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Instruction. A neighbor of Mr. Pierce, Gen. Isaac E. Crary, born in Colchester, Ct., and educated at Trinity College, Hartford, shared his views respecting the importance of education as a state function and secured for the state trusteeship over important lands in order that sufficient resources might be at hand for supporting the school system. A million acres were set apart for this purpose. Another staunch helper was S. F. Drury, a native of Spencer, Mass. He helped found in 1859 Olivet College, an institution of the distinctively New England type, which has sent into the ministry, law, business, teaching and missionary service a notable group of strong

men.

For those days the scheme outlined and subsequently developed by Mr. Pierce was a most progressive and comprehensive one. At its top was the contemplated university, against which some of the religious denominations protested, but the broader program of Mr. Pierce prevailed, to the subsequent benefit of the university, which has become one of the foremost in the land. Its most famous President, Dr. James B. Angell, was born in Scituate, R. I. Indeed, when Wisconsin, ten years later, developed its educational system, it modeled its plan for the university on that of the Michigan constitution. The State Normal School at Ypsilanti, the State Agri

cultural College at Lansing, the School for the Deaf and Dumb at Flint, and the School for Dependents at Coldwater are other creditable adjuncts of Michigan's excellent public school system. Well says Judge Thomas M. Cooley of the university, from whose excellent handbook on Michigan in the American Commonwealth Series some of these facts about education in Michigan are taken: "No commonwealth in the world makes provision more broad, complete and thorough for the general education of the people."

"New England amended and perfected" has been suggested as a fit characterization of Michigan. It is quite possible that in certain respects it is an improvement on the old. But comparisons aside, all who know the facts would agree with what E. P. Powell writes in the New England Magazine for December, 1895:

"The story of the movement of New England into New York, Ohio and Michigan is one of the most marvelous episodes in human history-the story of a few colonies, themselves but little over one hundred years from the seed, multiplying and advancing through forests and over lakes to possess and civilize a continent in less than a century more. Inside half a century, handsome cities displaced swamps and the wilderness; colleges arose in the place of wolves' dens; vast acres of cereals covered the sealike

prairies. It was the power of individual self-government to create self-governed commonwealths. Without Puritan conscience, federalism could never have found the material with which to constitute a nation of states."

NEW ENGLAND AND WISCONSIN

THE Yankee was a pioneer in every part of Wisconsin. He

has linked his name with every important industry except that of brewing, and with every section of the State. Though few in numbers, the New England men have been a potent factor in shaping this commonwealth, and however the foreign blood has or may predominate, theirs is the pattern that has been set and must be followed. It has sometimes been a matter of wonder that Wisconsin, so overwhelmingly foreign in its population, should be so distinctively American in all its institutions of government, its educational impulse and its progress. .. Wisconsin institutions have been dominated by Americans of the Puritan seed from the beginning.

T

ELLIS B. USHER.

'HE sweet home life, the glad old customs of Thanksgiving and Christmas, when all our kith and kin were gathered under the roof-tree, the uproarious patriotism of our Fourth of July, the reverent observance of Washington's birthday, the enthusiastic gathering at the annual banquet of the Sons of New England with its toast and speeches,—“The shot heard round the world," "The sword that flashed at Bunker Hill," the homestead manners and customs, Puritan morals (though we burned no witches, as did our forebears at Salem, we sold, alas! fire-water to the aborigine and doubtless cheated him in trade), Puritan manners and pumpkin pie, the Bible every day of the week, and "boiled dinner" on Mondays, the quilting bees, even the house and barn raisings, all these were not the exception, but the rule in old Milwaukee. And so, though times may change, though other influences may prevail, there is ever among us a loving remembrance of the vim and energy of the clear-headed, hard-handed, indomitable men, the patience and devotion of those hopeful, prayerful women, whose influence builded even better than it knew the foundations of this fairest city of the lakes-Milwaukee. CHARLES KING.

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