ctors 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
cl