n of this House, a Manual on the subject of
Popular Education, embracing such considerations as shall have a
tendency to arouse the popular mind to a due appreciation of the
importance--in a political, social, moral, and religious point of
view--of securing to every child in all our borders a good common school
education, together with such instructions to citizens and teachers as
shall constitute a directory to the highest improvement of which our
primary schools are susceptible, is a desideratum; therefore,

_Resolved, by the House of Representatives of the State of Michigan:_
That the Hon. IRA MAYHEW, the present Superintendent of Public
Instruction in this state, be requested to prepare for publication, in
book form, the various matters set forth in his public Lectures,
delivered by request of the Legislature, in the Hall of the House,
during the present session, together with such other matter as, in his
judgment, would tend to the further improvement of our system of public
instruction; to the end that the necessary information in regard to this
subject may be diffused throughout the state and nation.

*
* * A Preamble and Resolution similar to the preceding were likewise
adopted by the Senate.

PREFACE.

Who is sufficient for these things? is a question which any one may well
ask when sitting down to the preparation of a treatise on popular
education. The author of this work would have shrunk from the
undertaking, but from deference to the judgment of the honorable body
that unanimously invited its preparation. He has also been encouraged
not a little by many kind friends, one of whom, distinguished for his
labors in the department of public instruction, writing from New
England, says, "I rejoice at your good beginnings at the West. You have
a noble and inspiring field of action. 'No pent-up Utica contracts your
powers.' I beseech you, fail not to fill it with your glorious
educational truth, though you should pour out your spirit and your life
to do so."

The duties required by law of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
in the State of Michigan are comparatively few. The author, however,
five years ago, and soon after entering upon the discharge of those
duties, undertook _voluntary labors_ for the purpose of awakening a
deeper interest with all classes of the community in behalf of common
schools, and of inspiring confidence in their redeeming power, when
improved as they may be, constitu