INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING
Adrian College, under the direction of the “Methodist Church of America,” has eight teachers and one hundred and thirty-six students. Rev. E. B. McElroy, President; Hon Norman Geddes, President of the Board of Trustees. It is the only college in the United States belonging to this denomination.
The Raisin Valley Seminary, controlled by the Society of Friends, and located in Raisin Township.
Medina Academy, situated at Medina.
There are two hundred and thirty-one public schools in the County (of which number fifty-three have brick and eight have stone edifices), beside the incorporated schools of Hudson and Adrian City. There are only two log school-houses in the County. Several county school-houses are heated with furnaces, and furnished all the modern improvements. According to the report of ex-County Superintendent W. Stearns, to whom we are indebted for these figures, there are 345 teachers and 14,661 pupils; district libraries embracing 5,757 volumes, and township libraries numbering 7,569 volumes, an aggregate of 13,336 volumes. The school taxes for 1872 were $87,781. Total expenditures for school purposes, $119,280. Thus it will be readily seen that the interest in school matters in Lenawee County assumes the proportions approaching that excellency sought by the best counties of the foremost States in the land. Men came here without that early culture so desirable, and, after suffering the hardships and privations through long years of toil, they are determined that their sons and daughters shall received thorough mental discipline.
High schools are being established in the villages of Clinton, Tecumseh, Hudson,
and Morenci, of the first order, where the graduates of the primary schools may
obtain a knowledge of the higher branches; while in the city of Adrian is a high
school of such character and reputation as to prepare students for the State
University in scientific and classical courses. This excellent school, now
under charge of Professor W. J. Cocker as Principal, has the best chemical
laboratory of any high school in the State, also a reading-room, furnished with
all the first-class dailies. Many of the rooms are hung with paintings, which
of themselves are teachers of no mean order. The district has a library of four
hundred volumes, which have accumulated within five years, the old library
having been burned with the old high school building. Superintendent Payne has
had charge of all the schools of Adrian for four years, and is universally
honored. Professor Franklin Hubbard was the founder of the public schools of
the city, having organized an put into successful operation, with proper courses
of study, the entire schools of Adrian, and of which he was the Superintendent
for eleven years.
Union school, Lenawee County, Michigan
Copyright Ed Van Horn, 2006, Port St Lucie, Florida