DOCUMENTS.

[No. 1.]

Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

STATE OF MICHIGAN,

OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,

Marshall, December, 31, 1839.

To the Legislature to be convened at Detroit on the first Monday of January, eighteen hundred and forty:

The superintendent of public instruction, agreeable to the provisions of chapter one, title two of the revised statutes, has the honor to submit the following report:

The fundamental law of our state and subsequent legislation under it, provides for the general establishment of schools in all the departments of learning. The Michigan school system is based upon the principle of universal education, of education in the highest sense of the term, in all its varied branches; and not only contemplates but attempts to provide for the extension of education to every individual in the republic.

While the desirableness of education, in the best sense of the term, is admitted by every reflecting mind, its importance under a free government like ours, no one can fully estimate. Our fathers held it in the highest regard, for they planted their school houses with their churches, beside the war path of the Indian, while yet their first rude cabins but half sheltered them from the cold blasts of a New England winter. Since the Mayflower landed the "Anglo Saxon exiles," that band of noble spirits which laid the foundation of a far spreading and powerful empire, no period is to be found in the history of our country when education has not been more or less generally regarded as an object of the highest public concernment.

It is most assuredly an omen of lasting good to this infant community, and also a matter of congratulation, that so many are disposed not only to listen to, but to enter upon the discussion of a subject so transcendently important in all its bearings