DETROIT, January 6, 1858.

HON. IRA MAYHEW, Superintendent of Public Instruction:

Your circular of Dec. 28, 1857, is at hand, and I proceed to answer your questions as far as I can.

1st. We have now three Union Schools in operation, which have been established from seven to ten years. We are so strongly in favor of this system in preference to the district system that, where it is practicable, we associate schools in the same neighborhood together under the same general government, and grade them on the Union plan.

2d. Two of our sites are one hundred feet square, but we regard them too small. The other is on a triangle.

3d. I think the dimensions of the houses are best given by the number of seats. One will seat an enrolled attendance of about seven hundred, one about eight hundred, and the other about nine hundred. We are now erecting one that will seat one thousand. As to cost, one is the old Capitol Building; one has cost us about $10,000; one about $15,000, and the one we are now erecting will cost about $20,000.

4th. We have not done much in the way of school libraries, and we have the usual school apparatus. I am not able to state the amount and value.

5th. We have thus far organized all our Union Schools in four grades or departments. One grade or department may occupy, one, two, three, or four rooms.

6th. One has eight teachers, one has ten, and one eleven. Of these, the principals of the third and of the upper grades are males; the others are females. The salaries range from $200 up to $90 per annum.

7th. The average attendance is about eighty per cent of the enrolled attendance as above set forth.

8th. The course of study is intended to cover, and does cover, the whole range of elementary instruction from A, B, C, up to Trigonometry. We have as yet done nothing in the way of classical instruction.

9th. Several of our students have gone from our schools to the State University and to other similar institutions of learning, but I am not able to be more particular on this point.

10th. So far as my experience and observation go, advantage does result from the co-education of the sexes. I should never separate them in schools unless a mere matter of convenience.

11th. Our schools are perfectly free to all except so far as their crowded condition may render them otherwise.

12th. My own opinion is, that a system of education, of the same quality of excellence in attainments, and for the same numbers, may be carried on under the Union System, as contradistinguished from the district system, at one quarter less expense. This is a general estimate.

Among other advantages that might be named, a well conducted Union School presents a system of popular education in a form far more attractive than any other, and as one consequence, it goes far to form a favorable public opinion on the subject, where it is not already formed.

Respectfully submitted,
LEVI BISHOP,
President of the Board of Education.