1885) cares for Michigan soldiers of recent wars. The Asylum for the Insane at Kala mazoo was opened in 1859; in 1877 a similar institution was established at Pontiac, and in 1893 at Newberry, in the 'upper peninsula; there is one also at Traverse City (estab. 1881). These four institutions contain over 4,000 pa tients. At Ionia was established in 1885 the Asylum for Dangerous and Criminal Insane. At Lapeer is the State Home and Training School for the feeble-minded, and at Wahja mega (Tuscola County) is the Farm Colony for Epileptics; the division between these two classes has been only recently made, both classes having been cared for at Lapeer since 1893. The School for the Deaf and Dumb is at Flint (estab. 1854) ; the School for the Blind is at Lansing (estab. 1879) ; these were formerly together at Flint. At Saginaw is maintained an employment institution for the blind (estab. 1903).
The constitution of 1909 con tains (Art. XI, Sec. 1) the well-known clause from the Ordinance of 1787: °Religion, moral ity and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged?) At the head of Michi gan's school system is the superintendent of public instruction, elected in April of odd numbered years, for a term of two years; salary $4,000 a year. He is ex officio member and secretary of the State board of education; three- other members are elected, one at each biennial spring election, to hold office six years. The board has general supervision of the State normal schools, examines textbooks on the sub ject of physiology and hygiene offered for use in the public schools, and conducts examina tions for teachers' life certificates. In its gen eral outline, Michigan's educational system, which it owes to its first superintendent of public instruction, John D. Pierce (1836-41), has been used as a model in nearly all the western States. Its distinctive features are universal education in common free schools with compulsory attendance, training for teach ers in normal schools, and higher education in colleges and a State university. These schools are supported partly from the interest derived from the sale of school and university lands, partly by legislative appropriations. Immedi ately under the superintendent of public in struction there is now elected in each county a county school commissioner, who, with two county examiners, examines and licenses teach ers. In some counties there are townships or ganised as single school districts, which may support a high school in addition to a common school; but, in general, the townships are divided into districts, by a township board of three (two elected school inspectors and the township clerk), who also exercise general supervision; each district is under its own elected board of three members. Most villages and cities support high schools.
Teachers are trained in lour normal schools: the State Normal College at Ypsilanti and three others at Mount Pleasant, Marquette and Kalamazoo. Higher and special education is provided at the Michigan Agricultural College at East Lansing; the Michigan College of Mines at Houghton; and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The Agricultural Col
lege is the oldest in the United States (estab. 1850) and is under control of an elected State board of agriculture. The College of Mines (estab. 1885) is under a board appointed by the governor. The University (estab. 1837) is under control of an elected board of regents. Besides the State educational system for higher education there are several denominational col leges, at Albion and Adrian (Methodist), at Hillsdale and Kalamazoo (Baptist), at Olivet (Congregational), at Holland (Dutch Re formed), at Alma (Presbyterian), and at Detroit (Catholic).
The Indians who originally occu pied Michigan were principally the Ojibwas (Chippewas), the Ottawas and the Potawa tomis; minor tribes were the Hurons (Wyan dots), and the Sacs and Foxes. In historic times, the Ojibwas have been principally iden tified with the upper peninsula, the Ottawas and Potawatomis with the Lake Michigan shore of the lower peninsula, and the minor tribes with the region between Saginaw Bay and Detroit.
The first white men to visit Michigan were the missionaries and the explorers and traders, Who came from the French settlements of the Saint Lawrence Valley in Canada. The route by which they came, and by which the traffic with the Indians was carried on until the dis covery of the waters connecting Lakes Huron and Erie was over the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, the French River and the Georgian Bay. Jean Nicolet, in whose honor a bronze tablet was erected on Mackinac Island in 1915, was the first white man to pass through the Straits of Mackinac (1634). He was an agent of Champlain, then governor of Canada, who in the interests of trade sent him to find a passage to the South Sea. Nicolet apparently as far as central Wisconsin. The esuit missionaries followed dose upon this In 1641, Fathers Jogues and Raymbault preached to the Ojibwas at Sault Sainte Marie. The first permanent settlements were made by Fathers Dablon and Marquette, in 1668 and 1671, at Sault Sainte Marie and Michilimackinac (Saint Ignac). In 1701, Antoine de la Motte Cadillac (q.v.), who had been commandant of the French fort at Michilimackinac, founded Detroit. The Treaty of Path in 1763, dosing the struggle between France and Great Britain for possession of the continent, all of Canada, with the Great Lakei region, passed from French dominion; the frontier posts had al ready been garrisoned with British troop*, soon after the capitulation of Montreal, in 1760. The Indians, who were friends of the French, and who underestimated the power - of the British, believed that a united and determined resistance could drive the British from k the continent, and under the leadership of the great Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, made a sitmiltaneottt attack in 1763 upon the British posts from the Straits of Mackinac to western New York. Fort Mackinac, on the south side of the Straits, was captured, and all but a few of the garri son massacred. Pontiac himself conducted the siege of Detroit, but unsuccessfully, and finally the Indians were everywhere defeated.