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EXPENDITURES FOR LIBRARIES

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of the districts acting independently, have any library whatever." The total amount expended for library books during the year was $35,544.20, and the aggregate number of volumes in both the township and district libraries was 156,092.

In the same year, the number of volumes reported in city school district libraries was 105,901; and the amount paid for the support of these libraries was $18,848.87, of which $6,246.60 was raised by taxes voted by the districts.

In the year 1890 the report showed a fair increase in library facilities in graded districts, and some increase in the townships. The statistics gave 498 township libraries; libraries in districts with less than a hundred children, 762; libraries in graded and city districts 337; whole number of libraries 1,597. The money voted for township libraries was $3,446.49, and the whole amount expended for such libraries was $17,033.69. The amount paid for district libraries, including cities, was $70,310.42, making a total of $87,344.11. The number of volumes reported in all the libraries was 505,720. The statistics for 1900 show a fairly satisfactory increase in the resources of the libraries, and in the number of books added during the preceding decade. The number of township libraries had decreased, but there had been a large increase in the number of other public libraries. The township libraries reported were 426; district and city libraries 3,658; total, 4,084. Volumes in township libraries 157,177; in the other libraries 809,590; total volumes 966,767. The amount paid for support of township libraries was $9,913.55; for district and city libraries, $94,466.17; total, $104,374.72.

The following are the present provisions of law in relation to township and district libraries:

182 PRESENT PROVISIONS AS TO LIBRARIES

I.

At least one library must he maintained in each organized township.

2. All residents of the township, not residing within the boundaries of a school district having a district library, are entitled to the privileges of the township library.

3. The township board of school inspectors have charge of the library, purchase books, make rules for the management of the library, appoint a librarian, determine where the library shall be kept, and provide all necessary appendages and conveniences.

4. Any district may establish a district library by a twothirds vote at an annual meeting. In this case the district is entitled to its just proportion of the books in the township library, and to its equitable share of township library moneys.

5. The district school board has charge of the district library, with the same powers and duties as the township board of inspectors.

6. For the support of libraries there are:

(a). The clear proceeds of all fines for any breach of the penal laws of the State and for penalties, or upon any recognizance in criminal proceedings, and all equivalents for exemption from military duty.

(b). Taxes voted by any township at the annual meeting for the support of the township library, taxes voted by any district, at its annual meeting, for the support of the district library. The law, at this time, leaves the amount of the tax to be determined by the voters at the meeting. In case a district shall discontinue its library, the district board may donate or sell the books to the township inspectors to be placed in the township library.

VALUE OF LIBRARIES

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The importance and value of well selected libraries in connection with the public schools are now generally recognized, and many of the cities, villages, and large graded districts have provided excellent libraries and make yearly provisions for their increase. Experience seems to have proved that district libraries are best, and can be maintained profitably, in the larger graded districts, while in the sparsely settled sections of the State, where the population of each single district is small, only township libraries can be properly supported. In several of the cities elegant and excellent buildings have been erected for the public libraries, in some cases by private munificence; and the people generally are beginning to place a proper estimate upon the value of well-selected libraries in connection with the public schools of all grades.

CHAPTER XV.

EQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES.

Any extended account of the struggle to secure equality of educational rights and privileges for women in the higher public schools would be out of place here, but the subject cannot be entirely ignored even in a sketch of the development of primary and secondary education in the last part of the nineteenth century. The struggle in Michigan related chiefly to higher education, but the question of coeducation, so-called, occasionally touched the lower schools in the early period. Equality of education does not necessarily mean co-education or identical education, although unfortunately it has frequently been so interpreted and insisted upon.

The open-minded seeker after truth, regardless of preconceived notions and favorite theories, must admit that the question whether boys and girls, young men and young women, of all dispositions and temperaments should be educated in the same schools, taught the same subjects, in the same classes and by the same teachers, at all periods of school life, is one that has at least two sides, and cannot be answered dogmatically and off-hand in the affirmative. The answer to this question, whether affirmatively or negatively, does not, in any way, affect the claim that simple justice demands that public education should be provided equally for both sexes.

It will help one to have more patience with the slow pro

CONDITIONS IN THE EARLY PERIODS

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gress of the efforts to secure such equality for women, if he recalls the fact that equal educational rights for all classes and conditions of men, were not obtained without a series of struggles extending through centuries, and that today this equality is found in only a few of the most highly favored countries. Distinctions of class have presented obstacles even more formidable than the distinction of sex.

There were highly educated and learned women in all the historical ages, just as there were great queens and empresses, but these were the exceptions; women almost universally were until recently debarred from everything but the most elementary education. In this country before the Revolution, in the larger towns, girls were not generally admitted to the public schools with the boys. The district schools in the smaller towns were open to boys and girls alike, but the girls usually attended for only a brief period, and but few of them went beyond reading, spelling, and writing. Soon after Independence had been secured, there arose a demand in most of the larger places, for better opportunities for the education of girls. The demand, in some towns, was that they should be admitted to the boys' schools. At first, the people generally, when the question was put in the town meetings, voted to incur no additional expense for educating girls. The first concession of conservatism was to allow the masters to dismiss the boys an hour earlier in the morning, and permit the girls to come in between the forenoon and afternoon sessions for an hour or two. Reading, spelling, and penmanship were taught and the school was called a "writing school." A little later, in Boston, a double-headed system, so-called, was established, which continued for many years. Some of the public schools were

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