Popular Education / For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes

FREE ACADEMY, NEW YORK.
House of Representatives,
Lansing, February 27th 1849.
Hon. Ira Mayhew, Superintendent of Public Instruction :
Sir: I am instructed by the House of Representatives to transmit to you the following preamble and resolution, and to respectfully inform you that the same were this day unanimously adopted by the House.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. W. Hovey, Clerk of the House of Representatives.
Whereas , In the opinion of this House, a Manual on the subject of Popular Education, embracing such considerations as shall have a tendency to arouse the popular mind to a due appreciation of the importance—in a political, social, moral, and religious point of view—of securing to every child in all our borders a good common school education, together with such instructions to citizens and teachers as shall constitute a directory to the highest improvement of which our primary schools are susceptible, is a desideratum; therefore,
Resolved, by the House of Representatives of the State of Michigan: That the Hon. Ira Mayhew, the present Superintendent of Public Instruction in this state, be requested to prepare for publication, in book form, the various matters set forth in his public Lectures, delivered by request of the Legislature, in the Hall of the House, during the present session, together with such other matter as, in his judgment, would tend to the further improvement of our system of public instruction; to the end that the necessary information in regard to this subject may be diffused throughout the state and nation.
⁂ A Preamble and Resolution similar to the preceding were likewise adopted by the Senate.
Who is sufficient for these things? is a question which any one may well ask when sitting down to the preparation of a treatise on popular education. The author of this work would have shrunk from the undertaking, but from deference to the judgment of the honorable body that unanimously invited its preparation. He has also been encouraged not a little by many kind friends, one of whom, distinguished for his labors in the department of public instruction, writing from New England, says, I rejoice at your good beginnings at the West. You have a noble and inspiring field of action. 'No pent-up Utica contracts your powers.' I beseech you, fail not to fill it with your glorious educational truth, though you should pour out your spirit and your life to do so.