THIS VOLUME IS STATE PROPERTY.

School officers, on retiring from office, are required by law to deliver this book, with all other books and documents of an official character, to their successors in office.-See Howell's Annotated Statutes, Chapter 295.

INTRODUCTORY.

This compilation of the General School Laws includes all constitutional and statutory provisions relating to education at present in force. The amendments passed at the legislative sessions of 1887 and 1889 have been incorporated in the text, necessitating some slight changes in the arrangement followed in the edition of 1885. Act No. 222, Public Acts of 1887, relating to truancy, and Act No. 147, Public Acts of 1889, providing for free text-books, are added as new chapters. With these additions, and a slight change in numbering the compiler's sections in the latter part of the text, the general plan of the edition of 1885 has been closely followed.

The opinions of Attorneys General that have from time to time been filed in the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction are given in foot notes, with references to the section or sections containing the provisions of law covered by the decision. It is believed that these decisions will prove of much assistance in arriving at a proper construction of the law, and will aid school officers very materially in solving many of the perplexing questions that continually arise.

The digest of Supreme Court decisions embodied in Appendix A has been brought up to date and the index carefully revised.

JOSEPH ESTABROOK,

Superintendent of Public Instruction.