CHAPTER XI 



EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES OF MICHIGAN 



The farmer folks who spread over the primeval 

 Michigan wilderness a century ago had regard for 

 education and only primitive means of securing it. 

 The school-house was literallj^ of wood in every par- 

 ticular, each element in its construction hand-made 

 and home-made — the walls of logs cobbed up tier 

 upon tier, the roof of shakes supported on long 

 transverse poles, the floor of puncheons, the desks 

 and benches of slabs, the door swung on wooden 

 hinges and held by a wooden latch that answered 

 to the leathern latch string, oiled paper often in 

 lieu of glass in the windows, wooden beams even in 

 the fire-place and mud-covered sticks in the chim- 

 ney. There was ample ventilation, if less warmth. 

 A miscellaneous assortment of text-books, outnum- 

 bered oftentimes by the users of them, had come 

 with the settlers from their eastern homes. Web- 

 ster's Spelling Book and Daboll's Arithmetic were 

 certain to have place among them. The teacher's 

 fitness for his task was ascertained by a com- 

 mittee of school inspectors whose qualifications were 

 likewise primitive, and, in addition to his instruc- 

 torial duties;, the master must be competent to 



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