"The first official report of the school inspectors was made October 20, 1838; from which report we learn that the whole number of scholars attending was 60, of whom, 39 were between the ages of five and seventeen years; the number under five and over seventeen being 21., Duration of school, six months. Amount raised by tax was $586, of which $499 was for building a schoolhouse, and $87 for the support of schools. This house must have been the frame building which formerly stood at the corner of Clifford and First streets, on the site now occupied by Mr. Browning's house. Although the public school was thus legally organized, there were many and formidable obstacles to its success. Hard time soon came on and money was scarce, and the teachers often doubly earned, by delays and duns, the pittance which they received. But the greatest obstacle was want of faith in the free-school system, and hence the attempt to run the mongrel system hampered with rate-bills, which were often very onerous, especially in the primary department, offering a temptation to parents with large families of small children, to tolerate, if not encourage, absence from school; and as each absence increased the burden on those remaining, the evil grew in a constantly increasing ratio, until sometimes the school was brought to a premature close. After struggling thus for several years without recognizing the real impediment in the way, the friends of education made a rally on the union-school system as a sovereign remedy for all scholastic ills. That portion of the district lying north of Flint river having been set off as a separate district, those remaining purchased an entire block and proceeded to erect a house in the second ward. But here, at the outset, a most egregious and irreparable blunder was perpetrated, the lot at that time was covered with a fine growth of young oaks, which were most carefully exterminated; whereas, had they been left to grow, they would by this time have formed one of the finest groves in the county. This house, which was a two-story wooden building, surmounted by a cupola not remarkable for its grace or artistic effect, contained four commodious rooms. It did good service for many years.

"On the completion of the house a union school was inaugurated in the fall of 1846, under charge of N. W. Butts, with an ample corps of teachers. Years passed on and many a faithful teacher did valiant service, though often with a depressing consciousness of Egyptians task work to make scholars of pupils who attended at random. As an illustration of the extent of this evil of irregular attendance, we cite a report for the term ending August, 1853, as follows: Whole number enrolled, 64; average attendance, 18; average absences, 46. The total result, under this incubus of the rate-bill, was not very satisfactory; the panacea had failed and a new remedy must be tried.

"Accordingly, we find that at the annual school-meeting held in 1855 the following resolutions were adopted, prefaced with a preamble, setting forth that the experience of ten years had demonstrated the failure of the union-school system to give any adequate return for the expense incurred, white it completely excluded four-fifths of the children of the district from any participation in its questionable benefits; and believing that the great interests of education would be advanced, the burden of taxation diminished, and the harmony of the second and third wards improved by a frank and open abandonment of the present system, and the division of the district; therefore, 

"'Resolved. That the union system as adopted, so far as it goes to establish the academic department in said school, be and the same is here abandoned.

"'Resolved, that we have ten months of school the coming year in this house. That we have one male and two female teachers qualified to teach the primary and English branches of education.

"'Resolved, that, in the opinion of this meeting, the great interest of education in our city would be advanced by a division of Union school district No. 1, so that Saginaw street should be the dividing line.'

"In accordance with this expression of public sentiment, upon petition of the parties interested, the division was made by the school inspectors, and district No. 3, embracing the then third ward, was formed. Bit, the disintegration having commenced, another division was called for and made, forming district No. 4, of that portion of the third ward lying north of Court street.

"The old District No. 1 was now left in an anomalous position, for, as might have been expected, with the adoption of the foregoing resolutions no provision was made for sustaining a public school, the customary assessment of one dollar per scholar being ignored, with the following curious results: From the report of 1855-56 it appears that the whole amount of teachers' wages was $1,235, of which the amount assessed on rate-bills ($646.47) was more than one-half, while the moiety of less than one-fifth ($214,82) was derived from the primary-school fund and mill-tax, and $343-52, more than one -fourth, was received from non-residents, a proportion unparalleled in the history of our schools, and an evidence of the popularity of the teacher then in charge, Prof. M. B. Beals.

"This was certainly bringing the free public school to its lowest terms, and a continuance of the same must soon have led to the total abandonment of the whole system. But the people were not ready for such a catastrophe and ever after, at the annual meetings, voted as liberally as the law allowed for the support of schools, and would gladly have anticipated, by a decade, that release form the thraldom of rate-bills which the legislature ultimately gave."