science, literature, and the arts, 422; in that of medicine and surgery, 358; in that of law, 342. During the year degrees were conferred upon 320 students.

The general library of the university consists of about 17,000 volumes. Since the year 1852 there has been about an average expenditure of $1,500 per annum for books, periodicals, and binding. The library embraces works in all branches of study pursued in the university, and in some lying outside of the specific range of study. The selections have been well made, and the number of useless books is much smaller than in most selections of the kind. The library takes 78 literary and scientific periodicals, American and European, besides a considerable number of newspapers and magazines of a somewhat lighter order, furnished by the Students' Lecture Association. There is no discrimination made between students and others in regard to the permission to consult books in the library.

The chemical laboratory has been greatly enlarged during the past year, and now gives accommodation to over 125 students. The building is detached from all other buildings, is heated with steam, ventilated by two of Sturtevant's fans, propelled by steam power, is fully furnished with steam and sand baths, assaying and smelting furnaces, gas, water, and in fact all the appliances for both instruction and research in the most advanced departments of this highly progressive science of chemistry. Since the laboratory has been enlarged, superior facilities have been given for the study and practice of pharmacy, and the degree of pharmaceutical chemist has been conferred upon 23 young men who have completed this course of instruction.

The museum has been very much enlarged during the year, both by gift and purchase. Mrs. Ames, widow of the late distinguished naturalist, Dr. George L. Ames, presented the collection left by him, the number of specimens being about 22,500. The purchase of the heirs of David Van Vechten of a valuable collection, accumulated by him in California and Nevada, for the sum of $200, added about 1,788 specimens to the museum. The rooms of the museum are daily thronged with visitors from all parts of the country.

The chief foundation of the university funds consists of the proceeds of the sales of the "seventy-two sections" of land granted to the State for university purposes, at an early day, by the Congress of the United States; that fund amounts to about $500,000, and is managed by the State; the interest of which, about $35,000 per annum, is from time to time paid into the treasury of the university. The university receives from the State the sum of $15,000 annually, which is equivalent to an addition of $200,000 to its permanent fund. Students who belong to the State pay a matriculation fee of $10; those from elsewhere, $25, while all are charged $10 per annum for incidental expenses. The total receipts for the year were $103,526 35; expenses, $34,958 81.

The board of regents has recently consented, in response to an overwhelming popular opinion upon the subject, to allow the admission of women to the privileges of the university upon equal terms with men.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.

The number of students has increased until more room is needed for their accommodation. An appropriation was made by the last legislature sufficient to enable the board to complete the new normal school edifice. It is now finished, and is to be occupied immediately by the school. The finishing, seating, and heating have cost about $8,000. The library will be increased the coming year by the addition of many needed books, for which purpose $600 have been appropriated.

The total number of pupils who have received instruction during the year, in either the normal or experimental school, was at least 700. The number of normal pupils acting and trained as teachers in the experimental school was 86. The number of pupils in the experimental school was 114.

Each representative has a right to appoint two pupils from his district as members of the normal school, who are excused from payment of the usual entrance fee, which appointment is good for one year.

STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

This institution during the past year afforded instruction to 79 students. The senior class numbered 11, 10 of whom graduated in the autumn with the degree of bachelor of science. The junior class numbered 13; the sophomore class, 27; the freshman class, 28. The average age of the senior class was twenty-two years, the youngest nineteen. The number of persons employed in instruction has been 6, not counting the president and the superintendents of the farm and gardens, making 10 in all.

The labor system, under which all students work three hours daily, continues to be successful. Students work willingly and well. They thus preserve their habits of labor and taste for it, and the wages received for their work helps them pay the expenses of their education.

The legislature appropriated $30,000 for the erection of a new hall, which is nearly

COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION.

completed. This additional accommodation is and has been very much needed, as the limit of accommodation in the college was reached some years since.

The legislature of 1869 appropriated $20,000 for the current expenses during the year.

KALAMAZOO COLLEGE.

Represented to be in a prosperous condition. During the past year the endowment fund has been augmented by the addition of $50,000. The following is a statement of the present resources of the college:

The number of students for the year was 158; instructors, 10.

ALBION COLLEGE.

$35,000

88,000

123,000

Had an attendance for the year of 258 students; instructors, 9. The permanent endowment fund is annually increasing, the means for accommodation enlarging, and the facilities for instruction improving.

OLIVET COLLEGE.

Attendance during the year, 264; ladies, 102; gentlemen, 162. Number of instructors, 11; assistant teachers, 9. Additions to permanent funds received every year. Condition, prosperous. No reports have been received from Adrian, Hillsdale, and Grand Traverse Colleges.

STATE REFORM SCHOOL.

Contained at the opening of the year 1868, 247 inmates, embracing almost every possible grade of youthful character. At the opening of the year 1869 there were 247; added during the year, 121; total, 368.

The discipline for the institution is not punitive, but reformatory. Though committed for crime, the lads are not treated as criminals, the purpose being forgetting the past by making amends therefor to secure a virtuous future. Lads are sent to the institution for the remaining years of their minority. They can be released before that time only by pardon granted by the governor of the State, or by tickets of leave granted by the officers of the institution, in cases where the general character and deportment of the lads will warrant, in which cases they still remain under the control of the institution, to be remanded back to it should the board of control see cause for so doing. During the past year 38 were released on ticket of leave, while 45 received an unconditional discharge.

The last legislature made an appropriation of $2,000 for the erection of a frame barn for the institution; also, for the enlargement of the work-shop, and for procuring new and improved machinery, which work is in process of completion. The legislature also appropriated the sum of $500 for the purchase of books for a library for the institution. A cornet band has been formed of the boys in the institution. The cost of instruments, uniforms, music, &c., has been mostly defrayed by concerts given by the boys. The music furnished the institution by the band is reported as having exerted a most beneficial influence.

In 1866 a law was passed excluding from the institution all lads under ten years of age, whereas previously the limit fixed by law was seven years. The board of control has repeatedly asked the repeal of that law of the legislature in vain. The ground assumed by the legislature was the inhumanity of incarcerating lads of so tender an age as seven years.

The question, then, is whether the institution is intended to be penal or reformatory. If the latter, as has been assumed, and as the board of control represents, it is surely unjust, as well as unwise, to exclude from its benefits the large number of orphan boys between the ages of seven and ten years, who need its care and protection from the three additional years of temptation with which they are menaced.

DETROIT.

The twenty-seventh annual report, for the year 1869, of the board of education, Hon.
R. W. King, president of the board, gives the following information:

Population of the city....

Number of children between the ages of five and twenty..

80,000

27,039

1

The demand for school accommodation keeps pace with the steady and rapid increase of the population, so that, notwithstanding the number of seats added during the past year, the pressure continues quite as great, if not greater, than ever, and on the opening of the schools, at the commencement of every term, large numbers of children are excluded for want of room.

The facts that a vacant seat is so readily applied for and that irregularity of attendance for any other cause than sickness soon gives a pupil's desk to another, secure a better attendance than could be had were the school accommodations sufficiently ample. Carelessness and heedlessness on the part of parents and pupils have almost entirely ceased to operate as a cause for absence from school.

During the year an important change has been made in regard to the admission of colored children in the public schools. From the commencement of the school system in the city separate schools had been maintained for them, and no oportunity had been afforded them for advancing higher than the junior grade. The decision of the supreme court in the case of Workman vs. The Board of Education, in April last, established the right of the colored child to admission on equal terms with all others. In compliance with the law, as affirmed in this decision, the board rescinded all rules and regulations assigning to them separate schools, and colored children are now admitted to all the schools, subject to the same rules and regulations that apply to other applicants.

GRAND RAPIDS.

The annual report for 1868 of the superintendent of schools for the city, Hon. E. A. Strong, embraces the following:

Total school census of the city, 1868..

Total number enrolled in public schools

Number not in public schools

Total number of teachers in city schools..

Per cent. of attendance on average number belonging.

Per cent. of tardiness on average attendance..

Per cent. of school enrollment on school census..

Annual cost of tuition per pupil....

4,342

2,878

935

41

92.2

3.9

68.0

$9 27

In taking a view of what has been accomplished during the last ten years, the superintendent says:

"A respectable library, a good collection of apparatus, and extensive cabinets have been formed; the schools have been thoroughly graded; a course of study has been prepared and brought into use; a high school department has been created and encouraged, until it is unusually large in proportion to our population; three new buildings have been erected and the other thoroughly repaired, so that the value of the school property of the district is hardly less than $80,000, and the community at large have become so alive to their true interests that they are continually calling for improved buildings and increased facilities for education."

Hon. ORAMEL HORSFORD, superintendent of public instruction, Lansing.