of construction. If a small manual of school architecture, embracing plans suited to the various classes of public schools known in our system, were authorized to be prepared, and a copy of it were deposited with each township clerk, it would prove of vast benefit. The expense of such a volume would be saved to the State in a single year, in the greater economy and value of the schoolhouses erected, and a new impulse would be given to education itself, by the wide dissemination of the correct views which such a volume would contain. How many an old and worthless schoolhouse would it shame out of existence, and to how many a new one, prompted by its influence, would it give a more convenient and healthful plan? The importance of making some adequate provision for this department of our school enterprise, must be obvious to every candid mind, when it reflects that the State is annually expending for school buildings over one hundred thousand dollars. The people themselves would doubtless welcome a volume such as is here described, as an acceptable aid in the proper expenditure of their building funds. CONCLUSION. Our educational institutions have as yet suffered but slight injury from the war. We cannot, however, reasonably expect for them a continued exemption from the effects of those shocks that are vibrating through every public interest. This tremendous upheaval, reaching daily wider and deeper, and boding a troubled future, is rudely lifting the whole body of society from its long settled habits and ideas, and shaking near to overthrow every institution of civilization and freedom. Educational institutions cannot escape the shock of the general uproar. School funds will be diminished, school terms shortened, school officers and teachers, the tried and experienced friends of the schools, will be more and more absorbed in the war; and the schools themselves will be largely bereft of patronage and power, just in the crisis when their mightiest influences are needed to renew the intelligence and uphold the civilization of the land. Let, then, the patriot citizen, the christian philanthropist, the earnest teacher, the gospel preacher, the lover of liberty, the men of power and the men of wealth, see to it that, in the new efforts they shall plan in behalf of their country, of christianity and of constitutional freedom, they forget not the schools through which, as through open channels, they may pour fresh reinforcements of courage and truth into the very heart of the nation, and pledge the incoming generation to the great principles of civil and religious liberty. If retrenchment must diminish the number and extent of our school facilities, let reform multiply the efficiency of those that remain. And whatever political fortunes may betide this western continent, let the light of a pure and purifying learning still shine over our people. Above all, let the dear and cherished memories of our brave and generous countrymen, fallen upon the battle fields of freedom, at once pledge and inspire us to strike stronger blows for the universal freedom and regeneration of mankind,-for God, and Truth, and Liberty. Upholding with deathless endeavors the cause for which they died, let us justify their patriotism, and glorify their sacrifice, by lifting into still grander power and magnificence the beneficent institutions of learning and religion and law, which they fought to preserve, and which have grown doubly precious by this fresh baptism of blood. With the foregoing exhibit and discussion of the interests of the department intrusted to my care, I confidently commend them to the fostering care of the representatives of the people, and the Legislature of the State. J. M. GREGORY, Superintendent of Public Instruction. LANSING, Dec. 26th, 1862. |