 ever to be regarded. The state, however, is supreme, but depends 
 for its safety on the character of the elements composing it. The 
 child is born into the state and must grow up under its fostering 
 care. For the first years of its life, the home, protected by the 
 state, must undertake its education; later, the school, which is 
 created by the state for a specific purpose, undertakes what the 
 home cannot do. As the state depends upon the school for its 
 prosperity, so the school depends upon the home for the proper 
 discharge of its function; hence the duty of parents and heads of 
 families to use their authority in restraining their children and to 
 instruct them in everything which relates to their duty to their 
 God, their fellow man, and to themselves. 
 
 Education is necessary in order to bring man into a perfect 
 harmony with his surroundings and the great universe, so that 
 he may be of the greatest service to the government. Every 
 human being has a right to a good education. The state is 
 under obligation to furnish it, and property is liable for it; and, 
 as a failure to do this imperils the state, its duty it is to see that 
 every child within its boundaries is properly educated. 
 
 Such are the principles that were in the mind of the founder 
 of Michigan's school system when he adapted the old to the new. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION 
 
 Superintendent Pierce's views upon the meaning and aim of 
 education were broad and comprehensive. He did not write 
 upon the subject of education in a scientific way, or for the sake 
 of the subject itself, but he gave expression to his views in order 
 that he might convince men of its meaning and value and thus 
 induce them to adopt new ways and means adapted to the 
 organization of a new system of education. He might not have 
 been conscious that his was a system, as such, and it may not 
 be even so regarded by educators, yet, by gathering up and 
 articulating all the elements, one discovers certain great princi- 
 ples which guided him in his work and which have served to 
 direct his followers ever since. 
 
 We have seen how by virtue of his theory of the state and 
 the mutual relations between it and the individual, free and 
 universal education was necessary. It is now pertinent to 
 inquire what he meant by the term education and what was 
 included in its aim and design. He firmly believed that in 
 order to preserve the principle of civil and religious liberty, 
 perpetuate free institutions, transmit to posterity a government 
 based upon the rights of man and, finally, to rear a great citizen, 
 the permanent foundations of knowledge and virtue must be made 
 broad and deep. Therefore, "the design of education is to 
 invigorate the constitution, polish the outward man, refine the 
 taste, improve the moral faculties, strengthen the intellect, store 
 the understanding, and develop all the powers of the mind. The 
 end to be gained is to fit human beings for usefulness, to make 
 them happy in themselves, while they are a blessing to their 
 fellows, and to conduct them on through all the vivid scenes of 
 time to a glorious termination of this earthly career, to a higher, 
 purer and better life." 
 
 96 
 
THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION 97 
 
 The aim of education may rest on an ethical basis and may 
 mean much or little; but when, as above, it is given an ethical, 
 social and religious foundation, it must comprehend all of man's 
 acts and include all of his relationships. A knowledge of all 
 these relationships gives a meaning to education. Education, he 
 says, is not for the sake of a man as an individual alone, but that 
 he mav become an efficient and valuable member of society ; 
 therefore, there must be included in the ethical idea that of the 
 social aspect of man. It is curious and interesting to notice that 
 much that is now said regarding the social aspects of education 
 were fully anticipated by "Father" Pierce. 
 
 He shows that education is the development of a human 
 being, the maturing of a child into a man and a citizen. Such 
 being the case, two presuppositions are necessary, a being, 
 endowed with a free will capable of being developed, and the 
 means or the agencies that he himself may use to effect this 
 matured condition. It is education and study, and long-continued 
 perseverance and application, and not wealth or power or birth 
 that makes the man. Education, according to Mr. Pierce, means 
 self effort. This is good old fashioned doctrine and means 
 something more than mere development on the part of a 
 teacher, or the awakening of an interest that is for the passing 
 hour. How well the application of this theory to the schools of 
 Michigan has succeeded in the last fifty years, is shown in the 
 lives of the men that have been produced in these schools. 
 
 "By means of the public schools, the poor boy of today, 
 without the protection of father or mother, may be the man of 
 learning and influence tomorrow; and he may accumulate and 
 die the possessor of tens of thousands; he may even reach the 
 highest station in the republic, and the treasures of his mind 
 may be the richest legacy of the present to the coming genera- 
 tions." 
 
 These words, written seventy-five years ago when our State 
 was an unbroken wilderness, and schools were unorganized, 
 speak the ideal of the writer, who saw clearly the untold possi- 
 bilities that would be afforded by an education which would 
 unfold the hidden mysteries of creation, and enable him to arrive 
 
/ 
 
 98 JOHN D. PUBRCE 
 
 at the highest degree of physical, intellectual and moral attain- 
 ment. This would make him an efficient human being, a true 
 man and a citizen. He would possess then not mere intelli- 
 gence, but the actual knowledge which is required in 
 everj' department of government, legislation, and jurisprudence, 
 and in the daily execution of laws, in business transactions, 
 manufacturing, commerce, agriculture, internal improvements, 
 architecture, gardening, finance, law, medicine, theology and 
 teaching. This is his great aim in education, and it always implies 
 manly independence in thinking. Mr. Pierce calls this true 
 moral courage. It is in this way that man makes himself pro- 
 ficient and bv so doing becomes efficient in society ; therefore, 
 the more important design of education is to fit human beings 
 to move in all the varied circumstances of life, with honor to 
 themselves, and to be a blessing and not a curse to their fellow- 
 men. "The object of education is to raise up, not to pull down; 
 to improve the condition of man, to advance the interests of the 
 whole people, while increasing the individual happiness and 
 prosperity of every member of the commonwealth, and, if edu- 
 cation will thus result in the perfection of government, it will also 
 lead to the like perfection in science, in the arts and in every 
 kind of improvement." 
 
 Having now seen what led Mr. Pierce to the formulation of 
 an educational aim, let us examine into the meaning which he 
 attaches to the term education. 
 
 Education is the entrance of a human being into an inheri- 
 tance, and the accepting and using of his inheritance to fit him 
 to transmit it to succeeding generations, not only unimpaired, 
 but improved. He did not see, in the inheritance transmitted 
 that of the whole race, but he did see that which had been 
 derived from a high-minded, intelligent, educated, moral and 
 religious ancestry. These men had lived and had formed institu- 
 tions under trying circumstances. They lived as the whole 
 world had lived, and gave to their children free institutions, 
 equal laws, personal, civil and religious liberty, and the choicest 
 form of government on earth. It is necessary, therefore, if the 
 succeeding generations are to improve and perpetuate the same, 
 
THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION 99 
 
 that they be brought into possession of this world experience by 
 becoming a part of it. By means of education, therefore, human- 
 ity, in coming into its inheritance, gains power and efficiency 
 and the state as an institution is saved from disaster an J ruin. 
 
 More recent writers upon education have spoken of man's 
 inheritance and its relation to his education in a more concrete 
 way, perhaps, but nowhere do we find one who has incorporated 
 the idea into a philosophy, or made it the basis of his educational 
 theory in a more practical way than did Mr. Pierce. 
 
 Education is a developing, maturing process. Man with an 
 inherited organism is born into a natural and social environment; 
 he is developed in and by this environment upon which he reacts. 
 In one place he says: "To educate is to draw out, unfold, 
 develop, enlarge, and strengthen all the powers, faculties and 
 susceptibilities of human nature. Education is the great busi- 
 ness of human existence." This leaves us in doubt as to the 
 way in which the process of development will be originated, or 
 carried forward. Is to be from within or from without? Is a 
 child to be educated by giving him a knowledge of the world and 
 of things, or does he become developed through his own self 
 exertion? In answering these questions, he says, first, that to 
 be successful in teaching, the laws by which the mind is governed 
 in the acquisition of knowledge must be known, and because in 
 infancy the body and mind are plastic, it is the design of educa- 
 tion to take this feeble and helpless being, strengthen all his 
 powers, and nurture him into vigorous manhood. This is to be 
 done by the communication and reception of knowledge. When 
 he speaks of the "design of education," the term education is 
 spoken of as a concrete rather than an abstract term, and he 
 doubtless has in mind tha organized agencies of education — the 
 home and the school. The teacher communicates knowledge and 
 the child receives it, and by so doing develops or matures. The 
 character of this development and the results, as they are shown 
 or expressed in life, will largely depend upon the kind of knowl- 
 edge communicated, and the manner in which it is brought to 
 the child. 
 
 Education is, therefore, a subject of immense magnitude and 
 
 LefG. 
 
100 JOHN D. PIERCK 
 
 comprises more than is generally supposed. All that a civilized 
 man is when he grows to maturity, more than he is at birth is 
 the result of education in the widest sense of the term. As 
 progress is the great law of human existence, and, as education 
 commences with the first dawn of being and is not complete 
 until there is nothing more for man to learn, the most important 
 meaning to attach to the term education is that it is a process of 
 adjustment through development. 
 
 A child is educated by acquiring knowledge. This may mean 
 that in the acquiring of knowledge he becomes educated, or that 
 the acquiring of knowledge is the end sought. More than once 
 does Mr. Pierce tell us of his belief in the harmony and unity of 
 the universe and of the reign of a universal law; and so, when 
 he speaks of all the principles of knowledge as parts of 
 one great and glorious whole, we are reminded of the modern 
 conception of "education as world building," and come to the 
 conclusion that it was his thought that knowledge itself is not 
 the end of education. He speaks of the boundaries of human 
 knowledge and the limits beyond which it is useless for man in 
 his present state to attempt to go. And when he tells us that 
 "when all is known of matter in all its forms, modifications, 
 motions, powers, laws, relations, and dependencies that can be 
 learned; when the universe of mind is fully surveyed and all is 
 known of its mighty energies, susceptibilities, high emotions, 
 connections, duties and destinies that can be learned, — then a 
 man's education is finished," we can draw but one inference 
 regarding the value of knowledge, — that "the great object gained 
 is a well balanced mind." That man is the best educated who 
 has acquired a knowledge of the existence of things and who has 
 become acquainted with their most intimate and important rela- 
 tions, if his physical, intellectual, and moral faculties are 
 developed in just and equal proportions. 
 
 The foregoing is sufficient to show that Mr. Pierce entertained 
 definite views upon the value of religious instruction, for in his day 
 schools were distinctly religious in their character, and it was 
 not necessary to say anything in favor of religious teaching in 
 
THE MEANING AND AIM OF EDUCATION 101 
 
 them. His entire theory of education presupposes this. It is true 
 that he believed that the state university should be undenomina- 
 tional in its teachings; it could be none other than this and be 
 supported by a state composed of individuals of all denominations, 
 but this did not mean that the separation of church and state 
 should result in the taking of all religious teaching away from 
 the common schools. His religious standards were high, and the 
 demands for citizens of the highest and best character, led him to 
 the common school to furnish this. He would teach religion by 
 having the teacher teach religiously. 
 
 Instruction is the means by which a human being becomes 
 educated. Mr. Pierce is clear in his statements upon this point. 
 He speaks of education as a means or process that makes a man 
 and, at the same time, "makes the state and exalts it to empire." 
 And as superior knowledge gives a power of mind over matter, 
 education is an all important end to be pursued through life. 
 But instruction is the presentation of facts, the communication 
 of light and knowledge and is, therefore, only a means to an 
 eud. The following quotation makes his meaning clear; "The 
 primary signification of the word educate is to draw out, while 
 the original meaning of instruct is to pour in ; to educate is to 
 unfold, to develop all the powers of the nature of man, while to 
 instruct is to communicate facts. Education is the end, and 
 instruction the means of accomplishing that end;" and finally, 
 in his address, delivered at the dedication of the State Normal 
 School, at Ypsilanti, his definition of education seems to be the 
 summary of his life thought and experience. He says: "Edu- 
 cation comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline 
 which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the 
 temper and form the manners of youth and fit them for usefulness 
 in their future stations of life." 
 
 Having given education a meaning and fixed its aim, he next 
 seeks for a realization and accomplishment of all this. How can 
 the ideal of education be realized? How can the aim which has 
 been set up become actual in the life of the man and the citizen? 
 This is first answered by viewing education as a science and an 
 
102 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 art and, then, by providing the agencies whose function shall be 
 to execute the principles and realize them as an art. 
 
 Education is to be regarded both as a science and as an art. 
 It is a science because it has its distinct subject, its distinct 
 object and is governed by its own peculiar laws. It is the object 
 of the science of education, while it communicates in a given 
 time the greatest amount of knowledge, to render mind the fittest 
 instrument for discovering, applying and obeying the laws of the 
 universe in which the man is placed. If education is a science, 
 it can only be understood by study. But, like other sciences, it 
 has its corresponding art, — the art of teaching, and hence results 
 the profession of the teacher. If teaching then be an art, it can 
 only be successfully practiced by one who has had suitable pre- 
 paration for his work. 
 
 A summary of Mr. Pierce's views upon the meaning and aim 
 of education may be stated as follows: 
 
 Expressing the aim in ethical terms, it should include every- 
 thing that is social and religious. The state should aim, by 
 means of education, to procure efficient and intelligent citizens; 
 while the home and the church, exercising their perogatives, 
 should aim to produce strong, religious characters. This can 
 be done only by organized means, hence the institutions con- 
 cerned should aim to provide the best possible agencies by which 
 these ends may be secured. 
 
 Education has been shown to be a maturing procsss, — the 
 development of a human soul. Coordinate with this process and 
 not as a result of it, the child, in becoming an educated man, 
 enters into possession of his ancestral inheritance of institutional 
 life. By virtue of his acquired efficiency, he transmits it to the 
 future. In becoming educated, the child gains knowledge and power. 
 Education is both a science and an art, and, as instruction is the 
 means by which it is acquired, the highest and best understand- 
 ing of this science and art is necessary for the training of those 
 who are to carry on this great work of life. 
 
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CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL METHOD 
 
 Mr. Pierce was a practical teacher, as well as an organizer 
 and writer upon education. He not only entertained clear con- 
 victions on all the educational questions of the day, and was able 
 to sustain them by means of a sound philosophy, but he had had 
 opportunity, in his younger days, to engage in the actual work of 
 teaching. 1 
 
 In one of his addresses, he gives us a description of his prac- 
 tical work. "I have," he said, "one word to say to such as mean 
 to be teachers; it is a laborious employment. I seldom sat down 
 from the time I entered the school room until I left it, besides 
 teaching five evenings in the week. And I may be allowed to 
 add that, though I have had one hundred pupils for the day 
 and forty on my list for the evening, I never had occasion, 
 except in one or two cases, to inflict corporal punishment; and 
 yet we had order and stillness in school. I have, in times gone 
 by, given instruction in all branches, and have made philosoph- 
 ical and chemical experiments, and have even carried into the 
 school room the dissecting knife and showed to the young mind 
 the peculiar structure of the eye, and the formation of the ear, 
 and other things pertaining to the animal economy." 
 
 We can see in this account something of the man as a teacher, 
 and it will not be difficult to perceive that in his methods he was 
 far in advance of those employed in the school of his day. This 
 method was not empirical, but was rational and was derived 
 from fixed principles. Fortunately, he has left much that will 
 serve us in our attempts to formulate these principles. We shall 
 proceed to an examination of the foundation of his method, then 
 to what he has to say about it, and, lastly, inquire into the ways 
 and means to be used, in the actual application of the method to 
 teaching. 
 
 1 See page 60. 
 
 103 
 
104 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 He was a psychologist of the old school. He understood the 
 mind and the laws of its development and, in more than one 
 instance, convinces the reader that he had come in iouch with 
 the newer psychology. He never refers to the doctrine of inter- 
 est as such, makes no reference to apperception and does not 
 plead for correlation. He lived before their time and yet he 
 betrays the fact that, had he lived at the present, he would have 
 given these notions a place in his system. He speaks of the 
 importance of each person possessing a knowledge of himself, 
 discusses the relation between matter and mind, and sIioavs how 
 each of these is affected by this relation. If the brain is the 
 chief instrument of mind in all its operations, then whatever 
 may affect the brain must necessarily affect the mind; hence, on 
 account of the complex nature of man, it is of the highest degree 
 important and essential that we have a correct knowledge of 
 the intellectual, moral and religious nature. Such a knowledge 
 can be secured in only one way; by self study, by turning our 
 thoughts back upon ourselves for the purpose of observing these 
 varied operations of the mind. This knowledge is essential and 
 important to the teacher because his first work is to study the 
 child and understand his nature, in order to develop his mind 
 and, in the end, perfect his character. 
 
 Mr. Pierce tells us that one of the original, innate elements of 
 the human mind is a desire for knowledge. It is not easy to 
 understand his meaning. By taking into consideration all that 
 he has said regarding the mind, we are led to think that he 
 means that, as the child is brought into relationship 
 with the things of his environment, and is led to interpret them 
 in terms of what is already in his experience, his interest is aroused 
 and as a result, he is induced to greater effort. This is a state- 
 ment of the subjective condition of which the following is the 
 objective: he says, that this desire is easily developed in child- 
 ren; they uniformly love to learn, and the more they study the 
 more they wish to study, and the more they read the more they 
 wish to read, provided the books, put within their reach, are 
 what they should be, plain and easy to be understood and filled 
 with useful and interesting matter. 
 
EDUCATIONAL METHOD 105 
 
 His catalogue of the mental powers is interesting. "The 
 rational nature is obviously three-fold, intellectual, moral and 
 religious. The chief intellectual powers are perception, memory, 
 reason, association of ideas, imagination and fancy; the moral 
 powers are ability to distinguish between right and wrong, to 
 will, to choose and refuse; while the affections, emotions and 
 passions form the heart and constitute our religious being." He 
 was an intellectualist and believes that the moral and religious 
 nature are consequent to and grow out of the intellect. 
 
 He speaks of the mind perceiving the existence of objects and 
 the relations by which they are connected. The mind then 
 remembers and feels, combines and infers conclusions, and then 
 acts or wills. This, he says, all takes place as a development 
 and follows the course of nature, but it is necessary to know 
 what this course of nature is; therefore, study nature. One 
 might feel that he were reading Comenius when he comes to the 
 following: "Nature begins at the lowest point, with the simplest 
 things, and leads onward and upward, step by step." 
 
 He had made a close observation of the process of learning 
 and speaks of it with a definiteness that does not leave one in 
 doubt as to his meaning. He had observed that children learn 
 the first principles of things and the elements of language with 
 astonishing rapidity and ease, and that the abstract sciences 
 require a fuller development of the intellectual faculties, but in 
 no place does he intimate a knowledge of the method to be 
 employed in bringing about abstract thinking. He is satisfied 
 with the mere observation, that the mind passes slowly from 
 infancy, through childhood and youth, to mature age. The fol- 
 lowing quotation shows us what he understood by the learning 
 process: "The process by which the child learns in the home is 
 as follows: an object is presented, it is viewed perhaps as children 
 are wont to do, examined more closely, the name of it is repeated 
 and he associates with the object the name of it; whenever after- 
 ward the object is presented he calls it by name. The child has 
 thus learned the sign of an idea, but, before learning it, he had 
 acquired a knowledge of the thing signified by that sign." It 
 is implied in what has been said that he would have the child do 
 
106 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 those things that will interest him. Children, he says, are 
 interested in study and their school work, but, because of an 
 incomprehensible book or a poor teacher, this interest is soon 
 lost and the teaching is a failure. 
 
 Mr. Pierce does not give us anywhere any statement that 
 makes clear what he means by method. Had he been writing 
 upon the subject of education as such, he might have done this; 
 but he looked forward to an organized school system and there- 
 fore devoted his thought and attention more to the means to be 
 employed in teaching than to a fixed method. He believed in 
 the efficiency of new and better methods of instruction, which 
 should be based upon the simplest principles of human nature. 
 He says, "If the child is properly instructed, he will be taught 
 thoroughly, and then the knowledge which he requires will be 
 permanent and it will be communicated in the shortest time, 
 which is an object of great moment." The nearest approach to a 
 statement of method is in the following: "The faculties of our 
 constitution are all invigorated by that exercise which is required 
 in the acquisition of knowledge, but each must be duly exer- 
 cised." Therefore, the great object of teaching, he argues, 
 should be to impart, in a given period, the greatest amount of 
 knowledge and the greatest degree of strength to each one of 
 the original faculties. He would throw the teacher upon his 
 own genius in devising his own special method, by throwing him 
 back upon the days of his childhood and youth, and calling up 
 a vivid recollection of his own history in the acquisition of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Mr. Pierce saw very clearly that no matter how perfect the 
 organization, or how well the detailed plans may have been 
 prearranged, success could not come to any system of schools 
 unless the proper methods were employed and the right agencies 
 used for carrying it forward. 
 
 Acting, therefore, upon suggestions gained from his study of 
 the Prussian system, he spoke in his report quite at length upon 
 the necessity of trained teachers, the value of a proper course of 
 study, books and libraries, school-houses and the necessary 
 appliances. The suggestions he offered showed his wisdom and 
 
EDUCATIONAL METHOD 107 
 
 foresight, and proved exceedingly helpful to the people in organ- 
 izing their schools, and eventually became the origin of rnuch 
 that is valuable at the present. 
 
 He felt keenly that, no matter how perfect the organization of 
 a system of schools in all of its varied departments might be, it 
 must fail in securing the desired results without a sufficient 
 number of competent teachers, and that it would be utterly 
 impossible to elevate the schools and make them what they 
 ought to be, to meet the just demands of all classes of the com- 
 munity, without elevating the character and rank of the teachers. 
 He expresses his idea of the teacher in the following words: 
 "There are chords in every human soul, and strings in every 
 human heart, that may be touched and vibrate as they are 
 touched, and it is the business of the teacher to do it. A perfect 
 school system must have a living soul. The teacher is its life 
 and vital energy, its pervading, innovating spirit." 
 
 Such was the ideal, but how was it possible to realize it? We 
 have seen a picture of the school in the pioneer day and the 
 incompetence of the teacher. Mr. Pierce saw this more clearly 
 than anyone else, and, in his practical way, would attempt to 
 remedy the evil by affording a means, first to educate and then to 
 train teachers. The training of teachers was not an original idea 
 with him. Europe had long before this opened normal schools. 
 M. Cousin explained fully the Prussian plan of such schools, and 
 the idea was fast gaining ground in the New England States. * 
 It was not possible to provide such a school in the new state of 
 Michigan, so Mr. Pierce did the only thing he could do under 
 the circumstances. In his second annual report, he discloses his 
 plan: "It would seem to be indispensably necessary, if the 
 securing of competent teachers can be brought about in no other 
 way, to appropriate a small percentage of the income of the 
 school fund for the support of the department of teachers, to be 
 established in the several branches of the university. The sole 
 object of these branches is the ultimate supply of the district 
 
 1 It is an interesting fact that the principal of the first normal school in 
 Massachusetts established at Lexington in 1839, Rev. Cyrus Pierce, was a 
 relative of John D. Pierce, 
 
108 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 schools with competent teachers." This was the beginning of 
 the normal school idea in Michigan. In the address which he 
 gave at the opening of the first normal school at Ypsilanti, he 
 said: "The object of this school is to qualify teachers for the 
 great and important work of rearing up and training, in the first 
 rudiments of knowledge, the children and youth of our state, and 
 incidentally to this main design, to provide such, as may desire, 
 the means of reaching a grade of education that may be obtained 
 in the primary schools. It was earnestly desired by me, when 
 the foundation of our school system was laid, that such an insti- 
 tution might be established. It has ever been my deliberate 
 judgment that it was essential to perfect the system and ensure 
 success. It is needed to occupy ground between the primary 
 schools and the university." 
 
 Having shown the desirability of the trained and thorougly 
 equipped teacher, he called attention next to the fact that the 
 teacher must receive adequate compensation for the service 
 rendered. While he would place the minimum salary at thirty 
 dollars for men and fifteen dollars per month for women, we 
 must remember that these figures at that time were relatively far 
 above the average salary of the present. He argues that it would 
 be unavailing to provide for the education of teachers unless the 
 appreciation of this efficiency is expressed by a liberal compen- 
 sation. "The difference between high and low wages," he wrote, 
 "depends upon education, because the educated man has more 
 intelligence and skill to combine with his labor than the ignor- 
 ant, unlettered man." He believed that the minimum salary 
 should be so fixed, that below this no teacher should be entitled 
 to receive aid from the public fund, and that every teacher should 
 have been through a regular course of training and have received, 
 from the academic board, a diploma setting forth his qualifica- 
 tions as a teacher; and finally that the provisions of the law 
 should be such that no township should be entitled to any por- 
 tion of the income, from the public fund, which did not employ 
 such qualified teachers. 
 
 A course of study is next in importance to the teacher, and Mr 
 Pierce made some very interesting and valuable suggestions 
 
EDUCATIONAL METHOD 109 
 
 upon the various subjects to be included in the curriculum. The 
 elements of an education were, of course, reading, writing and 
 arithmetic, and a good education he said might be acquired with 
 these. He mentions, however, many other subjects such as 
 physiology, psychology, civics, geography, grammar, history, 
 surveying, engineering, botany, chemistry and geology. In all 
 of his statements regarding the subjects to be taught, emphasis 
 is placed upon the practical value of them. A study possesses 
 value in proportion as it will give a man a broader view of life. 
 The following excerpts from his writings, regarding the differ- 
 ent subjects, will prove interesting reading and will fully illus- 
 trate his opinions. 
 
 READING 
 
 "A reading book is for improvement in the art of reading and 
 hence should contain some variety of composition. Every piece 
 should contain something entertaining and useful and be written 
 in plain, simple and elegant language — in such language as 
 children use, in language easy to understand. The reason why 
 children read large portions of the Bible with interest, is because 
 they understand the langauge." 
 
 SPELLING 
 
 "The object of a spelling book is not definition of words, but, 
 as the designation imports, it is chiefly to teach correct orthog- 
 raphy; and it should be specially adapted to this purpose." 
 
 "The principles of classification adopted by Webster have done 
 more to promote uniformity of pronunciation among our people 
 than all other causes combined." 
 
 "Children do not learn the meaning of words from books. 
 This is done in the house and in the open field— in converse 
 with nature." 
 
 ARITHMETIC 
 
 "The practice has been to require the youthful mind to com- 
 mit to memory certain rules and thus to solve questions mechan- 
 ically. On the other hand, when questions are solved by the 
 process of reasoning, the mind is satisfied, it has the evidence 
 
110 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 within itself that the solutionis correct; and thus a rule is dis- 
 covered that can never be forgotten." 
 
 "A child, old enough to know what addition is and how to 
 perform the process, is just as capable of understanding the 
 reason why one is carried for every ten, as any teacher." 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 "In some schools Latin has been taught. I have taught it in a 
 common school, I would not adopt any provision by which any 
 knowledge would be excluded. I would make it imperative that 
 the English language should be taught." 
 
 HISTORY AND CIVICS 
 
 "The history of our country is implied in a good education." 
 "Our young men in all conditions of life, should be taught 
 the great principles of the constitution and laws of the State, and 
 of the United States. No man can do his duty while ignorant of 
 them." 
 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 
 "Education implies a knowledge of our country, its political 
 and natural divisions, geological formation, its resources, soils, 
 and commerce." 
 
 NATURE STUDY 
 
 "Children are fond of making experiments. The philosopher 
 is allowed to make his, so should the child. More experiments 
 should be introduced into our schools." 
 
 "No education can be regarded as complete without a knowl- 
 edge of agriculture. Agriculture is most peculiarily adapted to 
 give to a people that individuality of character which is essential 
 to sustain republican institutions." 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 "Children must be early informed of their bodily constitution. 
 A man who knows what his physical condition is, and requires, 
 will not be likely to be either a glutton or a drunkard, but tem- 
 perate in all things." 
 
EDUCATIONAL METHOD 111 
 
 Mr. Pierce believed the teacher to be superior to the book, 
 and that the one who had been most thoroughly trained could do 
 vastly more with the most ordinary book than the incompetent 
 teacher could do with the best books ever written. He believed 
 in good books, however, and felt that those in use were 
 mere compilations gotten up for speculation, written by those 
 in no way qualified to write for children. "Authors should 
 throw themselves back to days of childhood and call to mind 
 how children think, feel, and reason. The language should 
 be pure and simple." 
 
 In his fifth annual report, Mr. Pierce published a list of the 
 text-books then in use in the state. It will prove of interest to 
 the reader to examine this list, and to notice the relative popu- 
 larity of the different books, as indicated by the number of 
 districts in which they were used. 
 
 Webster's elementary spelling book 548 
 
 Cobb's elementary spelling book 62 
 
 Town's elementary spelling book 14 
 
 Emerson's elementary spelling book 2 
 
 Olney's geography 315 
 
 Parley's geography 78 
 
 Woodbridge's geography 47 
 
 Smith's geography 89 
 
 Huntington's geography 17 
 
 Daboll's arithmetic 304 
 
 Cobb's arithmetic 3 
 
 Adams' arithmetic 103 
 
 Smith's arithmetic 119 
 
 Davis' arithmetic 15 
 
 Osirander's arithmetic 31 
 
 Pike's arithmetic 5 
 
 Colburn's arithmetic 21 
 
 Kirkham's grammar 266 
 
 Murray's grammar 27 
 
 Smith's grammar 65 
 
 Brown's grammar.. 23 
 
 Greenleaf's grammar 6 
 
112 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 Hale's history of the United States 145 
 
 Juvenile reader ._ 49 
 
 National reader 7 
 
 English reader 371 
 
 Historical reader 20 
 
 Young reader 4 
 
 Porter's reader 4 
 
 Testament — used as reader 116 
 
 Webster's dictionary 13 
 
 Walker's dictionary 11 
 
 Mr. Pierce said that when the necessities of education are th e 
 greatest, then the difficulties are the greatest and the means the 
 least. In his first report, he not only submitted the plan of a 
 school house, but made some suggestions in regard to the con- 
 struction of one. In the first place, he would have the entire 
 premises, with all the appendages, the construction of the house 
 and its internal arrangements, the picture of order, of neatness 
 and comfort. The windows should be high, so as to prevent out- 
 door occurrences from attracting attention, also for the purpose 
 of ventilation. The floor should be level. The temperature of 
 the room should be kept at 60°, and there should be 21 cu. ft. of 
 air to each pupil. He recommended farther that the seats should 
 be so constructed as to conform to the natural curve of the back 
 of the child. 
 
 At the close of his term of office, he wrote as follows regarding 
 school houses: 
 
 "Large sums have been raised for the erection of school 
 houses. True, many of them are built of logs, and might be 
 taken by some unreflecting passerby from some of our large and 
 wealthy cities, as evidence that little or no interest is felt in 
 schools; but it is to be remembered that the buildings, though 
 rude they may be, are as good as the circumstances of a people 
 in their infancy will allow — good, indeed, as their own dwellings." 
 
 We have now traced the philosophical theory of the state and 
 its relation to the individual; and have seen how it gives a mean- 
 ing to education and fixes its aim. We have seen how the 
 method and the means for its accomplishment grew out of all 
 
EDUCATIONAL METHOD 113 
 
 this, and how Mr. Pierce adapted these ideals to the pioneer con- 
 ditions incident to the organization of a new state. We shall next 
 see how he actually organized Michigan's school system. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ORGANIZED EDUCATION. 
 
 Mr. Pierce entered upon the work of organizing the school 
 system of Michigan, which had fortunately been assigned to him 
 by theGoverner of the State, with a rare intelligence. For nearly 
 five years he labored with untiring zeal and vigor. 
 
 Prof. McLaughlin says of him: — J 
 
 "He combined rare philosophical grasp with genuine practical 
 sagacity, and at once began the duties of a new office in a way 
 that inspired confidence and had immediate effect," 
 
 He was well prepared to undertake this work, having been 
 trained and educated in the East, and having, in the exercise of 
 the ministerial function, had the greatest opportunity and leisure 
 for the study of the great educational questions of the day. He 
 had read extensively, and had been a keen student of men and 
 affairs. As a man, he had the courage of his convictions. He 
 possessed excellent executive ability, and, having clearly per- 
 ceived the conditions and needs of the new state, he brought all 
 of his powers to bear upon the means at his command to produce 
 enduring and practical results. No sooner had he received his 
 commission as Superintendent of Public Instruction, than an act 
 was passed by the legislature instructing him to prepare and sub- 
 mit apian for the organization and support of primary schools; a 
 plan for a university and its branches; also, a plan for the dis- 
 position of the university and primary school lands. He says, 
 regarding this act: — 
 
 "This was the first work assigned me to do, and I had five 
 months before me in which to do it. The field was clear; there 
 were no old institutions and deep-rooted prejudices to be 
 encountered and removed." 
 
 1 Organization of the State University. Circular of Information, No 4, p. 35. 
 Bureau of Education. 
 
 114 
 
ORGANIZED EDUCATION 115 
 
 In order to fully prepare himself to execute this commission 
 and to discharge the duties of his office in an acceptable and 
 satisfactory manner, he made a visit to Massachusetts and the 
 eastern states, as has been shown above. 1 The object of this visit 
 was to make a careful study of educational questions, and to seek 
 information in regard to the organization, management and sup- 
 port of schools from the primary grades to the university. 
 
 He was absent two months. Upon his return, he formulated 
 a report in which he discussed, in a clear and forcible manner, all 
 of the questions involved, and submitted to the legislature a 
 detailed plan which, with few exceptions and minor modifications, 
 was adopted and embodied in the laws of the state. 
 
 In order to form an adequate idea of what he proposed regard- 
 ing the organization of the common schools, it will be necessary 
 to examine Mr. Pierce's first report somewhat in detail In the 
 preceding chapters reference was made to this and his subsequent 
 reports, as furnishing the material for the construction 
 of his educational views into a rational unit. As these reports are 
 inaccessible to the general reader, there being only a limited 
 number of copies in existence, it is proposed to quote quite 
 extensively. This is done in order that the reader may have a 
 statement of Mr. Pierce's views, and be left free to compare the 
 same with the actual organization of the schools as they are now. 
 
 Two important and fundamental educational problems present- 
 ed themselves to Mr. Pierce for solution. 1) The proper distri- 
 bution of the school funds; and 2) How to secure an organized 
 body of officers to administer the affairs of the school. 
 
 The success or failure of the entire system would necessarily 
 depend upon the disposition which should be made of these ques- 
 tions. It was seen to be necessary and important that the dis- 
 tribution of the income arising from the sale or leasing of pub- 
 lic lands should be based on broad principles which would have a 
 strong tendency "to stimulate to exertion and secure the co- 
 operation of the greatest numbers in promoting the cause of edu- 
 cation." Mr. Pierce was of the opinion that the distribution of 
 this income, in its proper place, could be so made from year to 
 
 1 See page 82. 
 
 -\ 
 
116 john d. pierce; 
 
 year, that the ends sought would be gained. Accordingly, it was 
 proposed that all districts, failing to comply with the law, 
 should be deprived of their share of the income. 
 
 The success of this proposed plan would not be assured, how- 
 ever, without an efficient school board, to be elected by the people. 
 Upon the wisdom, fidelity, and zeal of the board, the success of 
 the whole system would, in a great measure, depend. The school 
 board must be given legislative and executive powers, and the 
 men composing it must be regarded as trustees of the people, 
 deputed to fulfill certain important trusts. Mr. Pierce wrote as 
 follows regarding this: — 
 
 "There must be simplicity, combined with activity and 
 energy. Let the agents be few; let their duties be clearly 
 defined, and let them, as in the Prussian system, be paid for their 
 services. The time of every man is his property, and cannot, 
 either justly or constitutionally, be taken and given to the public 
 without remuneration." 
 
 Mr. Pierce accordingly submitted to the legislature a plan in 
 harmony with the above-named principles, and which was sub- 
 stantially as follows: — 
 
 The unit of the system shall be the school district. It must 
 be invested with certain well defined corporation powers, and 
 must be held responsible for the performance of certain well 
 defined duties. The district must make provision for the erec- 
 tion of all buildings, and must provide the necessary school 
 appliances. For this, as well as for library purposes, it may 
 levy a tax. Suitable officers, whose duties must be defined by 
 law, must be elected; only properly qualified teachers are to be 
 employed, and a school must be maintained at least three months 
 in the year. The officers composing the district board were 
 called the moderator, director and assessor, and the duties 
 imposed on them, severally and collectively, were but little 
 different from those printed in the present school law. 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that Mr. Pierce was influ- 
 enced by the Report of the Prussian System in the choice of the 
 school district as the unit of his system. It corresponds to the 
 parish mentioned in the report, but with this difference, that 
 
ORGANIZED EDUCATION 117 
 
 much more power was placed in the hands of the people under 
 the Michigan system than was delegated to them under the Prus- 
 sian law. The Prussian school system was highly centralized. It 
 was Mr. Pierce's idea that, while the schools were always to be 
 kept, as an organized unitary system, under the control of a cen- 
 tral authority, much power should be retained and exercised by 
 the people, and the will of the majority in the unit should always 
 prevail, so long as the will did not conflict with the will of the 
 great majority. 
 
 The next division of the system, regarded from the stand- 
 point of importance and size, was the township, which was, like 
 the district, a corporate body with specific functions, and 
 endowed with rights and charged with duties. It will be recalled 
 that at one time previous to this, the township, as in the east, had 
 been the unit of the system. The township was enjoined to raise 
 an amount of money equal to the amount received from the 
 school fund. It was required that a board of school inspectors 
 be chosen by the people. It was the duty of this board to attend 
 to the formation of new districts, inspect the schools and teach- 
 ers, apportion the money received from the income of the school 
 fund, among several districts, and to make annual reports to the 
 superintendent of public instruction. The points of similarity 
 between the township and the circle of the Prussian system, while 
 they may be incidental, are quite plainly observable. 
 
 Mr. Pierce believed in the value of the public library, and felt 
 that it should be so arranged as to be easy of access to the great- 
 est number of people. Accordingly, he recommended that 
 provision be made for a library in every school district, aud this 
 plan was incorporated in the school law. The success and 
 extension of school librararies in Michigan in recent years is the 
 most fitting testimonial of the value of this suggestion, and is the 
 best realization of the ideals of the founder and organizer of our 
 school system. Quoting from his third report, he says: — 
 
 "To accomplish the greatest degree of good in our state, dis- 
 trict libraries must be established; not only that the useful infor- 
 mation contained in well selected books may be generally con - 
 
118 JOHN D. FIERCE 
 
 veyed, but that the teachers may have the benefit of acquiring 
 the most extended knowledge." 
 
 But unless some attention were given to the material organiza- 
 tion of a school, any theory would prove unavailing aud futile. 
 Michigan had but few school buildings in 1837, and these were 
 poor ones. The superintendent, recognizing the importance of 
 the immediate construction of good and comfortable ones, called 
 attention to this important subject. The following was quoted 
 from the report of the Prussian schools; Cousin said: "The 
 ministry has shown the most praiseworthy perseverance in 
 planning school houses. I have now under my eye a general 
 order addressed to all the regencies, containing a detailed descrip- 
 tion of the best and most economical manner of building school 
 houses. Their construction must not be left to experience or to 
 an injudicious economy." 
 
 Acting upon these ideas, Mr. Pierce submitted a very carefully 
 drawn ground plan of a model school house, together with the 
 suggestions and directions which have been discussed in detail in 
 a previous chapter. It is curious to note that nearly all of the 
 older rural school houses in the state are constructed after this 
 plan and in accordance with his wise suggestions. 
 
 It will be recalled that in the Catholepistemiad, according to 
 the territorial act of 1821, a provision was made for the establish- 
 ment of colleges, schools, and academies, by the board of trus- 
 tees. .Evidently Mr. Pierce was strongly impressed with this idea 
 because he saw in the academy, as a branch of the university, not 
 only a provision for secondary education and a preparatory 
 school for the higher education, but an opportunity afforded 
 for the education and training of teachers for the pri- 
 mary school. Accordingly, he recommended that these 
 branches should have three departments: one for the higher 
 branches of English education, which was designed to furnish a 
 large class of persons with an opportunity for pursuing some 
 branches of education in advance of that which could be done in 
 the primary schools; one designed for classical education, 
 designed for those who wished to fit themselves to enter the uni- 
 versity; and one intended to prepare teachers for the elementary 
 
ORGANIZED EDUCATION 119 
 
 schools. The last named department should have a course of 
 instruction covering three years, and was to be open to all without 
 charge, the sole condition being a promise to teach in the schools 
 of the state for at least three years after graduation. 
 
 Any county was entitled to an academy by complying with the 
 following conditions: — 
 
 The board of supervisors must secure an eligible site and 
 cause the erection of suitable buildings, subject to the approval 
 of the superintendent of public instruction. There was to be a 
 board of trustees, consisting of seven persons, six of whom were 
 to be appointed by the board of supervisors, and one by the 
 superintendent of public instruction. The entire management of 
 the academy was to be placed in the hands of this board, which 
 was to appoint all professors and teachers, and was required to 
 make a report each year to the board of visitors The board of 
 visitors was a sort of supervising body, consisting of three mem- 
 bers, one of which was to be appointed by the board of supervis- 
 ors, and two by the superintendent of public instruction. The 
 duties of this board consisted in visiting the academy at its 
 annual examination, inquiring into its condition, examining the 
 proceedings of the board of trustees, and finally in making a 
 report and forwarding it, together with the report of the board of 
 trustees, to the superintendent of public instruction. 
 
 The board of supervisors was to secure from the county, for 
 the support of the academy, a sum equal to that apportioned to 
 it from the income of the university fund. 
 
 Mr. Pierce was, without doubt, largely influenced by the 
 Prussian system in the formation of his plan for the academy. 
 The academy was a combination of the Prussian gymnasium and 
 the normal school, while the method and means for their man- 
 agement and supervision, especially regarding the close relation- 
 ship borne to the central officer of the system, the superinten- 
 dent, was a close copy of the Prussian system. There can be no 
 doubt but that this proposed plan of the academy has finally 
 evolved into the high school, normal school, and county normal. 
 
 Mr. Pierce's recommendations regarding the organization 
 and maintenance of the university, and his many public utter- 
 
120 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 ances regarding its value and prospective greatness, all furnish 
 abundant evidence that his interest in this institution was great. 
 It was his desire to make such a provision for a system of educa- 
 tion in the new state that it should be broad, comprehensive, and 
 of a permanent character. His plan was difficult of realiza- 
 tion at the time of its proposal, yet the suggestions were so 
 practical and valuable, and so far in advance of the conditions of 
 the day, that we are only beginning to see their realization. 
 
 The following quotation from his first report will show his 
 proposed plan for the organization of the university. He 
 wrote: — 
 
 "In the organization of the university, it will be proper and 
 necessary to create a board of Regents to superintend and manage 
 its general concerns. The powers to be vested in this board and 
 its duties may and ought to be prescribed by law. The board of 
 Regents shall consist of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the 
 Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, Chan- 
 cellor of the State, and Chancellor of the Univarsity, who shall 
 be ex officio members, and twelve others to be appointed by the 
 legislature. The Secretary of the State shall be ex officio Sec- 
 retary of the board. The Board of Regents shall have the power, 
 and it shall be their duty to enact laws for the government of the 
 university, to confer degrees, to appoint a Chancellor and all 
 professors and tutors, and to make a report annually to the 
 Board of Visitors." There were to be three departments in the 
 institution: 
 
 1. The department of science, literature and arts. 
 
 2. The department of law; and 
 
 3. The department of medicine. 
 
 It was further provided that the Board of Visitors, above 
 referred to, should consist of five members, and should be 
 appointed by the superintendent of public instruction. The 
 Board of Regents was required by law to make regular reports to 
 this board, and they exercised supervisory powers somewhat 
 similar to those exercised by the similar board for the academies. 
 We are again reminded of the Prussian system in the similarity 
 
ORGANIZED EDUCATION 121 
 
 between the board of visitors and the council chosen by the min- 
 ister of education. 
 
 This is not the place to trace the development of the univer 
 sity farther. Enough has been given to show that Mr. Pierce 
 clearly saw the present and future needs of the commonwealth, 
 and that, with the development of the natural resources of the 
 state, the demand for educational facilities of the higher kind 
 would be increasingly greater. Twenty years later, he said, in a 
 public address: — 
 
 "To perfect our school system and render it complete in all its 
 parts, the University of the State must take and maintain a high 
 and elevated position. It must be the polished key stone of the 
 grand arch; it must be adorned with all the graces of high liter- 
 ary attainments." 
 
 Mr. Pierce held the opinion that the office of superintendent 
 of public instruction was a very important and responsible one, 
 and that this officer should be endowed with extensive powers. 
 The spirit of centralization is everywhere apparent, and the 
 Prussian minister of instruction was his model in the formulation 
 of his duties. The more important recommendations in respect to 
 this officer were as follows: — 
 
 1. To submit to the legislature an annual report exhibiting 
 the condition of the university and of the primary school funds, 
 also of the primary schools and of the university and it* 
 branches; 
 
 2. To prepare suitable forms for making reports required of 
 district, township, academic and university boards, and to make 
 all suitable regulations for conducting all proceedings under the 
 law relating to public instruction. 
 
 3. To appoint the prescribed number of trustees and visitors 
 in the different academic boards, and the annual board of visitors 
 to the university. 
 
 4. To take charge of all university and school lands, and all 
 other property reserved to the state for the purposes of educa- 
 cation, and dispose of the same according to law. 
 
 5. To invest all moneys arising from the sale of such lands, 
 as directed by law. 
 
122 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 6. To apportion the income of the university fund among its 
 branches and the parent institution, and, also, the income of the 
 primary school fund among the several townships and cities of the 
 state. 
 
 7. To hear and decide all questions arising under the public 
 school system, the decision when made to be final. 
 
 In no other way did Mr. Pierce display so great ability as an 
 organizer as in the administration of the public funds entrusted 
 to his care. He favored the sale of land and the careful invest- 
 ment of the proceeds, the income from which should be faithfully 
 devoted to the support of schools. That he did this well is shown 
 by the results; for in his last annual report to the Legislature he 
 shows the total receipts for his term of office to be $186,338.98, of 
 which sum $135,648.84 belonged to the School Fund, and 
 $50,690.14 to the University Fund. Of this sum $117,860.45 was 
 invested, and the balance applied to the use of the schools. 
 
 In conclusion, the work of organization may be summarized 
 as follows: — 
 
 1. Mr. Pierce entered upon the duties of Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction, fully prepared to perform its duties. He 
 reinforced this preparation by a careful study of home conditions 
 and foreign influences. 
 
 2. The system was conceived as a unit under state control, 
 yet not removed from the people, who were made to feel the 
 responsibility of fostering the schools. At the head of the system 
 stood a responsible officer, who was commissioned to exercise 
 extensive powers of administration. 
 
 3. The plan of the primary schools for all of the people, the 
 academies for secondary education and the preparation of teachers, 
 and the university for higher education and the professions, 
 paved the way for a graded system with all of its attendant insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 4. The public school fund and state aid to education empha- 
 sized state control, while necessity for direct and local taxation 
 fostered direct interest in the schools by the people. 
 
 In the organization of the school system, the founder always 
 emphasized the necessity of a centralized agency, and never lost 
 
ORGANIZED EDUCATION 123 
 
 sight of the dignity and importance of his office. That this was 
 true, and that he worked with an intelligent and untiring zeal, is 
 well illustrated by a remark 1 of his, made upon the floor of the 
 Constitutional Convention ol 1850, when an attempt was made to 
 belittle the office which he had held so successfully: — 
 
 "It has been said, I understand, that the officeof Superinten- 
 dent of Public Instruction has been a 'sinecure'. From my own 
 personal experience, having had the honor to fill that office four 
 and a half years, I may say it is not so. During that time I 
 visited every organized county in the state, and drew up all the 
 laws passed in that year in relation to common schools. In my 
 first report I advocated that system which the state should adopt 
 — that is the free school system. Why is it that Prussia stands at 
 the head of education in Europe? For the simple reason, she has 
 a Minister of Public Instruction to superintend and foster every- 
 thing relating to the education of her people." 
 
 1 See report, p. 535. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE JOURNAL, OF EDUCATION 
 
 The Journal of Education, founded, edited and published by 
 John D. Pierce, the first educational paper in the state of Mich- 
 igan and in fact in the whole Northwest, deserves more than a 
 passing notice. 
 
 Doubtless but few teachers of the present generation have 
 ever seen a copy of this paper, and many are unaware of the fact 
 that it ever existed. 
 
 The writers have had the rare good fortune, through the 
 kindness of a member of Mr. Pierce's family, to come into pos- 
 session of the complete files of this journal, and are in this way 
 able to place before the public, for the first time, a brief analysis 
 and description of it. By setting forth its character, scope, and 
 value, it is proposed to make a permanent and easily accessible 
 record which it is hoped will prove of value for reference, and 
 which will settle all controversies regarding the history of the 
 Journal. 
 
 The Journal of Education was printed as an eight-page paper, 
 ten by twelve inches in size, with three columns to the page. It 
 was issued as a monthly and was continued during two years. 
 The first number was dated Detroit, Michigan, March, 1838, and 
 was edited by John D. Pierce. This arrangement was continued 
 until the following November, when Mr. Pierce associated with 
 himself Francis W. Shearman, later superintendent of public 
 instruction, who assumed the editorship, a position which he 
 held as long as the Journal continued to be published. 
 
 Until December, 1838, the Journal was printed by J. S. & S. 
 A. Bagg, Printers, Detroit, Michigan, but with number ten of 
 volume one, the place of publication was changed from Detroit 
 to Marshall, the printing being done by Henry C. Bunce, of the 
 latter place. The terms of subscription were "for a single copy, 
 
 124 
 
JOl t; s.\ L OF MDrCATKI 
 
 THE MICHIGAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 
 
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 125 
 
 75 cents, payable in all cases in advance," and Alexander McFar- 
 ren, of Detroit, was the subscription agent. 
 
 Primarily, the Journal of Education was without doubt intended 
 by Mr. Pierce as the official organ of the State Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, to be used by that officer as a means of 
 communication between himself and the subordinate school offi- 
 cials. This idea was probably suggested to him in reading 
 Mr. Taylor's introduction to Cousin's report of the Prussian 
 schools; moreover, such a medium seemed to be necessary, 
 owing to the character of the Michigan School System and the 
 extensive power vested in the superintendent. In conformity to 
 a joint resolution of the Legislature, the Journal of Education 
 was sent free to every school inspector in the state, but no pro- 
 vision having been made for the payment of postage, it was 
 necessary that the recipients should pay one shilling postage in 
 order to receive the paper. In an editorial, Mr. Pierce criticizes 
 some of the inspectors for refusing to pay this sum, and deplores 
 their lack of interest in education. In the second place, it was 
 designed to make the Journal an educational magazine that 
 should possess a marked literary aud scientific character. In 
 addition to the circulars of information and official instructions 
 by the Superintendent, the editorials, articles on education, and 
 selected matter were of a character calculated to arouse interest 
 and afford instruction for both teacher and parent The only 
 advertisements appearing were a limited number of book notices. 
 The following motto appeared at the heading of each issue: 
 "Omnibus scientia, sicict omnibus suffragia: Uteris enim crescit 
 respublica, et permanebit. ' ' 
 
 The plan of the paper was somewhat as follows: The 
 first page was devoted to editorials concerning the live edu- 
 cational questions of the day. They were carefully prepared 
 and to the point and, without doubt, exerted considerable influ- 
 ence in shaping public opinion. Following the editorials, there 
 was usually an extended article or address, by a person of dis- 
 tinction, upon some subject relating to education. This was fol- 
 lowed by circulars of information issued from time to time by 
 the superintendent, interpretations of the school law, com- 
 
126 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 munications and answers to questions, together with interesting 
 items of school news from other states. The remainder of the 
 Journal was filled with copied articles, from the pens of the best 
 writers of the day, selected from the most highly literary maga- 
 zines. 
 
 Space will not permit more than a cursory notice of the char- 
 acter and scope of each of the above mentioned departments, but 
 the mere mention of some of the subjects and their authors will 
 show the exceeding high grade of the Journal of Education. As 
 one reads it today, almost seventy years after its publication, 
 there is the conviction that it would rank at par with any educa- 
 tional paper now published. 
 
 Professor C. E. Stowe had been commissioned by the General 
 Assembly of Ohio to visit Europe and to make a report upon 
 elementary education. 1 This report was made by him in Decem- 
 ber, 1837, and was published in full in the first number of the 
 Journal of Education. 
 
 M. Victor Cousin not only visited and made reports upon the 
 condition of the Prussian schools, but upon those of other Euro- 
 pean countries as well. They were translated into English by 
 Leonard Horner, of London, and were published in the London 
 Courier. From time to time, these were printed in the Journal. 
 This fact must have exerted no little influence upon Michigan 
 schools, as it kept the people in touch with European school 
 conditions. 
 
 Four pages of Number One are taken up with the publication 
 of a report on vocal music as a branch of common school educa- 
 tion, by T. B. Mason and C. Bucher. 
 
 There appears on page 12 of Vol. 1, the complete text of an 
 address delivered by Mr. Pierce, at Detroit, on January 3, 1835, 
 before a "Convention of teachers and other friends of universal 
 education." In his address is to be found a complete exposition 
 of his educational doctrine. On page 76 of Vol. 1, there may also 
 be found an address by Mr. Pierce on "The present condition 
 and future prospects of Michigan." This was given before the 
 
 1 Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1897-98. Vol. 1, p. 622. 
 
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 127 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, of Marshall. His masterly 
 review of the past showed his remarkable grasp of the general 
 affairs of the state and nation, and his predictions for the future 
 have been fully realized. 
 
 The following are some of the more extended articles which 
 were copied from different sources: — Extracts from the examina- 
 tion of Dr. Nicholas Henry Julius before the education commit- 
 tee of the British House of Commons, July 7, 1834; Mr. Bucking- 
 ham's lectures on geography, copied from the New York Observer; 
 and a series of articles on the Abridged History of England, 
 taken from the Juvenile Repository. From the Tauton Whig, 
 we find a speech by Governor Everett, delivered at a meeting of 
 the friends of education at Tauton, Mass. We also find a synop- 
 sis of a lecture by Theodore Dwight, Jr., on the management of 
 a common school, delivered before the American Institute of 
 Instruction, at Boston, in August, 1835. 
 
 In May, 1839, Mr. Crary made an address before the Calhoun 
 County Association. This speech was reported in full, and a 
 perusal of it convinces the reader of his earnestness in the cause 
 of general and universal education, of the liberality and breadth 
 of his views upon the subject, and of his thorough endorsement 
 of the work of Superintendent Pierce. 
 
 It would be reasonable to suppose that something would appear 
 regarding Horace Mann, as he was beginning to come into 
 prominence about this time; but a careful search reveals only 
 two short notices. In Number 12 of Vol. 1 of the Journal in 
 speaking of some periodicals devoted to the cause of education, 
 we read: "Common School Journal, edited by Horace Mann, 
 and published at Boston. First number just issued." In the 
 same number we also read: "A weekly course of lectures has 
 been commenced in Boston by some of the most distinguished 
 friends of education and chiefly practical instructors. Among 
 them are the Rev. Jacob Abbott and Horace Mann, Esq., Secre- 
 tary of the Board of Education." 
 
 Superintendent Pierce's circulars to school inspectors prove 
 interesting reading, and serve to show strongly the executive 
 side of his character. Reference is made to the necessity of the 
 
128 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 preservation of school lands and of jealously guarding the funds 
 resulting from their sale. Instructions are given relative to the 
 formation and organization of new districts, the opening of 
 schools, and the local administration of school affairs. Blank 
 forms for school reports are printed, together with definite 
 instructions for making them. In the supplement number, the 
 full text of the school law is printed, together with explanations 
 and interpretations of it. All questions referred to the Superin- 
 tendent are fully answered in the Journal. There were also 
 printed the reports of a number of important meetings that were 
 held in the state. 
 
 The Michigan Historical Society met in Detroit Feb. 28, 1838. 
 At this meeting, Hon. Lewis Cass, Minister at the Court of France, 
 presented the "Pontiac Manuscript," narratingthe circumstances 
 of a conspiracy to take the Fort of Detroit by the Lake Indians, 
 in 1763, and Dr. Z. Pitcher presented an original Indian deed of 
 the date of 1771 for a farm in Springwells. Among the officers 
 of this society, we find the names of John Biddle, C. C. Trow- 
 bridge, Dr. Douglas Houghton, and Dr. Abram Sager. 
 
 Quite an extended report of an "Education Convention," 
 held in St. Joseph count}', is printed. This convention was held 
 for the purpose of considering the question of common schools, 
 and to discuss the merits of the existing school laws. The per- 
 sons participating in these discussions were representative citi- 
 zens of the county. Similar meetings were held in Branch 
 and Calhoun counties. The proceedings of these and other 
 meetings were reported by Mr. Pierce himself, and he seems 
 always to have been an active and interested participant. 
 
 It has been with great interest that the writers have examined 
 large number of articles upon all kinds of scientific subjects. The 
 range of subject matter is exceedingly extensive, and while from 
 the present standpoint of science these treatises would be regarded 
 as inaccurate, yet they served a valuable purpose. Agriculture 
 and gardening were given much attention, and it is easy to see 
 here an anticipation of the idea of the school garden and the 
 teaching of agriculture in the schools. There were numerous 
 articles on the culture of the sugar beet, in which the advantages 
 
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 129 
 
 of its raising were fully set forth. Much space is devoted to all 
 branches of natural science and the necessity of giving them a 
 proper place in the school curriculum is repeatedly urged. In 
 one place Mr. Pierce writes: "In all our schools fate seems to 
 have laid its heavy hand upon the study of the sciences. The 
 ancient and modern classics occupy by far the greater share of 
 attention; but this ought not to be so." This quotation was the 
 keynote of his series of excellent articles pleading for the teach- 
 ing of natural science. 
 
 Reference should be made to the high moral and religious 
 tone given to the paper. The highest sentiment pervades every 
 sentence and here, as in no other place, does Mr. Pierce show 
 his firm belief in the home and school as the two institutions 
 which should care for the religious teaching of children. 
 
 The Journal of Education said nothing about method or device. 
 It had to deal with the larger questions of the principles of edu- 
 cation. It was not for the teachers alone, but for a wider 
 circle. It aroused interest in education and stimulated and 
 inspired activity in the organization of schools, and thus lead 
 the citizens of the new commonwealth to realize the best in their 
 civilization through the upbuilding of all their new institutions. 
 
 This initial movement of an educational publication in the 
 Northwest may be regarded as one of Mr. Pierce's greatest 
 achievements. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MR. PIERCE'S SECOND APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 When Mr. Pierce's term of office as Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction expired in 1841, he returned to Marshall, and to the 
 work of the ministry. The record of his life for the next few 
 years chronicles nothing of special importance. He had not 
 sought popular honors, and now that his educational work was 
 over he once more gladly became a simple villager and preacher. 
 Public affairs interested him as before, but he followed their 
 development from his study and his farm. 
 
 In his business ventures he seems to have been pursued by a 
 Nemesis of ill-luck, which, however, was not able to shake his 
 equanimity of mind, or his optimism. In the midst of calamities 
 he was patient and cheerful. The mill at Ceresco, which he was 
 interested in, did not pay, and in a few years collapsed because 
 of a poor foundation. His farming, too, was a costly experi- 
 ment. The farm lay along the Kalamazoo River and contained 
 about a thousand acres, which he and some other men owned on 
 a syndicate plan. It was part of a tract of 1700 acres which had 
 been entered upon in 1831 bv John Bertram, a wealthy English- 
 man, who thought to convert it into an estate on the English 
 model. 
 
 Mr. Pierce brought to his farming scientific notions, many of 
 which were far in advance of the day. He was a believer in 
 thoroughbred stock, and at great expense imported from New 
 York a flock of high grade Merinos. But all of the woolen mills 
 of the state had spindles for coarse wool, not for fine, and this 
 venture failed. In cattle raising and dairying he was more 
 successful, but the dishonesty of an employee ruined 
 his hopes. A large herd of cattle had been fattened for 
 the Buffalo market, but the man who took them there 
 
 130 
 
SECOND APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC UFE 131 
 
 for him absconded with the proceeds, some $1,900, and left him 
 to settle the bills out of his own pocket. Another year he put 
 in eighty acres of wheat, but the railrord was not completed to 
 Marshall as soon as expected, so there was no market for 
 the crop. Finally, to crown the long series of calamities, the 
 other members of the syndicate incurred debts without his 
 knowledge and left him, as the only man of means, to adjust 
 matters. The land was at last sold to satisfy creditors. 
 
 In 1847 Mr. Pierce was elected member of the State House of 
 Representatives, and at once began to take an active part in 
 legislative affairs. His work as Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion had made him prominent, and his opinions were highly 
 regarded. 
 
 The first matter to which he gave his attention was the ques- 
 tion of locating a new capital for the state. By previous legisla- 
 tive enactment the seat of government had been fixed at Detroit 
 till 1847, when it should devolve upon the legislature to arrange 
 for its permanent location. Mr. Pierce was one of a committee of 
 seven in the House appointed to report upon the subject, but the 
 feeling grew so intense that the committee split up into three 
 groups and presented three reports. Mr. Pierce stood for mak- 
 ing Marshall the capital. This had long been a dream of Cal- 
 houn county, and almost from the time the town was platted a 
 beautiful site, known yet as Capitol Hill, had been reserved for 
 this coming glory. All of Mr. Pierce's arguments for moving the 
 capital from Detroit were readily accepted, but the view held by 
 the majority that it should be somewhere north of the line of the 
 Michigan Central Railroad was too firmly grounded to be over- 
 come. Finally, after much lobbying and debate, Lansing, at that 
 time only a point in the wilderness, where, as a member said, 
 the only bells heard were cow bells, was settled upon and the 
 quarrel ended. 
 
 As chairman of the committee on federal relations, Mr. Pierce 
 was instrumental in passing a resolution instructing the Michi- 
 gan delegation in Congress to oppose the introduction of slavery 
 into the territories. This fact should be known now in view of 
 the criticism he later drew upon himself during the progress of 
 
132 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 the Rebellion. He was always uncompromisingly opposed to 
 slavery, and many documents and public addresses testify to 
 this; but he believed some other settlement of the question other 
 than by the sword was possible, and he deprecated the national 
 policy and war. But no one who knew him well could ever have 
 doubted his patriotism. He came of a fighting stock. 
 Pierces had fought in the Revolution and the War of 1812. His 
 son, James Pierce, at the age of eighteen went out as lieutenant 
 in tne Mexican War, and died from hardships endured before 
 the war was over. July 4, 1847, Mr. Pierce delivered an address 
 in Marshall which closed as follows: — 
 
 "The fortress of our strength is union, and the high purpose 
 must be the permanency and improvement of our institutions. 
 To be great the whole American people must do what Taylor 
 declared after the battle of Buena Vista, 'All pull together.' 
 High patriotism and a noble destiny demand it. Then there will 
 be preserved to us and our children, and ultimately extended to 
 all men of all nations, tongues and tribes, what is now the glory 
 of our land, — free principles, free institutions, and free govern- 
 ment — thus consummating an ancient prediction: 'They shall sit 
 every man under his vine, and under his fig tree, and none shall 
 make them afraid.' In conclusion I give you this sentiment : 
 The Union, free and independent, one and inseparable, now and 
 ever, with a free government, free institutions, free religion, free 
 schools, and a free home to all our people." 
 
 As a member of the legislature he was still further noted for 
 his efforts in behalf of exemption laws. He always held pro- 
 nounced views on the subject, and bad gained some notoriety 
 back in the years when the legislature met in Detroit by getting 
 a bill passed which secured a team from exemption. In order 
 that this might be done the value of the team was limited. 
 Opponents of the bill referred to it as "Pierce's Pony 
 Bill " In the sessions of 1847-48, Mr. Pierce was instrumental 
 in having a law enacted making homesteads exempt. In Febru- 
 ary, 1848, he made a memorable speech in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives on the subject. In it occurs a paragraph which makes 
 his position clear: — 
 
SECOND APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC LIFE 133 
 
 "I wish to see the adoption of a system of legislation that 
 shall care not merely for money but for the man — which shall 
 secure a home to every man and his family who shall hereafter 
 earn one — to put it beyond the reach of mere contingencies to turn 
 a defenceless family into the street. This, Sir, is the object of this 
 bill — not to give a man a home, but to preserve it to him when 
 once acquired." 
 
 On the fourth of March he took the floor again in behalf of 
 the measure: — 
 
 "And I apprehend if the measure proposed in the original 
 bill is adopted, still greater good will result. It will have a 
 tendency to create an independent yeomanry and to attach men 
 to the soil, to their country; to remove a vast amount of mental 
 suffering in families. And is this of no consequence? Those 
 who have had no experience in these matters, whose business 
 has not led them into contact with the poorer classes, have 
 no conception of the amount of distress that has been created by 
 our oppressive collection laws. During the half century that I 
 have lived, I have witnessed much of it, from the incarceration of 
 a man in a loathsome prison house with felons, and from the 
 turning of families into the highway. For weeks and months, 
 from day to day, the wife and her children, the widow and the 
 orphan, live in constant expectation that the final process of law 
 will be had, and then where to go they know not. These days 
 are passed in bitterness and tears, with many sleepless nights, 
 for such things cannot be done without producing much mental 
 agony. Sir, I would not be the occasion of that suffering in a 
 single family, 'For all the gold that sinews ever bought and 
 sold,' and I have no doubt that many who have been sordid 
 enough to perpetrate such oppression have themselves by a just 
 retribution been in their turn reduced to the same object of pov- 
 erty and distress. 
 
 "But it is not right in any case. Where a man trusts another, 
 he should do it at his peril, at his own risk. And it should not 
 be the policy of the government to step in and arm the creditor 
 with unlimited powers over the debtor 
 
 "Now, Sir, I wish to see every man protected in his home, 
 
134 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 the strong arm of the government thrown around him, that he 
 ma} r have occasion to love his country and its institutions, and 
 not to curse the day of his birth because he finds himself in a 
 land bearing down his spirits and crushing his energies, and 
 sending him out upon the highway a wreck and a vagrant. 
 
 "But, Mr. Speaker, before I close I wish to refer to one objec- 
 tion urged on all occasions against liberal measures, urged 
 against this bill, urged heretofore, an omnipresent all-pervading 
 objection — the passage of this bill will affect our already utterly 
 ruined credit abroad. We have a set of croakers, and ever have 
 had, whose croaking is as perpetual and as full of sense as the 
 peeping of frogs on a warm evening at the opening of spring. 
 The cry is that the credit of our state has sunk as low as it can 
 be, yet we are told that there is a still deeper abyss to which we 
 must sink if this bill is passed. ... I affirm and can prove 
 by facts and figures the reverse of all this to be true. Our credit 
 abroad at the present time is better than that of any other new 
 state, it has been too good, and is as good now as is desirable." 
 
 This was the first of such laws in the United States, but it was 
 not long before others similar in nature were found on the statute 
 books of almost every state in the Union. 
 
 In the year 1846 the two chief lines of railroad owned by the 
 state, the Michigan Central and the Michigan Southern, were sold 
 to Boston capitalists. At that time the Michigan Central extended 
 as far west as Marshall. In the years immediately following the 
 sale, before the new management had fairly gotten affairs into 
 smooth working order, came the "Railroad War," a series of 
 suits and legal actions directed at the Michigan Central Company 
 for its failure to recognize liability for damages in accidents 
 occurring along its right of way. Mr. Pierce was a strenuous 
 defender of the rights of the people, and published in the Demo- 
 cratic Expounder of Marshall, a series of letters that aroused 
 much comment. Some of them, we suspect, were not pleasant 
 reading for officials of the company. For instance this, from an 
 article dated June 25, 1849:— 
 
 "The road has been for a long time, one gore of blood. No 
 heathen altar ever smoked more continually with the blood of its 
 
second appearance; in public life 135 
 
 victims. Horses and oxen, and cows, and sheep and hogs — all 
 free commoners by law — the road not fenced — and yet we are 
 told that the owners are trespassers! They (The Company) 
 force their way through our farms, leaving our fields, and 
 meadows, and pastures all open as commons, and yet we are 
 the trespassers if our stock pass over the road of their high 
 mightinesses, and liable to them for damage, though the statute 
 of the state expressly declares no such liability can exist where 
 there is not a good and lawful fence. See session laws of 1847, 
 page 181. Besides, the Company have upon their road the blood 
 of one human victim, as the result of that reckless policy which 
 has created such an embittered state of public feeling along the 
 whole line. His blood is on their track, and they cannot wash it 
 away; and more will be there unless something be done, just as 
 sure as the sun rises and sets. . . . It is said the Company 
 cannot be driven. This should not be desired or expected. But 
 there are injured persons who resort to violence because they 
 know no other way. They write — they get no answer, and if 
 any, it is, 'You are the trespassers, keep your cattle off the 
 track.' I have little hope that any reason or argument which is 
 not addressed to its cupidity, will induce a moneyed corporation 
 to change its course. The history of the past warrants this con- 
 clusion. I gave it as my opinion to Mr. Brooks more than two 
 years ago, that the Company would find themselves precipitated 
 upon such a state of things as now exists, if they changed from 
 the policy of the state in paying for damage done to that of non- 
 payment. I have no predictions to make, but I give it as my 
 deliberate judgment, that if the Company persists in their present 
 policy, they will sooner or later arouse such a spirit and energy 
 of purpose along the whole line that they will be wholly unable 
 either to gainsay or resist it. And it is clear to me that no such 
 powers could have been granted to the Company as seem to be 
 claimed. The Legislature has no authority to create a body cor- 
 porate within the limits of the state and confer upon it rights, 
 the exercise of which would bring them into daily collision and 
 conflict with its citizens. No Legislature could have been so 
 utterly regardless of private rights and the public peace. Some- 
 
136 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 thing must be done — the honor of the state, — its good name, the 
 reputation of our citizens, and the interests of the Company, all 
 conspire to demand it. The road must be fenced — in the mean- 
 time something near the value of property destroyed must be 
 paid. It is an outrage, and evidences utter recklessness of life 
 and limb of both man and beast that the Company should run 
 trains over an unfenced road, where all cattle are by law free 
 commoners, at the rate of thirty miles per hour. Even since I 
 took up my pen a man west of this has been instantly killed and 
 a family left without a protector! That this communication may 
 be taken for what it is worth and no more, I subscribe rny name 
 to it in full. John D. Pierce." 
 
 The story is told that Mr. Pierce in championing the cau9e of 
 a poor widow who had had a yoke of oxen killed by a train, 
 exasperated Mr. Brooks, the president of the road, to such an 
 extent that he sent word to Marshall: "Tell that parson out 
 there he'd better stick to preaching." Mr. Pierce's reply was an 
 instance of militant Christianity, to the effect that if the railroad 
 company did not reimburse the woman, he would see to it that 
 every mile of track in Calhoun county was torn up. Mr. Brooks 
 paid. 
 
 As member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850, Mr. 
 Pierce succeeded in getting his homestead exemption law incor- 
 porated in the constitution of the state, where as Art. XVI. it 
 has since remained. 
 
 The act to establish a normal school in Michigan became a 
 law in 1849, but it was not till the 5th of October, 1852, that the 
 first of such schools was formally opened at Ypsilauti. Among 
 the many distinguished guests present on that occasion were 
 Gen. I. E. Crary, President of the Board of Education, and Mr. 
 Pierce. Accompanied by their wives, these gentlemen had 
 journeyed over from Marshall, — Mr. Crary to dedicate the build- 
 ing, and Mr. Pierce to deliver an address. 1 It is with Mr. 
 Pierce's words that we are chiefly concerned, for they were 
 almost his last formal utterance on education to the people of 
 
 1 Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 1853, p. 56. 
 
GRAVE OF GEN. ISAAC E. CRARY 
 MARSHALL CEMETERY 
 
SECOND APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC LIFE 137 
 
 the state. Fifteen years before he had laid the foundation of 
 our school system, having had even then in mind a place in the 
 structure for just such an institution as the one whose dedication 
 he was now attending. In a decade and a half such progress 
 had been made that it is no wonder he was in an exultant mood, 
 and disposed to speak on the theme, "The Perfect School Sys- 
 tem," with some degree of assurance. The address was philoso- 
 phical, but at the same time highly pedagogical. It exploited 
 no chimeras or extravagant notions, but dealt with fundamentals 
 and essentials. The concluding sentiments were full of encour- 
 agement, prophecy, and benediction: — 
 
 "The fruits of this institution must appear in after times. 
 Under good management and wise culture they may entirely be 
 anticipated. The assemblage here is a good omen, and is evi- 
 dence of increasing interest in the subject of education. Com- 
 bined effort is highly important. Individuals can do something 
 — much in maturing plans; but to produce the greatest amount 
 of good requires the active energies of a whole people. Sus- 
 tained by the public, the institution must flourish. Here the 
 wisdom and experience of the day will be exhibited, and the best 
 helps to facilitate progress near at hand. Assembled from almost 
 every section of the State, teachers and others will bring together 
 theories and practices of variously trained and constituted minds. 
 These theories and diverse practices will be committed to one 
 common crucible, and submitted to the test of experiment. 
 Opinions will doubtless be rectified, error detected, truth elicited, 
 darkness dispelled, and new light thrown upon every mind. To 
 pour in light upon the understanding is the grand object of 
 instruction. When' light is clear, objects are distinct and visible, 
 
 and easily seen What our teachers need is 
 
 more light; and it is the high purpose of this institution to fur- 
 nish it in all its beauty and splendor. How many gems now lie 
 concealed which would shine with utmost brilliancy could they 
 be brought to light? With equal propriety it may be asked, how 
 many minds of the first order that would do honor to the race 
 could they be enlightened and cultivated? Light is hence to be 
 reflected. When, therefore, those who assemble here return to 
 
138 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 their homes and their duties, they will go with increased qualifi- 
 cations and confidence for more extended usefulness. 
 
 "To the guardians of this institution I would say, Go on, 
 then, in the noble work; falter not in the good cause; persevere, 
 that teachers may be qualified to train up the young spirits of 
 our country to high and elevated sentiments; to form noble pur- 
 poses; to act on fair and honorable ground; leading them 
 onward and upward to virtue, and the full enjoyment of the chief 
 good — the To-Kalon of the ancient Greeks ; that ineffable good 
 which Christianity has fully revealed, and promised to the pure 
 in heart and in life. In this clear and pleasant light, all may see 
 and not walk in darkness. Let all remember this noble 
 sentiment addresses itself to each and every one: Show thy- 
 SEiyF A man. Let there be cooperation and concert, and united 
 effort. Education is common ground. All parties can here 
 meet; all sects here unite. If we cannot meet on this ground, 
 and join our efforts as citizens of one commonwealth to promote 
 a common good, we can meet and cooperate nowhere this side of 
 
 the grave It is required of stewards that they be 
 
 found faithful. Such are you; be faithful to the end. And then 
 at the winding-up of the great drama of human affairs— at the 
 final consummation of all things — when the Son of Man, the 
 judge of quick and dead, shall award the destinies of the universe, 
 the grateful plaudit shall be, 'Yours, as of all the true and vir- 
 tuous of every age and clime — Well done, good and faithful serv- 
 ants, Heaven and its mansions are yours.' " 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 (IN PART PERSONAL RKMINISCENSES BY DR. DANIEL PUTNAM.) 
 
 During the sessions of the Constitutional Convention of 1850, 
 Mr. Pierce was taken seriously ill at Lansing, and it was owing 
 to the untiring efforts of his friend, Dr. Denton, of Ann Arbor, 
 that he recovered. For some years afterward his health remained 
 impaired, — it seemed as if the exposures of frontier life were now 
 levying a belated toll on his ordinarily vigorous frame. At Mar- 
 shall, bereavement and financial reverses had come to sadden the 
 associations of his residence there, and he longed for new surround- 
 ings. Accordingly, in 1853, he removed to a farm just outside the 
 city limits of Ypsilanti, where the recent founding of the Normal 
 School offered good opportunities for educating his children. 
 Thereafter, for almost thirty years, Ypsilanti was his home. 
 
 Compared with the strenuous activity of the former periods of 
 his life, his residence in Ypsilanti was uneventful and tranquil. 
 He devoted himself to the interests of his farm, now and then, 
 however, accepting an invitation to preach either at home or in 
 neighboring towns. For some six months one year he supplied 
 the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church in Ypsilanti. This leisurely 
 life gave him opportunity to pursue again many lines of reading 
 and study, particularly in theology, which the duties of earlier 
 years had interrupted. 
 
 It was at this time that he became very much impressed with 
 the force of millenarian doctrines, and was greatly interested in 
 the interpretation of the Scriptures from that standpoint. He 
 enjoyed very friendly relations with Dr. John Lord, a prominent 
 divine in the East, and it is reported that at one time he was 
 offered an editorial position on some publication conducted by 
 Mr. Lord, but he could not see his way clear to accept it. He 
 
 139 
 
140 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 continued, nevertheless, to be an enthusiastic reader and admirer 
 of Mr. Lord, seeing in him a scholar who argued, like himself, 
 for a reconciliation of science and theology. Mr. Pierce occupied 
 no advanced position in his standards of Biblical criticism. 
 Though he had tastes for many lines of scientific investigation 
 — among others geology — he never cherished any doubt concern- 
 ing the absolute reliability of the Scriptures, and accepted them 
 in all their literalness, in spite of the queries which science, fifty 
 years ago, even, was beginning to raise, touching many things of 
 religion and faith. 
 
 We have seen that as a boy John Pierce was religious — deeply 
 so. And as a man he did not change. But his piety was of the 
 staunch, unyielding type of the Calvinist, rather than of the 
 emotional and evangelistic spirit of Wesley or John Bunyau. 
 With him a religious life was the postulate of common sense, not 
 the product of feeling or occasion, and he cultivated it as one goes 
 about a business. When a young man he wrote out in a little 
 book, 528 "Questions on Theology," with arguments that remind 
 one of Johnathau Edwards. It is interesting as showing how 
 rational his religious life was. But in spite of all of this, he was 
 not unkind or unsympathetic toward others who did not see as he 
 did — his tolerance and benevolence were too broad for that. He 
 had endured trouble and adversity, — that was bond enough 
 between him and his fellow men. 
 
 At the close of the Civil War, the course of which he had fol- 
 lowed with dire forebodings, he removed from his farm into the 
 city of Ypsilanti. His only surviving son, Augustus, upon whom 
 he was coming to lean more and more as the years slipped by, 
 died about this time. The loss was a cruel blow to the rapidly 
 ageing man, who had been no stranger to the havoc of death. In 
 December, 1865, thinking a change of climate might prove of 
 benefit to his health, he went to Florida, but all the advantages of 
 temperature in the South were nothing compared with the 
 undeveloped and backward conditions prevailing there. The next 
 spring he returned in disappointment, and bought the home in 
 Ypsilanti in which he continued to reside as long as he remained 
 in Michigan. 
 
I,AST YEARS 141 
 
 In town he still kept up his interest in public affairs, and for a 
 time was president of the local school board. He was a regular 
 attendant during those years upon institutes and teachers' meet- 
 ings, and entered heartily into discussions of educational prob- 
 lems. He was getting old, but getting old gracefully and 
 sweetly, and no matter whether attending some debate among the 
 young men of the Normal School, or sitting as an honored guest 
 at the right hand of the President of the University at a banquet, 
 he was the same simple, delightful, gracious old gentleman. 
 
 Various attempts had been made by his party — he was a staunch 
 Democrat — to draw him again into public life, and more than 
 once after his removal to Ypsilanti, his name had appeared on a 
 state ticket. But the party was weak in the years immediately 
 following the war, and he always met defeat along with other 
 nominees. Nevertheless, for two years in the 60's he served as 
 Superintendent of Schools for Washtenaw county, and did all his 
 work with energy and effectiveness, such as had characterized him 
 in an earlier period. In his trips over the county his daughter 
 Sarah, ! a very accomplished young woman, usually accompanied 
 him, and proved herself to be a very able assistant. 
 
 His educational work at this time will be best appreciated 
 from the following" Personal Reminiscences," kindly contributed 
 by Dr. Daniel Putnam, of the Normal College. 
 
 "During the first years of my life in Michigan, I met Mr. 
 Pierce occasionally at the meetings of the State Teachers' Asso- 
 ciation and elsewhere. Of his work in the organization of the 
 school system of the state, I had at that time only a very indefinite 
 and general knowledge. 
 
 "In the year 1867 the law creating the office of county 
 superintendent of schools was enacted, and under this law Mr. 
 Pierce was elected Superintendent in Washtenaw county, as I was 
 in Kalamazoo. The progressive school men of the state were 
 exceedingly anxious that the county superintendency should 
 prove successful. It had been secured after long and strenuous 
 effort, and a considerable number of prominent teachers had 
 
 1 Married John Graham, of Owosso, in 1873; died 1878. 
 
142 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 allowed themselves to be candidates for the office on account of 
 their interest in the appointment. 
 
 "Very soon after the election, State Superintendent Hosford 
 called a meeting of the newly elected superintendents at Jack- 
 son. This meeting was held on the 15th and 16th days of May, 
 1867. Superintendent Pierce was made chairman of the tempor- 
 ary organization, and served until a more formal and permanent 
 organization was effected at the next meeting of the State Teach- 
 ers' Association. My real acquaintance with Superintendent 
 Pierce commenced at this Jackson meeting. 
 
 "In September of the next year, 1868, I became a member of 
 the Faculty of the State Normal School, and removed from 
 Kalamazoo to Ypsilanti. From that time on I was a neighbor of 
 Mr. Pierce, and had opportunities of becoming acquainted with 
 him, with the work which he was then doing, and with something 
 of the work which he had done at an earlier period in the organi- 
 zation and establishment of the Michigan public school system. 
 
 "When this acquaintance began, Mr. Pierce had passed his 
 seventieth year. The hardships and exposures of early pioneer 
 life had left their marks upon his originally vigorous and 
 stalwart frame. But his mental strength and acumen were 
 unimpaired, and his interest in educational affairs continued 
 unabated. He believed in the excellency and superiority of the 
 public school of the state, and was naturally jealous of its honor. 
 He was not, however, blind to the defects and shortcomings of 
 the schools, especially of the common rural schools. He entered 
 zealously and intelligently into the work of the county super - 
 intendency. He saw the possibilities of the system, and also the 
 dangers to which it was exposed. 
 
 "The character of his work and some of his opinions upon 
 educational affairs will be best comprehended by reference to the 
 reports of what he did and saw in Washtenaw county. I make a 
 few excerpts from his report for 1867. He says:— 'I have held 
 the past season two County Teachers' Institutes. I have visited 
 eighty-one districts in the eastern part of the county, and fifteen 
 rooms of graded schools. I have held thirty-eight examinations 
 at different times and places; 207 applicants have been examined, 
 
LAST YEARS 143 
 
 and 183 certificates of all grade given.' These items show the 
 zeal and energy with which he entered upon the duties of his 
 office, and his interest in the progress of education in the 
 county. 
 
 "As was not unnatural at this period of his life, Mr. Pierce 
 was inclined to what most people called conservatism; he 
 believed in progress, in improvement in means and methods of 
 teaching, and of school management; especially he believed in 
 the necessity of securing a higher grade of qualification in teach- 
 ers of the rural schools. If he ever lost patience it was when he 
 saw the work of incompetent teachers. In this report he wrote : — 
 'How preposterous, and even cruel and wicked, to put into the 
 schoolroom incompetent teachers ! It must not be done. The 
 waste of money is not to be compared with the loss of time to the 
 rising generation.' 
 
 "In the matter of methods of teaching, Mr. Pierce was not 
 always hospitable to strangers without credentials. He wrote: — 
 'I have heard a vast deal the past twenty years, of progress and 
 new methods of teaching, and accordingly have been greatly 
 surprised to find such lamentable deficiency among so many of 
 our teachers.' He gave several amusing samples of the answers 
 written by teachers in his examinations, to illustrate the woeful 
 ignorance and lack of preparation on the part of candidates for 
 positions in the schools. The greatest deficiency he found was in 
 spelling; he insisted that the pupils of to-day were more deficient 
 in spelling than those of twenty -five or fifty years ago. Some 
 vigorous discussions upon this matter took place in the meetings 
 of teachers at which Mr. Pierce was present, the younger school 
 men being disposed to resent the imputation upon the character 
 of the present spelling. 
 
 "Upon the matter of hobbies, generally, Mr. Pierce had very 
 decided views, and was very outspoken in expressing them. He 
 said: 'Is not this a day of hobbies? We have the grammar 
 hobby, with a set of new illogical terms; the defining hobby; the 
 object lesson hobby; the drawing and map-drawing hobby, and 
 various others. And now we have anew one coming into vogue, 
 and it, too, must have its run. I may add that the peculiarity of 
 
144 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 the leading hobby- riders is— they all have books to sell. These 
 things have a relative importance, but they should not be 
 allowed to crowd out weightier matters.' 
 
 "Possibly these brief extracts from his report will leave an 
 impression that Mr. Pierce, at this period of his life, was dis- 
 posed to cling somewhat too firmly to the old, and to oppose the 
 introduction of the new. A statement in this form would do him 
 injustice; he recognized fully the deficiencies of the old schools, 
 and the possibility of improvements; but he did not sympathize 
 with the idea that a device or method was worthless because it 
 was old, or that a device or method was good, simply because it 
 was new. One who takes this view is liable to be misunderstood 
 and classed with 'back numbers' and 'old fogies.' Mr. Pierce 
 was never a 'back number' or a 'fogy.' He consistently believed 
 in testing, or 'proving all things,' and holding fast to that 
 which was proved to be good. 
 
 "During the second year of his superintendency, in addition 
 to the regular work which devolved upon him, and was more 
 than enough to tax severely his physical strength, he delivered at 
 Marshall a lecture upon 'Early Times in the Territory and 
 State,' and published an 'Address to Parents,' and another to 
 'Teachers in the Primary Schools' of Washtenaw county, His 
 old-time zeal in educational work still possessed him, and his 
 services were of great value both to schools and teachers. 
 
 "After the close of his term as County Superintendent, he 
 still retained his interest in school affairs, attending with con- 
 siderable regularity the meetings of Teachers' Associations, and 
 frequently visiting exercises and classes in the Normal School. 
 He had delivered the principal address at the dedication of the 
 first building of the school, and till the close of his life in Michi- 
 gan, maintained a peculiar regard for that institution. When the 
 school received what he believed to be unjust criticism, he was 
 always ready to defend it with voice and pen. He thought of it 
 as in some sense a child of his own, and took pride in its 
 prosperity. 
 
 "In closing these brief remiuiscenses, I quote from an address 
 given by Mr. Pierce to the county superintendents at a meeting in 
 
LAST YEARS 145 
 
 July, 1868, to show the sound, practical common sense and good 
 judgment which he brought to the solution of the problems pre- 
 sented to him, and also the tone and temper of his mind. In 
 speaking of his work in the organization of the school system of 
 the state, and of the fact that some things which he very much 
 desired could not be secured at that early time, he said: — 'In this 
 connection allow me to suggest that the question with the states- 
 man is, not what I may like to do — what I may wish to accom- 
 plish, but how much can I accomplish? This includes an appre- 
 ciation of all the circumstances with which he is surrounded. So 
 with the teacher when he enters the school room. What he 
 wishes to do is one thing, what he may be able to do is another 
 and a very different thing. He must examine his materials, 
 measure and weigh them, before he can decide what and how 
 much he can do.' 
 
 "In closing his address, Mr. Pierce said: 'I have thus given 
 you a mere outline of the past of Michigan, so far as its educa- 
 cational interests are concerned. No state ever started into being 
 with so man}' warm and devoted friends as our state. Five of the 
 best years of my life I gave to the work. In it I travelled by 
 night and by day — on one occasion five whole nights out of eight 
 — not in railroad palaces, but in lumber wagons and stage 
 coaches, through rain, mud, frost, and storm. But I can truly 
 say I feel myself fully compensated. I have had my day, or 
 nearly so. My work is nearly done. If I am spared to go 
 through my present term it is all that I can expect. You and 
 each of you will have yourday, and your work. But of all work 
 on this living earth, there is none to compare with teaching 
 children and youth. Gentlemen, the land is before you. Go in 
 and possess it The field is broad and promising; cultivate it; — 
 a rich harvest is in the future. The guardianship of hundreds of 
 thousands of children and youth is committed to you.' 
 
 "These utterances were, in some sense, the final benediction 
 of the founder and father of the public school system of the state, 
 addressed to his associate superintendents, and through them to 
 the great army of Michigan teachers. One may be glad to 
 remember that he listened to them." 
 
146 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 The last ten years of life in the state, from 1870 to 1880, were 
 passed in the peaceful quiet in his town home. His health, 
 which had not been good for twenty years, began to fail now more 
 and more. But his mind was as sturdy and vigorous as ever. By 
 the close of the decade he had grown so feeble that it seemed best 
 for him and Mrs. Pierce to give up their home in Ypsilanti, and 
 go to live with the last of their children, Mrs. M. A. Emerson, of 
 Meadford, Mass. And so in 1880, after a residence in Michigan 
 of almost fifty years, Mr. Pierce returned to New England. For 
 a time his health was improved by the change, but he was not 
 quite happy; Massachusetts was too rough and barren, — he 
 missed the fields and fertility of the West. 
 
 In 1881 his health began to fail again from aggravation of 
 asthma, from which he had long been a sufferer. Some six 
 weeks before his death, at the earnest solicitation of the many 
 Michigan people in the East, he attended a reunion of the alumni 
 of Michigan University at the Vendome, in Boston. He was hon- 
 ored with every attention on this occasion, and expressed his 
 appreciation of the kind reception in a few well chosen words. 
 After his return he grew rapidly worse, and on the 5th of April, ' 
 1882, passed away. 
 
 Mr. Pierce had long been prepared for death, but even when 
 broken in body he had cherished no undue desire to quit the 
 world. He loved life and living with a consuming zest, — he had 
 seen so much, and helped create so much, in our civilization, 
 that he took delight in what this civilization meant, and he 
 watched it in its unfolding with all the interest of a man in the 
 prime of life. Michigan was dear to him, and when at last he 
 knew the hour had come, he could not die content till he had 
 exacted a promise that he should be buried in the cemetery at 
 Marshall, among those whom he had loved and labored with in 
 pioneer days. This was granted. After funeral services at 
 Medford, the body was brought to Marshall, where services were 
 again held, in charge of the Masonic order, in the Presbyterian 
 Church. A throng had assembled to do honor to his memory, 
 
 1 The date, April 6, on the monument in Marshall is incorrect, the mis- 
 take being due to the undertaker's certificate. 
 
GRAVE OF JOHN D. PIERCE 
 MARSHALL, MICH. 
 
LAST YEARS 147 
 
 and a long line of carriages followed the remains to the 
 grave. On the simple monument where he rests, one may 
 read: — 
 
 REV. JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 DIED 
 
 apr. 6, 1882 
 aged 85 years. 
 
 FOUNDER OF MICHIGAN'S 
 SCHOOL SYSTEM. 
 
 ERECTED BY TEACHFRS 
 
 AND PUPILS OF THE 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF MICHIGAN. 
 
 John Davis Pierce lived a long and useful life, and that is no 
 mean heritage to posterity. But he was able, beyond the power 
 of most men, to influence the cultural development of a great 
 state, and for that reason he deserves to be remembered. He was 
 a great man, viewed from any angle of human perspective, — 
 great in physical vigor and endurance, great in ability to cope 
 with huge problems, great in mind and soul, He was great, too, 
 in his simplicity, a noble type of real democracy. Says Professor 
 Joseph Estabrook, himself a man among men, in a letter of con- 
 dolence to Mr. Pierce's daughter 1 — "I have learned to love and 
 respect him, as I have loved but few men of my acquaintance. I 
 never beard him speak without being instructed by what he said. 
 He was unostentatious, modest, and pure minded. Few men 
 have done more for the glory and prosperity of Michigan than 
 your father; and very few in coming time will be remembered 
 with greater respect. Among the last things he said to me after 
 returning from Commencement two years ago, was: 'My work 
 is done. It is my last visit to the University. Others must build 
 on foundations that I have laid with much conflict and strong 
 
 i Dated from Olivet, Mich., Apr. 14, 1882. 
 
148 JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 opposition.' He further said: 'Tell the peoplewhenl am gone, 
 that I have an unwavering faith in God's Word. I believe it all 
 from Genesis to Revelation. All my hope for the future rests 
 upon the Saviour there revealed.' " 
 
 No history of education in America will be complete that does 
 not give a large place to the work of John D. Pierce. He belongs 
 in the list of great educators. In the past such a position has 
 not been accorded him, more from ignorance and indifference, 
 we think, than from intent. There is, alas! as yet, no well- 
 defined sentiment in our state and nation to rear monuments to 
 great men, — not even monuments of appreciation in the story of 
 our progress. Two men above others in the United States — 
 Horace Mann, and Henry Barnard, have been given, justly so, 
 great distinction in American education. They have been regarded 
 as pioneers, as path-finders, in the development of pub- 
 lic instruction, and their fame has been deserved. But 
 John D. Pierce is equally worthy of honor and remem- 
 brance, for he, too, was a pioneer in the great work of schooling 
 a nation. As, President Angell says, 1 "Henry Barnard did not 
 do more for the schools of Rhode Island, nor Horace Mann for 
 those of Massachusetts, than John D. Pierce did for those of 
 Michigan." Nor must it be forgotten that Henry Barnard and 
 Horace Mann did their work in New England, the home of cul- 
 ture and intelligence, where education had been a cherished tra- 
 dition for two centuries, and public opinion a powerful agent in 
 reform for at least two generations. John D. Pierce had as a 
 background for his efforts, the wilderness, and in the midst of 
 chaotic and undeveloped conditions, among struggling and 
 impoverished settlers, he did his work. The school system he 
 devised and put in operation was a complete one — so complete, 
 indeed, that it might almost be regarded as a new product. 
 Surely it was vastly different from a graft on an old trunk which 
 stood deeply rooted in a fertile soil. We are proud of our system 
 of public education which John D. Pierce inaugurated; it is the 
 crowning glory of our commonwealth. 
 
 1 Oration delivered at the Semi-Centennial of the University of Michigan, 
 18S7. 
 
IyASX YEARS 149 
 
 There are some who, while ready in general to acknowledge 
 the ability and achievements of Mr. Pierce, pronounce him only 
 a skilful imitator of the two famous New England educators. 
 But it is out of the question that he should have borrowed ideas 
 from Henry Barnard who did not become school commissioner of 
 Rhode Island till 1843. And as to being an imitator of Horace 
 Mann — the reverse is much more likely to have been the case. 
 Mr. Pierce's appointment to office preceded Mr. Mann's by almost 
 a year; and the report in which he outlined his proposed system 
 of education for the state was issued two years before Mr. Mann's 
 first annual report. He also began the publication of The 
 Journal of Education almost a year before the appearance of 
 The Common School Journal in Massachusetts. 
 
 No, John D. Pierce was not an imitator; he was an 
 originator, independent in strength of mind and soul, and 
 gifted with a vision keen enough to discern the future of western 
 culture and civilization. And we can do no better than live up 
 to his ideals. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 QUOTATIONS FROM MR. PIERCE'S EDUCATIONAL WRIT- 
 INGS 
 
 The following terse expressions from the pen of Mr. Pierce 
 will not only serve to illustrate the character of the man, but will 
 give the reader a deeper insight into his broad and comprehen- 
 sive views upon education and life: — 
 
 "None of the rich treasures of learning are gained by inherit- 
 ance; there is no such thing as innate, inbred, hereditary 
 knowledge." 
 
 "If a people have any rights, the right of revolution is one of 
 them." 
 
 "Every human being has a right to a good education." 
 
 "It ought to be borne in mind that the education of a child is 
 far less expensive than the support of an aged criminal." 
 
 "Ignorance is a fearful foe to freedom ; but knowledge without 
 virtue is certain death to the republic." 
 
 "We must educate, or forge bars, bolts and chains." 
 
 "He that provideth not for his own hath denied the faith and 
 is worse than an infidel." 
 
 "The blood of the hard-handed laborer is just as royal as that 
 of the king on his throne." 
 
 "It is a radical error to contemplate human beings merely in 
 the mass." 
 
 "The neglect of one individual may lead to the neglect of 
 many individuals." 
 
 "So long as the principles of humanity, a love of justice and 
 equity, reign in the hearts of the majority, we, as individuals, 
 are free and safe." 
 
 "Education is the great business of human life." 
 
 150 
 
QUOTATIONS FROM EDUCATION AI, WRITINGS 151 
 
 11 'Tis education that makes the state and exalts the empire." 
 
 "No schools are so expensive as private schools." 
 
 "Nothing more is wanting to put our schools on high and 
 prominent ground, than the general cooperation of the public and 
 a full supply of well qualified teachers." 
 
 "Progress is the great law of human existence." 
 
 "There are chords in every human heart that maybe touched, 
 and vibrate as they are touched. And it is the business of the 
 teacher to do it." 
 
 "A perfect school system must have a [living soul and the 
 teachers are its life and vital energy, its prevading, animating 
 spirit." 
 
 "A thoroughly trained and skilful teacher, with the most 
 ordinary books, will do vastly more for his school than an 
 incompetent teacher can with the best books ever written." 
 
 "I would make it imperative that the English language 
 should be taught." 
 
 "A child old enough to know what addition is and how to 
 perform the process, is just as capable of understanding the 
 reason why one is carried for every ten as any teacher." 
 
 "Nothing can compensate for the want of purity and sim- 
 plicity in the language of a book designed for the youthful 
 mind." 
 
 "No person can ever be a good teacher and be successful, who 
 cannot throw himself back upon the days of his childhood and 
 youth, and call up a vivid recollection of his own history in the 
 acquisition of knowledge." 
 
 "Many a child has been called dull and stupid because he 
 could not apprehend the meaning of a proposition made of 
 abstract terms. The stupidity and dullness were the teacher's 
 own." 
 
 "The reason why children read large portions of the Bible 
 with interest, is because they understand the language. In this 
 regard it exceeds all other books." 
 
 "Children do not learn the meaning of words from books. 
 
152 JOHN r>. PIERCE 
 
 This is done in the home and in the open field, in connection 
 with nature." 
 
 "Chiding or flogging will not cure the uneasy child." 
 
 "Give a free recess after each hour of work." 
 
 "The people have a right to expect and demand that every 
 institution created by law and sustained by them, should do its 
 duty." 
 
 "I am in favor of free schools and I hope, before I pass off 
 the stage, that I shall find this state the first in the Union in the 
 cause of education, and that every child will be able to read and 
 write and to feel that by education he is a man." 
 
 "Primary schools are the main dependence in the attainment 
 of the ideal government of the people by the people." 
 
 "The time of every man is his property and cannot, either 
 justly or constitutionally, be taken and given to the public with- 
 out remuneration." 
 
 "The Prussian System originated with the people. The gov- 
 ernment arranged the material already existing into one har- 
 monious whole and extended the benefits of the system to all 
 parts of the kingdom." 
 
 "No education can be regarded as complete without a knowl- 
 edge of agriculture." 
 
 "Children, as well as men, love improvement." 
 
 "Liberal laws and institutions constitute the glory of a state." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography. New York, 1888. 
 Barnard. Journal of Education, vol. 15. 
 
 Brown. Statistics of Michigan in 1860. Lansing, 1861. 
 
 Education in Michigan, Ohio and Massachusetts. 
 Bureau of Education Reports. Nos, 11-13. 
 
 The Government of Michigan — Its History and Jur- 
 isprudence. Kalamazoo, 1874. 
 
 Burton. Early Education in Detroit. The Gateway. 1904. 
 
 Chapman. History of Washtenaw County. Chicago, 1881. 
 
 Campbell. Political History of Michigan. Detroit, 1876. 
 
 Cousin, M. Victor. Report of Public Instruction in Prussia, 
 (translated by Sarah Austin). New York, 1835. 
 
 Cooley. Michigan. A History of Governments. Boston, 1899. 
 
 Davidson. Rousseau and Education According to Nature. 
 
 The First Fifty Years of Michigan Congregational Churches. 
 
 1892. 
 Hennepin. A New Discovery of a Vast Continent. London, 
 
 1698. 
 
 Hubbard. Memorials of Half a Century . New York, 1888. 
 
 Hinsdale. American Educational Histoty. Report U. S. Com- 
 missioner of Education. 1892-93, vol. 1. 
 
 Foreign Influences upon Education. Report U. S. 
 Commissioner of Education. 1897-98, vol. 1. 
 
 The Old Northwest. New York, 1888. 
 
 Horace Mann and the Common School Revival. New 
 York, 1898. 
 
 Journal of Constitutional Convention of 1850. 
 
 153 
 
154 | JOHN D. PIURCK 
 
 Les Relations des Jesuites. 1670-1. 
 
 Lanman. Red Book of Michigan. Detroit and Washington, 1899. 
 
 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Vols. 1, 3, 5, 12, 
 13, 14, 17, 22, 31. 
 
 The Semi Centennial of the Admission of the State of Michigan. 
 Addresses, 1886. 
 
 Michigan and its Resources. Lansing, 1893. 
 
 Mayo, A. D. Education in the Northwest. 1790-1840. Report 
 U. S. Commissioner of Education. 1894-95, vol. 2. 
 
 Monroe. Comenius and Educational Reform. New York. 
 
 McLaughlin . History of Higher Education in Michigan . Bureau 
 of Education Report. No. 11. 
 
 McCracken. Michigan and the Centennial. Detroit, 1876. 
 
 Pinloche. Pestalozzi. New York. 
 
 Pierce. Reports of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of 
 Michigan. 1836-40. History of Calhoun County. 
 Philadelphia, 1887. 
 
 Proceedings of Michigan State Legislature of 1847-1848. 
 
 Putnam, Daniel. Primary and Secondary Public Education in 
 Michigan. Ann Arbor, 1904. 
 
 Reports of Superintendent of Public Instruction. 36-3; 37-1 
 38-1; 39-al; 40-312J; 67-113; 68-138; 37-20; 47-bl3 
 51-422, 424, 425, 428, 430, 432, 447; 52-56; 57-259; 80-425 
 
 Salmon. Education in Michigan During the Territorial Period 
 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Vol 
 7, p. 36. 
 Land Grants for Education. Ibid. Vol. 7, p. 17. 
 
 Sheldon. The Early History of Michigan. New York, 1856. 
 
 Thwaites. Father Marquette. New York, 1903. 
 
 Tuttle. History of Michigan. Detroit, 1874. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 155 
 
 LETTERS, PAPERS, ADDRESSES, ETC., OF, OR RELAT- 
 ING TO, JOHN D. PIERCE 
 
 528 Questions on Theology, ca. 1825. IMS. 
 
 Letters addressed to Rev. Enoch Pond, 1826. MS. 
 
 Article on Temperance, ca. 1830. MS. 
 
 Questions and Answers in Natural Philosophy, ca. 1825. MS. 
 
 Address on Education before citizens of Calhoun Co. ca. 1840. 
 
 MS. 
 Sermon on Text: "But bring them up in the nurture and 
 
 admonition of the Lord." 1825. MS. 
 Essay on Dugald Stewart, ca. 1824. MS. 
 Paper on Slavery, ca. 1855. 32 pages. MS. 
 Sermon. Psalms, 58:31, ca. 1855 or 60. MS. 
 Oration. (Printed) — delivered at Marshall, July 4, 1847, with 
 
 late MS. additions. 
 Extracts from Minutes of the Oneida Association, Sangerfield, 
 
 N. Y., May 11, 12, 13—1830. MS. 
 Letter addresses to Lisbon Congregational Society, April 21 
 
 1830. MS. 
 Transcript of Record of Oneida Association. Pamphlet, MS. 
 
 May, 1830. 
 "The Earth — Its History and Final Destiny." Lecture, MS. 
 
 Marshall, ca. 1840. 
 " Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being." MS. ca. 1825. 
 ' ' The Origin and Progress of the Michigan School System ." MS . 
 
 1875. 
 Letter from Hon. Jos. Estabrook to Mrs. M. A. Emerson, April 
 
 7, 1882. 
 Journal of Education. Vols. I, II. 1838-39. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Academy, 118, 119. 
 
 Address to the German People. Fichte. 
 
 12. 
 Alsted, John, 9. 
 Angell, James B., quoted, 148. 
 American Institute of Instruction, 
 
 82. 
 American Students in Europe, 12. 
 American Academy of Arts and 
 
 Sciences 16. 
 American Renaissance in Education, 
 
 14. 
 American Home Missionary Society, 
 
 71. 
 Arithmetic, 109. 
 Aristotle, 7. 
 Agriculture, 110, 128. 
 Association of Ideas, 105. 
 Astronomy, Copernican System of, 7. 
 Abbott, Rev, Jacob, 127. 
 Arnold, Benedict, 30. 
 Allouez, Claude, 22; quoted, 23. 
 Austin, Mrs. Sarah. 19. 
 Authority, 6. 
 
 B 
 
 Banking, wild-cat, 86. 
 Black-Hawk War, 79. 
 Battle Creek, 75, 78. 
 Barnard, Henry, 148. 
 Bagg, J. S. & S. A., 124. 
 Bertram, John, 130. 
 Bird, Captain, 27. 
 Biddle, John, 128. 
 Bounty lands for soldiers, 31. 
 Brown University, 60. 
 Board of Visitors, 120. 
 
 Board of Regents, 120. 
 Board of Supervisors, 119. 
 Bucher, C, 126. 
 Bunce, Henry C, 124. 
 
 Cadle, Rev. Richard, 44. 
 
 Crawford, Rev. R. C, 44. 
 
 Cadillac. 25. 
 
 Crary, Isaac E., 19, 79, 127, 136. 
 
 Calhoun County Association, 127. 
 
 Classical Education, 118. 
 
 Cass, General Lewis, 31, 128. 
 
 Catholepistemiad, 17,41, 48. 118. 
 
 Cleveland, Mary Ann, 68. 
 
 Cleveland, General, 68, 75. 
 
 Ceresco, 78, 130. 
 
 Chesterfield, 56. 
 
 Centralization, 50, 53. 
 
 Cincinnati, 83. 
 
 "Chicago Pike", 32. 
 
 Civilization, Institutions of, 92. 
 
 Citizen, Intelligence of, 93. 
 
 Civics, 110. 
 
 Coureurs de bois, 25. 
 
 College of Professional Teachers, S3. 
 
 Cooley, Judge, 48. 
 
 Cousin. M. Victor, 19, 126. 
 
 Cousin's Report 'of the ! Prussian 
 
 Schools, 80. 
 Constitutional Convention, 80. 
 Colonial Schools, 14. 
 Congregationalism, 73. 
 Cholera, 76. 
 
 Cogswell, Dr., 17; quoted, 18. 
 Common School Journal, 127, 149. 
 Comenius, John Amos, 8, 9, 105, 
 
 157 
 
158 
 
 INDEX 
 
 County Teachers' Institutes, 142. 
 Course of Study, 20, 108. 
 Church, The, 89. 
 Curriculum, in pioneer days, 43. 
 
 D 
 
 Dablon, Claude, 22. 
 Day, Jeremiah, 83. 
 Davidson, Thomas, quoted, 11. 
 Detroit, 84;' founding of, 25; early 
 
 population, 33. 
 Development, 99, 102, 105. 
 Declaration of Independence, 11, 28. 
 Detroit Gazette, 29. 
 Descartes Rene, 8. 
 DeTocqueville, quoted, 36, 39, 44. 
 Denton, Dr., 139. 
 Democrat Expounder , 78, 134, 
 Dix, John A., 82. 
 Dilhet, Father John, 40. 
 Dwight, Theodore, 127, 
 District Board, 116, 
 
 Estabrook, Joseph, 147. 
 
 Estabrook, Millicent, 66. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 140. 
 
 Emerson, Mrs. M. A., 146. 
 
 Exemption laws, 132. 
 
 Environment, 99. 
 
 Emile, The, 11. 
 
 Edict of Nantes, 14. 
 
 Erie Canal, 32, 34. 
 
 English influence on America, 8. 
 
 European educational tendencies, 6; 
 influences, 14. 
 
 Educational principles, 88. 
 
 Educational method, 103. ff. 
 
 Educational needs in 1837, 20. 
 
 Educational Inheritance, 13. 
 
 Educational doctrine — Sources of Mr. 
 Pierce's, 88. 
 
 Education— universal, 7; beginning 
 of modern, 7; higher, in the terri- 
 tory, 41; free and universal, 91; 
 necessity for, 95; design of, 96; 
 
 ethical basis, 97; as development, 
 97; definition of, 101; theory of, 101; 
 as a science and art, 102; organized, 
 114; difficulties, 112. 
 
 Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 17. 
 
 Fellenberg school, 12. 18. 
 
 Freedom, 7. 
 
 Fellenberg, 17. 
 
 French influence on America, 8, 16. 
 
 Fort Pontchartrain, 25. 
 
 Foster, Sarah Davis (Pierce), Note, 71. 
 
 Frontenac, 24. 
 
 Geography, 110. 
 
 German influence on America, 8, 17. 
 
 Great Didactic. The, 9, 10. 
 
 Griscom, John, 18. 
 
 Gosheu, 71. 
 
 Government, stability of, 91. 
 
 Gymnasium, 119. 
 
 H 
 
 Harvard College, 15. 
 
 Hall, Moses, 78. 
 
 Harmony, 89. 
 
 Hennepin, quoted. 25. 
 
 History, 110. 
 
 Hosmer, Edmund, 71. 
 
 Hofwyl— Fellenberg's School at, 12. 
 
 Home, The, 95. 
 
 Holden, 66. 
 
 Hosford, State Superintendent, 142. 
 
 Homestead laws, 133. 
 
 Homestead exemption, 136. 
 
 Houghton, Dr. Douglas, 128. 
 
 Horner, Leonaid, 126. 
 
 Huron Indians, 23. 
 
 Hull, General William, 29, 30. 
 
 Human Rights, 150. 
 
 Inflation, 86. 
 Imagination, 105. 
 
INDEX 
 
 159 
 
 Inheritance, 98. 
 Idea, 105. 
 
 Ideal, perpetuation of, 5. 
 Institute of Instruction, 82. 
 Institutionalism, 10. 
 Individuality, 7. 
 
 Individual, 91; relation to the institu- 
 tion, 90; two-fold function of, 89. 
 Ionia, 35. 
 
 Iroquois Indians, 23. 
 Ignorance, 150. 
 Instruction, 94, 101; religious, 100. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 16. 
 
 Journal of Education, 18, 87, 124, 149. 
 
 Jogues, Isaac, 22. 
 
 Juvenile Repository, 127. 
 
 Julius, Dr. Nicholas Henry, 127. 
 
 K 
 
 Kimbal, Stephen, 76. 
 Knowledge, 100, 104. 
 
 La Salle, 24. 
 
 Land, in territory— price, 31. 
 
 Lancasterian School, 41. 
 
 Lake Superior— Lac Tracy, 22. 
 
 Lansing, 131. 
 
 Language, 110. 
 
 Leonard and Gertrude, 12. 
 
 Learning, process of, 105. 
 
 Libraries, 20, 51, 52, 117. 
 
 Locke, John, 8. 
 
 Louis XIV., 7. 
 
 Lord, Dr. John, 139. 
 
 London Courier, 126. 
 
 Lusson, Monsieur de, 22. 
 
 M 
 
 Mackinac, 25. 
 
 Madison, 68, 76. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 14, 83, 127, 148, 149. 
 
 Marshall, 73,131, 146, 
 
 Mason, Steveus T., Governor, 81. 
 
 Marcy, William L., 82. 
 
 Man, rights of, 91. 
 
 Masonry, 70. 
 
 Masonic party, 67. 
 
 Manitoulin Island, 23. 
 
 Marquette, 23. 
 
 Marquette, Jacques, 22, 23. 
 
 Mason, T. B., 126. 
 
 Memory, 105. 
 
 Menard, 22. 
 
 Mental elements, 105. 
 
 Meadford, 146. 
 
 Method, a new philosophical, 7; 
 meaning of, 106. 
 
 Michigan, organized as a territory, 
 27; in the Revolutionary War, 27; 
 population of, 32; physical condi- 
 tions, 31; school system an evolu- 
 tion, 47; possibilities of, 93. 
 
 Michigan Historical Society, 128. 
 
 Mississippi, Discovery of, 24. 
 
 Minister of Public Instruction, 53, 
 
 Moravians. The, 14. 
 
 Moral Powers, 105. 
 
 Monarchies, 7. 
 
 Monteith, Rev. Mr., 41. 
 
 Motive of early settlers, 6. 
 
 Morgan, William, 67. 
 
 McLaughlin, Prof., quoted, 114, 
 
 McCamley, Judge Sands, 38. 
 
 Mcllvane, Bishop, letter to Mr. Pierce 
 85. 
 
 N 
 
 National Ideals, 5, 13. 
 
 Nature, 105. 
 
 Nature Study, 110. 
 
 New York Observer, 127. 
 
 Newberry, Mrs. EUhu, 84. 
 
 New England Review, The, 79. 
 
 New England Puritans, 14, 15. 
 
 New France, 21. 
 
 Normal Schools. 107, 119. 
 
 Normal School, dedication of, at 
 Ypsilanti, 136. 
 
 Northwest Territory, 21. 
 
160 
 
 o 
 
 Oak— the Pierce, 81. 
 Ottawa Indians, 23. 
 Ottawa Mission, 22. 
 Osband. M.D., quoted, 34, 36. 
 Organization, summary of, 121. 
 Oswego Normal School, 18. 
 Ordinance of 1787, 28. 
 Orthodoxy, Mr. Pierce's, 69. 
 
 Paxton, 56. 
 
 Park, Prof, Calvin, 61. 
 
 Perception, 105. 
 
 Pere Sagard, 22. 
 
 "Personal Reminiscenses," by Dr. 
 Daniel Putnam, 141. 
 
 Pestalozzi, 11, 17, 18. 
 
 Prentice, George D., 79. 
 
 Pioneer, life, 32, 33; The house of, 37; 
 the trials of, 38; school house, 42; 
 preacher, 43. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary, 61. 
 
 Pitcher, Dr. Z., 128. 
 
 Primary Schools, 118. 
 
 Pierce, Gen. Benjamin, 56. 
 —Franklin B., 56. 
 —Gad, 56. 
 —David, 57. 
 —Sarah Davis, 56. 
 —James, 132. 
 —Rev. Cyrus, Note 107. 
 —John D., 5; quoted 8, — 14, 18, 
 19, 20, 42. 46. 53; ancestors, 56, birth, 
 56; death of father, 57; lives with 
 an uncle. 57; love for books, 58; 
 "Stubborn John." 58; conversion, 59; 
 preparation for college, 59; gradu- 
 ated from Brown University, 60; 
 principal of an academy, 61 ; studies 
 theology, 61; early writings, 62; 
 extract from sermons, 63; first 
 ministry at Sangerfield, N. Y., 66; 
 marriage to Millicent Estabrook,66 ; 
 organized a school, 67; a Mason, 
 67; death of his wife, 68; trouble 
 
 with his church, 68, quoted, 68; 
 marriage to Mary Ann Cleveland, 
 68; letter to Dr. Pond. 69; removed 
 to Goshen, Conn., 71; appointed a 
 missionary, 71; a pioneer in 
 Michigan, 71; first sermon at Mar- 
 shall, 74; his home, 75; or- 
 ganized First Congregational 
 Church, 76: death of wife, 76; 
 his return to New York, 76; mar- 
 iage to Harriet Reed, 77; return to 
 Michigan, 77; meets Gen. Crary, 80; 
 read Cousin's Report, 81; appoint- 
 ed Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction 81; visits the East to 
 study education. 82; views upon the 
 University, 86; his Educationa-1 
 Doctrine, 88 ff.; meaning and aim 
 of Education, 96 ff .; summary of 
 Educational views, 102; his practical 
 work as teacher, quoted, 103; Organ- 
 ized education, 114, f f . ; work as 
 Superintendent, 114; his problems, 
 115; his reports. 115; Journal of 
 Education, 124; return to the min- 
 istry, 130: business failures, 130; 
 member of the legislature, 131; 
 controversy with railroad, 134: 
 gave address at Ypsilanti, 136; 
 member of Constitutional Con- 
 vention of 1850, 136; removed 
 to Ypsilanti, 139: offered edi- 
 torial position, 139; death of son 
 Augustus, 140; failing health, 140; 
 visits Florida, 140; religion and 
 politics, 141 ; County Superintendent 
 of Schools, 141; "Personal Reminis- 
 censes" by Dr. Putnam, 141; from 
 1870-1880, 146; moved to Massachu- 
 setts, 146; death, 146; grave at Mar- 
 shall, 147; quotations from his 
 writings, 150; place in history of 
 education, 148. 
 Pontiac, 27. 
 
 Pontiac Manuscript, 128. 
 Provincial. Consistory, 54. 
 
INDEX 
 
 161 
 
 Pond, Rev. Enoch, 59. 60, 61, 69. 
 Prussian School System, 12, 106, 107, 
 
 116, 118, 119, 152. 
 Public Lands, 84. 
 
 Putnam, Dr. Daniel, quoted, 50, 141. 
 Physiology, 110. 
 Psychology, 104. 
 
 Q 
 
 "Questions on Theology," 140. 
 
 Ratke, 9. 
 
 Raymbault, Charles, 22. 
 ''Railroad War," 134. 
 Reading, 109. 
 Reason, 105. 
 Reed, Miss Harriet, 77. 
 Report of Public Instruction in Prus- 
 sia, 19, 52 ff. 
 Religion, 100. 
 
 Richard, Rev. Gabriel, 40, 41. 44. 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 10, 
 Round Hill School, 17. 
 Royal Consistory, 53. 
 
 Starkweather, John, 84. 
 
 St. Clair, General, 27. 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie, 22. 
 
 Saint Marie du Sault, 22. 
 
 State School System, constitutional 
 
 provision in 1835, 51. 
 Sangerfield, 66. 
 Sandusky, 32. 
 State Capital, 131. 
 Sager, Dr. Abram, 128. 
 Salaries, 108. 
 State, The, 89; danger to, 92; spiritual 
 
 creation, 93; protection of, 93. 
 Self effort in Education, 97. 
 Sheldon, Dr. E. A., 18. 
 Stewart, Dugald, 63. 
 Shearman, Francis W., 124, 
 Spelling, 109. 
 Spirit of the Pilgrims, The, 69. 
 
 5:. Iguace, 23. 
 
 Science, 7, 129. 
 
 Science of Education, 102. 
 
 Sources of Mr. Pierce's educational 
 doctrine, 88. 
 
 Social Contract, The, 11. 
 
 Stowe, Prof. C. E., 18, 126, 
 
 School, 95; grammar, 15; elementary, 
 15; lands, 82; funds, distribution of, 
 116; length of, 51; in territory. 40, 
 42; organization of, 20; private, 151; 
 agricultural, 20; normal, 20. 
 
 School fund, 52. 
 
 School house plans, 112, 118. 
 
 School lands, 51, 52. 
 
 School Inspectors, 117. 
 
 School District, 116. 
 
 School board— see District Board. 
 
 Sugar beet, 128, 
 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
 51,81, 121. 
 
 Tauton Whig, 127. 
 
 Training of teachers, 107. 
 
 Taylor, J. Orville. 19, 52. 
 
 Travel, mode of in early Michigan, 34. 
 
 Taylor, P. H., quoted, 35. 
 
 Thames, Battle of the, 30. 
 
 Treaty of Westphalia, 9. 
 
 Treaty of'1763, 26; 1783, 27. 
 
 Territorial School System— four steps 
 of development, 47; first law, 47 
 Act of 1817, 48; Act of 1821, 49; dis 
 trict system, 49; Act of 1828, 50 
 summary, 50. 
 
 Text-books, 20; in pioneer days, 43 
 list of, 111. 
 
 Teacher, Mr. Pierce as, 67, 71. 
 
 Teachers' wages in pioneer days, 43. 
 
 Teachers, trained, 20, 52, 107, 118, 151. 
 
 Thirty Years' War, 9. 
 
 Ticknor, George, 17. 
 
 Tibbitts, J. S. quoted. 42. 
 
 Trowbridge, C. C. 128. 
 
 Township, 117. 
 
162 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Thompson, Rev. O. C, 45, 74. 
 
 U 
 
 Universe, The. 89. 
 Universal Suffrage, 94, 
 University of Michigan, 17, 84, 
 University Branches, 107. 
 
 Vaudreil, 26. 
 Vickers, John, 38, 
 Vicksburg, 38. 
 
 Voyageurs, 25. 
 
 W 
 
 Watertown, 56. 
 
 Wayne, Anthony, 28. 
 
 Wrentham,'61, 
 
 Will, 105. 
 
 Willard, Hon. George, quoted, 38. 
 
 Woodward, Joseph, 16, 41. 
 
 Worcester, 82. 
 
 Y 
 Ypsilanti.84, 136, 139. 
 
AUG 12 '905,