The University of Michigan | Page 5

feet, on the west side of Bates Street near Congress,
afterward occupied by one of the branches of the University. Scarcely
more ambitious was the faculty of two men, the Rev. John Monteith, a
Presbyterian clergyman who was President and seven-fold didactor,
and Father Gabriel Richard, a Catholic priest who was Vice-President
and incumbent of the other six didaxiim.
[Illustration: THE CATHOLEPISTEMIAD, OR UNIVERSITY, OF
MICHIGANIA A photograph of the original outline in Judge
Woodward's handwriting; now in the University Library]
Absurd as was the terminology and ridiculous as were its vast
pretensions in view of the little French-Canadian community it served,
nevertheless, the educational scheme which the act outlined was of
great significance in the future development of education in the State. It
was one of the first plans in America for a complete educational
program to be supported by the people of a state.[1] Its sources were to
be found, undoubtedly, in the strong influence of French thought on
contemporary American life, for this scheme was but a copy of the
highly centralized organization of state instruction which Napoleon
gave to France in the Imperial University of 1806-08. As Professor
Hinsdale says, "the ponderous name belonged to organized public
education." Four years later, another act established in Detroit "an
University for the purpose of educating youth" as the successor of the
Catholepistemiad, with little change in the broad and liberal outline of
the plan save in two particulars,--a change from classical to English
nomenclature and the substitution of a Board of Trustees for the
self-governing President and Didactors of the earlier scheme.
[Footnote 1: No one of the old states had what we would now call a
State University, although two or three states had institutions that bore
that name, while several of the states had voted money or wild lands to
promote higher education; nor had any of the new states, aided by the
bounty of Congress, established such an institution that was worthy of
the name, University.--Hinsdale, History of the University of Michigan,
p. 16.]

Michigan at this time was on the far edge of civilization; it was not
even organized as a territory until the year 1805. In 1800 the total
population was only 3,757, while in 1817 it could not have been more
than 7,000. The inhabitants of Detroit only numbered 1,442 in 1820.
Aside from the Indians, who for many years were to be a not
inconsiderable portion of the population, the early inhabitants were all
French settlers whose main business was fur trading. With the first
years of the nineteenth century, however, there came a constantly
increasing stream of "Bostonians," as the men from the East were
called. They were not welcomed at first, although their enterprise and
education were to transform Michigan within a surprisingly short
period into one of the most progressive of the new states. Nevertheless
this growth was at first slow and it was not until Michigan became a
state in 1837 that the rapid increase in settlers from New York and New
England changed so completely the character of the people that it
became in a few years a predominantly agricultural, instead of a
primitive fur-trading community. The rapidity of this movement
towards the West, once begun, was most fortunate, as the settlers from
the older states in the East were enabled to put into effect immediately
their own training in the schools of New York and New England for the
benefit of their children. This is one of the underlying causes of
Michigan's success; whereas other states, whose settlement began
earlier, failed through the lowering of the standards of education
inevitable in the hard life of the generation succeeding the first
pioneers.
The initial public support of education in Michigan, as in all of the new
states west of the Alleghenies, came from the important provision made
by the Federal Government in 1785 for a system of surveys of the
public lands. These had eventually been deeded to the Government by
the different states as the only practicable settlement of conflicting
claims which at one time promised to disrupt the new confederation.
Their acquisition by the nation and their eventual division and
admission to the Union as states contributed not a little to the
strengthening of the central authority at a time when it was a vital
necessity. The first survey of these lands provided, as is well known,
for division into townships six miles square, to be again sub-divided

into thirty-six lots one mile square called sections. The provision of this
ordinance of particular interest in this connection is the following:
"There shall be reserved the lot Number 16 of every township for the
maintenance of public schools within the said township."
In the Ordinance of 1787, providing for the administration of the
Northwest Territory, we have