EDUCATIOXAL EXTERPRISE.^ 351 



body. The select-school, academy, union school or 

 branch of the State University in town gave oppor- 

 tunity for additional schooling to such as were am- 

 bitious for it. As a social center, the pioneer rural 

 school functioned chiefly in spellings-down and de- 

 bating. The multiplicity of schools in every town- 

 ship divided local resources, both tutorial and ma- 

 terial, and obviously impoverished the whole educa- 

 tional effort of rural Michigan. In 1891 and 1909 

 the legislature outlined and made possible township 

 unit schools, involving the consolidation of existing 

 one-room district schools into larger plants employ- 

 ing instructors with higher training and compensa- 

 tion. The southern rural communities of the State, 

 however, were extremely slow in adopting this new 

 and optional system, which made progress more rap- 

 idly in the Upper Peninsula, particularly in the min- 

 ing and lumbering sections where local conditions 

 were more favorable and where leadership was more 

 definitely in the hands of the most enlightened per- 

 sons of the community. 



There remained lack of proper provision for dis- 

 tinctly agricultural education for rural children, and 

 the establishment of a school at Otter Lake, Hough- 

 ton County, with positive provision for laboratory 

 and field work for boys and girls below the high- 

 school grade, seems to have inaugurated in 1912 a 

 new era in rural education in ]\Iichigan. In 1917 the 

 State legislature was persuaded to extend financial 

 aid to such schools wherever established, and, after 

 the re-enactment of the law in 1919 and 1921 to 



