University Hall

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

BY

WILFRED SHAW

General Secretary of the Alumni Association and Editor of The Michigan Alumnus

Illustrated by Photographs and Four Etchings by the Author

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.

THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N.J.

To
MY WIFE

PREFACE

It has not been the purpose of the author to write a history of the University of Michigan. Several predecessors in this field have done their work so well that another book entirely historical in character might seem superfluous. Rather it is the aim of this volume to furnish a survey—sketching broadly the development of the University, and dwelling upon incidents and personalities that contribute movement to the narrative.

Those familiar with the history of the University will recognize the sources of much that appears in the following pages. The author must acknowledge an especial debt to Professor Ten Brook's "History of State Universities," and the two histories of the University, written by Elizabeth Farrand, '87m, and Professor Burke E. Hinsdale. Much of the material in the early chapters is based directly upon Professor Hinsdale's painstaking and authoritative work. Other works which have been consulted are Judge Cooley's "History of Michigan," Professor C.K. Adams' "Historical Sketch," published by the University in 1876, Professor A.C. McLaughlin's "History of Higher Education in Michigan" (Contributions to American Educational History, Number II, Bureau of Education, 1891), the reports of the Fiftieth and Seventy-fifth Anniversaries and Dr. Angell's Quarter Centennial Celebration, and Dr. Angell's "Reminiscences." The files of The Michigan Alumnus and the Michiganensian, the records of the Regents' meetings and the calendars of the University have likewise proved extremely valuable. For the material in certain chapters, "The Michigan Book," published in 1898, by Edwin H. Humphrey, '97, an article entitled "The University of Michigan and the Training of Her Students for the War," by Professor Arthur L. Cross, in the Michigan History Magazine, for January, 1920, and Andrew D. White's "Autobiography" have been freely consulted.

It is unfortunate that our information concerning the earliest days of the University is comparatively meager. The collections of old newspapers and other original sources in the University Library have been utilized, but these are not as extensive as they should be. Undoubtedly not a little material in the form of letters and diaries is still to be found among the papers of the earliest officers of the University and the graduates of the '40's and '50's. The writer would appreciate any information regarding such documents.

Acknowledgment is also due to the many friends who have offered suggestions and helpful criticism. Especially is grateful recognition due to Professor F.N. Scott, Judge V.H. Lane, President Emeritus Harry B. Hutchins, Dr. G. Carl Huber, Dean John R. Effinger, Professor Evans Holbrook, Professor Arthur L. Cross and the late Professor Isaac N. Demmon; their encouragement and counsel have been invaluable.

An apparent inconsistency in references to the major divisions of the University may be noted by some readers. These are sometimes referred to as "Departments" and sometimes as "Schools" or "Colleges," as the case may be. This arises from the fact that the official nomenclature was changed about ten years ago. In general the author has referred to these divisions as "Departments" in discussing the period before 1910.

W.S.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

One early June day some fourscore years ago, it was 1837 to be precise, a party of distinguished visitors arrived in what was then the little backwoods community of Ann Arbor. The interest of the loiterers at the country tavern and the corner grocery was no doubt aroused by their coming, for Ann Arbor we may suppose was not different from other small places; and this curiosity could hardly have been lessened by the fact that the newcomers were all men who figured prominently in the affairs of the State, which had been admitted to the Union only four months before. Whatever the speculation aroused by the personnel of the party, however, the business that called them to Ann Arbor caused little comment, if we are to judge from contemporary reports. Yet this unpretentious gathering of notables was charged with the inauguration of what was to become one of the most significant developments in the history of American education,—the establishment and successful maintenance of a University by the people of a State.

Thus met for their first session the Regents of the future University of Michigan. Unfortunately we do not know the particulars of this meeting; not even in what country lawyer's office or public hall it was held; still less are we able to profit from any of the illuminating details or personal comments a modern observer would have given us. Our knowledge of the character of the men, and the official report of what they did, is all we have to reveal the spirit in which they set themselves to their task.

Of the nineteen members of the Board at that time eleven were present at this first session, which lasted three days. Included among the number, as ex-officio members, were the boy Governor of the State, Stevens T. Mason, then only twenty-five years old, the Lieutenant-Governor, Edward Mundy, and the Chancellor of the State, Elon Farnsworth; while among the members by appointment were Michigan's first Congressman and author of the law under which the University was to be organized, General Isaac E. Crary, and two well-known Detroit physicians, Dr. Zina Pitcher, afterward to be known as the founder of the Medical School, and Dr. Samuel Denton, destined to be a professor in the same Department.

Their first action was the appointment of a committee to select the forty acres offered as an inducement to bring the University to Ann Arbor. Measures were then taken for the organization of the institution; the Legislature was petitioned to give the Board the power to appoint a Chancellor; four professorships were established until more were needed; salaries were limited to not less than $1,200 or more than $2,000; and a Librarian was appointed for a library not yet in existence.

Thus the University began its career. The men who were responsible for it in its early years were, for the most part, lawyers and politicians, lacking even the actual experience in educational matters which the clergymen of that time were supposed to have; but there is evidence of an idealism and confidence in the future on their part which must explain the eventual success of the University,—a vision which enabled it to become the model for all succeeding state institutions.

The task before this Board and its immediate successors was not an easy one. They saw, in their mind's eye, a university with thousands of students, forming the cap-stone of a great educational system which was to rest on the little log schoolhouses which were so rapidly rising in the wilderness about them. Their immediate resources, however, proved almost ridiculously inadequate, while their best efforts were often nullified by the selfishness and lack of foresight of many of their contemporaries. Land set aside for the University by the Government was sold for a song to satisfy speculators. An elaborate building program had, perforce, to be abandoned and even the simple buildings erected were criticized as extravagant. The Faculty was far from being a harmonious little family, and dissensions arose between the students and teachers over the establishment of fraternities; while the jealousy of rival religious denominations and the lack of a strong executive multiplied the difficulties which made the first years of the University far from happy.

Nevertheless the University came through it all, not unscathed, but sufficiently strong and vigorous, and with great possibilities for the future in the rising fortunes of the Commonwealth, which gradually came to take a great pride in this child of its first years. To the State, no less than to the Regents and Faculty, belongs the credit of Michigan's great achievement in American educational history,—the first proof that a university, maintained by the people of a state as part of its educational system, could be made a practical success.

The idea of a state university, or rather a state educational system, was not in itself strikingly new; in fact two interesting experiments in Detroit had preceded the University. But none of the original thirteen colonies, or the new states so rapidly being carved out of the lands brought in by the addition of the Northwest Territory, had been able to make really practical that provision in the Ordinance of 1787 which, from its place above the stage in University Hall, has sunk into the consciousness of so many student generations of the University of Michigan.

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The actual success of the University was Michigan's first great contribution to the Nation. The inauguration of practical laboratory work in science, as well as the speedy organization of Medical and Engineering Departments, was the second step. This led to a new relationship between education and practical life; others besides candidates for the ministry began to come in greater numbers to seek degrees. Hardly less revolutionary in the third place was Dr. Tappan's effort to make Michigan a real University,—the introduction of true graduate study which, though not immediately successful, made Michigan once more a pioneer among American schools. Again, the establishment of the chemical laboratory, the introduction of co-education, and the creation of a Department of Education, bringing with it a correlation of the University with the high schools of the State, are all matters now so generally taken for granted that it is somewhat difficult nowadays to give the University proper credit for leading the way.

In recent years other state universities have overtaken Michigan in their development. Some states are supporting their universities even more liberally than Michigan. Many have gone so far as to do away with student fees, an item which has a large place in Michigan's annual income. Whether this is entirely desirable is perhaps a question. One of the University's greatest assets is the interest and support of her former students. They have shown less of the spirit which is more or less inevitable in all state institutions,—a feeling that once they have received their educational bargain, their responsibility to the institution ceases. The loyalty of Michigan's alumni body may arise in some part from the very fact that the education given has not been entirely free, as well as through a justifiable pride in the prestige and academic traditions which the years have brought.

Other universities also have developed further means of maintaining friendly relations with the people of their states, through affiliating the state agricultural colleges with the university and offering elaborate programs of extension courses. In this direction Michigan has made haste slowly, for there is danger to true academic ideals in such a course. The result has been that there is no instruction given in the University that cannot be considered of proper academic character under present-day standards.

Our university system has progressed so far and so fast, however, that the educators of the first half of the nineteenth century would find little they could recognize in the wide range of human knowledge included in our modern university curricula. When the University was founded, the schools of America were really closer to the great universities of the Middle Ages than to those of the present day. The comparatively brief period covered by the life of the University of Michigan has seen a greater change in educational ideals and practices than anything which took place during the preceding thousand years, for we have added to their heritage all the great developments of the past century in science and the arts.

Michigan has done her part in this transition from the old to the new; and in carrying on her work she has acquired a life of her own, an academic atmosphere, and a characteristic student life which have a peculiar interest to all Michigan men and women. To chronicle in brief the main events in Michigan's history; to suggest their significance; to picture the life of the students and Faculties; and to set forth the University's real measure of success, in order that all who are interested in the University may know her and understand her ideals and traditions, is the aim of the following chapters.

CHAPTER II

THE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY

The history of the University of Michigan might properly be said to begin in 1817. It is true that the University seal proclaims 1837 as the year of its birth, but the present institution is only a successor of two previous incarnations in Detroit, which were its direct predecessors. The State Supreme Court, in fact, held in 1856 that the corporate existence of the University began with the Act of the 26th of August, 1817, and has been continuous throughout all the subsequent changes of the organic law.

It would be difficult, however, to recognize the present University in that curiosity of educational history established by the Act of 1817 under the sonorous title of the "Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania." This institution, in effect designed to be a university, was to be composed of thirteen didaxiim, or professorships, of such branches as Catholepistemia or Universal Science, Anthropoglossica or Literature, Physiosophica or Natural Philosophy, Polemitactica or Military Science, and Ennœica or Intellectual Sciences, which embraced all the Epistimiim or "Sciences relative to the minds of animals, to the human mind, to spiritual existences, to the Deity, and to religion." It is worthy of note also that Chemistry, Medicine, and Political Economy were provided for under the names of Chymia, Iatrica, and Œconomica. This scheme, which was prepared by Augustus B. Woodward, Presiding Judge of the territorial Supreme Court, went further than this provision for the University, however, for it contemplated as well a complete state educational system, with subordinate colleges, academies, schools, libraries, museums, athenæums, botanical gardens, laboratories and "other useful literary and scientific Institutions consonant with the laws of the United States and of Michigan." These the President and the Didactors were to provide for, as well as for Directors, Visitors, Curators, Librarians, Instructors and "Instructrixes" throughout the various counties, cities, towns, townships, or other geographical divisions of Michigan.

To support this grand scheme, the public taxes were to be increased fifteen percent, and a provision, which seems strangely unacademic to the college community of a century later, was made for four successive lotteries from which the Catholepistemiad might retain fifteen percent of the prizes for its own use. Two of these lotteries apparently were drawn.

The institution which arose in the shade of this immense growth of pseudo-classical verbiage was a very modest undertaking indeed and developed little beyond the primary school and classical academy first established. These were housed in a little building in Detroit, twenty-four by fifty feet, on the west side of Bates Street near Congress, afterward occupied by one of the branches of the University. Scarcely more ambitious was the faculty of two men, the Rev. John Monteith, a Presbyterian clergyman who was President and seven-fold didactor, and Father Gabriel Richard, a Catholic priest who was Vice-President and incumbent of the other six didaxiim.

Absurd as was the terminology and ridiculous as were its vast pretensions in view of the little French-Canadian community it served, nevertheless, the educational scheme which the act outlined was of great significance in the future development of education in the State. It was one of the first plans in America for a complete educational program to be supported by the people of a state.[1] Its sources were to be found, undoubtedly, in the strong influence of French thought on contemporary American life, for this scheme was but a copy of the highly centralized organization of state instruction which Napoleon gave to France in the Imperial University of 1806-08. As Professor Hinsdale says, "the ponderous name belonged to organized public education." Four years later, another act established in Detroit "an University for the purpose of educating youth" as the successor of the Catholepistemiad, with little change in the broad and liberal outline of the plan save in two particulars,—a change from classical to English nomenclature and the substitution of a Board of Trustees for the self-governing President and Didactors of the earlier scheme.

Michigan at this time was on the far edge of civilization; it was not even organized as a territory until the year 1805. In 1800 the total population was only 3,757, while in 1817 it could not have been more than 7,000. The inhabitants of Detroit only numbered 1,442 in 1820. Aside from the Indians, who for many years were to be a not inconsiderable portion of the population, the early inhabitants were all French settlers whose main business was fur trading. With the first years of the nineteenth century, however, there came a constantly increasing stream of "Bostonians," as the men from the East were called. They were not welcomed at first, although their enterprise and education were to transform Michigan within a surprisingly short period into one of the most progressive of the new states. Nevertheless this growth was at first slow and it was not until Michigan became a state in 1837 that the rapid increase in settlers from New York and New England changed so completely the character of the people that it became in a few years a predominantly agricultural, instead of a primitive fur-trading community. The rapidity of this movement towards the West, once begun, was most fortunate, as the settlers from the older states in the East were enabled to put into effect immediately their own training in the schools of New York and New England for the benefit of their children. This is one of the underlying causes of Michigan's success; whereas other states, whose settlement began earlier, failed through the lowering of the standards of education inevitable in the hard life of the generation succeeding the first pioneers.

The initial public support of education in Michigan, as in all of the new states west of the Alleghenies, came from the important provision made by the Federal Government in 1785 for a system of surveys of the public lands. These had eventually been deeded to the Government by the different states as the only practicable settlement of conflicting claims which at one time promised to disrupt the new confederation. Their acquisition by the nation and their eventual division and admission to the Union as states contributed not a little to the strengthening of the central authority at a time when it was a vital necessity. The first survey of these lands provided, as is well known, for division into townships six miles square, to be again sub-divided into thirty-six lots one mile square called sections. The provision of this ordinance of particular interest in this connection is the following: "There shall be reserved the lot Number 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within the said township."

In the Ordinance of 1787, providing for the administration of the Northwest Territory, we have only the familiar general declaration that: "Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," but an ordinance adopted ten days later provided that in addition to the school lot in every township: "Not more than two complete townships are to be given perpetually for the purposes of a University, to be laid off by the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the same shall be of good land to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State." This was the fundamental action which made possible the foundation of the University of Michigan almost at the same time that the State was admitted to the Union.

For the most part the story of the land grants under this provision is an unfortunate one of speculation, misappropriations, and sale by venal Legislatures, whose only excuse was probably their inexperience and lack of vision; and the natural desire of the people to benefit at once from the endowment these lands represented. Michigan had her troubles in common with the other new states, but she did manage to acquire enough from these lands eventually to give the University needed support in her very lean early years. Their history, therefore, is not without interest. When Indiana territory was divided by Congress in 1804 into the three districts corresponding to the present states of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, one township was reserved in each for a seminary of learning. This, in Michigan, was increased in 1826 to two townships, which might be located by sections in any of the districts surveyed. Even more important was a measure approved by Congress in 1836 which permitted the State to control the selection, administration, and even eventual sale of these sections with no reference to the limits of the Congressional townships, thus permitting their consolidation into one state fund. This precedent has been followed by all the states entering the Union since 1837.

The plan of making a state trust of the public lands was a good one—on paper. But with the rapidly growing population, envious eyes were soon cast on these tracts by immigrants, many of whom settled on these sections as squatters, to make endless trouble in the future with their conflicting claims. The first lands definitely set aside were selected by the Trustees of the old University of Detroit in 1827 within the limits of what is now the city of Toledo. The selection could not have been better, consisting in all of some 960 acres, but most unfortunately the best part was exchanged in 1830, on the representation of land-sharks, for poorer land and the land thus received was sold four years later for $5,000. The remainder was disposed of fifteen years later for about $19 an acre, bringing to the University a total of some $17,000 for land which eventually came to be worth, literally, millions. Meanwhile other tracts were being located in all the counties of the State then organized. Soon after Michigan became a state, the Superintendent of Public Instruction made an inventory of these which showed that at $15 an acre they would bring a fund of $691,200 and an annual income to the University of $48,384. At $20, which he thought might easily represent their value, they would bring an annual income of $64,912. The first sale justified his optimism, as the price averaged $22.85 an acre, though only one-fourth of the purchase money was paid in cash. But the people of the State soon began to murmur; they were not interested in continuing these big reservations of choice land for an object so remote as a university. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, moreover, found himself involved in all kinds of trouble with the purchasers. The matter finally came up to the Legislature under the guise of a bill for the relief of certain settlers on university and other state lands, which would have thrown these sections on the market at a nominal price and insured the squatters permanent tenure. The bill was a short-sighted and vicious one and was promptly vetoed by the young Governor, Stevens T. Mason, because he felt these lands were given to the State as a sacred trust. In this courageous action he performed one of the greatest of his many services to the University.

But the Legislature had a different idea as to the sacredness of the trust. Various measures were passed, lengthening the time of deferred payment, successively lowering the minimum price at which the lands were to be sold and eventually in 1841 making the minimum price of $12 retroactive. Under this measure, $35,651 were actually returned or credited to purchasers. When the lands were all sold the average price realized was not quite $12 an acre, resulting in a fund of some $547,000 from which the University now derives an annual income of $38,433.44. While this amount is by no means as large as was hoped for in those early days, this income, if it had been available in the first years, would have helped the struggling institution materially.

To most of us this dissipation of what might have been, with more careful and conservative management, a magnificent endowment seems almost a tragedy. But there is another side. Michigan was far more fortunate in her disposal of these public lands than any of her contemporaries and obtained more than twice the amount realized from any other state lands in the Northwest. For example, Wisconsin only realized $150,000 from her 72 sections, while others fared worse instead of better. Michigan is regarded in this respect as a model, instead of a horrible example. Then, too, the early sale of the land was imperative if the University was to live. The income from this source was almost its sole support except the exceedingly slender student fees. We must conclude, therefore, that the Government grants performed their function; thanks to them we still have a University and still receive a respectable income from the fund which represents their sale.

The Constitution prepared for the prospective State by the Convention of 1835 provided for a University and authorized its immediate establishment upon the adoption of the Constitution. This provision was the result of the joint labors of two men whose memory will always be held in honor by the University;—John D. Pierce, a graduate of Brown University and a missionary in the service of the Presbyterian Church, who was then about forty years old, and General Isaac Edwin Crary, a graduate of Trinity College, Connecticut (1827), who, with his bride, made his home with Pierce in the tiny backwoods settlement of Marshall. They were both men of unusual caliber and were interested vitally in the affairs of the territory, particularly educational questions. Many are the discussions these two must have held, to which a stray copy of a translation of M. Victor Cousin's report on "The State of Public Instruction in Prussia," made to the French ministry of Public Instruction, which fell into the hands of Pierce, certainly contributed not a little. Here was the account of a state system of public instruction which was under successful operation. These men were familiar with the previous experiments in the Michigan of territorial days and with the efforts in other states in this direction, but nowhere could they find the practical help they needed. The few colleges in the country were practically all privately endowed institutions, having no organic connection with the secondary schools, to say nothing of the rare public high schools. Thus the orderly and consistent development of a state school system in Prussia had a peculiar appeal to these pioneers who were already considering the outline of the educational system in the State of Michigan to be.

FOUR FOUNDERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
(From paintings)

General Crary became the chairman of the Committee on Education in the Constitutional Convention and upon him devolved the immediate task of drafting the educational article. He had, no doubt, Cousin's report at hand as well as the advantage of the advice of Pierce. The result was the most progressive and far-seeing provision for public instruction in any state constitution up to that time; yet a measure that appealed to the good sense and practical wisdom of the people of the State. In brief it provided that the Governor, with the Legislature, should "encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientifical, and agricultural improvement" and that, in particular, there should be appointed a Superintendent of Public Instruction, an officer then unknown to any of the states; that there should be created a perpetual and inviolable public fund from the sale of lands for the support of public schools; and that provision should be made for libraries as well, one at least in each township, to be supported from money paid for exemption from military service and from fines collected for any breach of the penal law. The section concerning the University was as follows:

The Legislature shall take measures for the protection, improvement, or other disposition of such lands as have been or may hereafter be reserved or granted by the United States, to this state, for the support of a University, and the funds accruing from the rents or sale of such lands, or from any other source, for the purpose aforesaid, shall be and remain a permanent fund for the support of said University, with such branches as the public convenience may hereafter demand for the promotion of literature, the arts and sciences, and as may be authorized by the terms of such grant. And it shall be the duty of the Legislature, as soon as may be, to provide effectual means for the improvement and permanent security of the funds of said University.

This constitution went into effect as soon as Michigan became a state on the 26th of January, 1837, though Pierce, afterwards known affectionately in University circles as "Father Pierce," had already been serving as the Superintendent of Public Instruction since the previous July. Upon him fell the important task of preparing a system for the organization of common schools, together with a university and its branches. The system he devised has become a landmark in educational progress throughout the world, as is shown by the numerous foreign delegations which have visited the University in recent years for the purpose of studying our educational system. As for the plans outlined by Pierce, which were quickly approved by the Legislature in March, 1837, we can best quote President Angell when he said fifty years later: "Our means have not yet enabled us to execute in all particulars the comprehensive plan which was framed by Mr. Pierce."

There was no precedent in America for the task set him. Eight of the new states, it is true, had accepted federal grants of land but had failed in the trust thus imposed, and the feeble schools they supported offered no more guidance than Michigan's two experiments in Detroit. The field was practically virgin soil, actually as well as metaphorically; the problem was the effective organization of a university on the basis of the land given by the Government to the State for this purpose.

The answer was the Organic Act of the University of Michigan approved March 18, 1837. In essentials it provided for a Board of Regents with a Chancellor who should be ex-officio President. Of the Regents twelve were to be nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, while the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, the Judges of the Supreme Court, and the Chancellor of the State were to be members ex-officio. The University was to consist of a Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, a Department of Law, and a Department of Medicine. The professorships were specified and it is significant that, in addition to the usual branches taught in those days, such as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Theology, provision was also made for professorships in Chemistry, Geology, Botany, Fine Arts, and Civil Engineering and Architecture. A limiting clause, however, was incorporated in this ambitious scheme, which provided that only so many professorships should be filled at first as the needs of the institution warranted. While the immediate government of the University was to be entrusted to the respective Faculties, the Regents had final authority in the regulation of courses and the selection of textbooks, and were empowered to remove any professor, tutor, or other officer, when in their judgment the interests of the University required it. The fees were to be $10 for residents of the State. A Board of Visitors was also to be appointed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction to make a personal examination of the University and report to him their observations and recommendations. It was also provided that such branches of the University were to be established in different parts of the State as might from time to time be authorized by the Legislature. These branches, however, were not to confer degrees, though they were to have Departments of Agriculture in connection and also an "institution for the education of females in the higher branches of knowledge, whenever suitable buildings should be provided for them." The funds for these branches were to be appropriated from the University Fund in sums proportionate to the number of scholars.

Shortly after the first meeting of the Board of Regents in 1837, the Legislature, following some of their suggestions, modified the University Act in certain particulars; abolishing the Chancellorship of the Board of Regents and making the Governor the President of that body, at the same time directing the Regents to elect a Chancellor of the University who should not be a member of the Board. This act also gave the Regents power to assign the duties of vacant professorships to any professor already appointed and to establish branches in the different counties without further legislative authority. The Board was also authorized to purchase philosophical apparatus, a library, and a cabinet of natural history.

These were the essential provisions for the University. With so novel a scheme the Regents and the Legislature naturally had to proceed on a more or less cut and try method, but those at all familiar with the organization of the present institution will recognize familiar features in this first plan. One of the practical problems which faced those who held the fate of the University in their charge was the question as to where students, sufficiently trained in the higher branches, were to be found in a state which numbered, all told, not more than 100,000 souls, scattered for the most part in little frontier settlements. This explains the provisions for the branches, which were to be in effect the high schools from which the University was to draw its students. For a time this was the actual development; but after the branches were discontinued, high schools, supported by the various towns of the State, came into existence and were eventually bound to the University through the admission of their students by certificate. Thus the same end was accomplished and at less expense.

When one considers the actual situation in Michigan at that time, the program outlined by this act seems extraordinarily ambitious if not actually ridiculous. The hard and primitive life of those days is almost inconceivable now, and yet the change has come well within the lifetime of the oldest inhabitants of many thriving cities of the State. The secret lay in the extraordinary increase of the population. Settlers came in so rapidly that, where in 1834 there were but 87,278 inhabitants, there were over 212,267 in 1840, and it was precisely this growth, evidences of which were on every hand, that encouraged those educational pioneers to aim high. The result has justified their optimism; though there were to be many years of small things and limited means before the fulfillment of this early vision. As Professor Hinsdale wisely says in his History: "A large scheme would do no harm provided no attempt were made at once to realize it, and it might in time be well filled out; while a small plan, in case of large growth, would require reconstruction from the foundation." The result has amply proved the worth of the venture.

As has been seen, the University was to be but a part of a complete state system. As a corollary in the minds of its sponsors private institutions were to be discouraged. Superintendent Pierce even queried whether it would not be wise to forbid them altogether. That proving entirely impracticable, the alternative was to make the University and the branches so good that private schools could not meet their competition. He first endeavored to prevent the chartering of private colleges; later he sought to deny them the privilege of conferring degrees. In this he asked the advice of Eastern educators, among them President Wayland, of Brown, who wrote him, "By a great number of small and badly appointed colleges you will increase the nominally educated men, but you will decrease the power of education because it will be little else but the name."

In spite of this support his efforts, however, were not effective and in 1839 the Legislature in the name of freedom and opposition to monopoly passed an Act to incorporate the Trustees of Marshall College, in Pierce's own home town. By 1850 several such charters were granted and in 1855 the degree conferring power was given these institutions. It is doubtless true that at least some of the opposition with which the University had to contend during her early years may be traced to this first policy, which aroused the sectarian spirit behind the smaller colleges and it was important to that extent; but far more significant was the alternative of concentrating all the energies of the State in the one great institution. Events have proved this the wise course. We have had the example of less wise counsel in neighboring commonwealths where the state universities have suffered from a multiplication of small schools and have only recently been able to acquire their full stature as true universities.

The establishment of the branches, which preceded the opening of the University by several years, and their quick discontinuance, is an interesting episode connected with the University's early years. They formed the necessary preparatory schools for the coming University, and furnished the first instruction under its auspices in the new State. By the end of 1838 five branches with 161 students had been established with the "decided approbation and support of the inhabitants." For some years these academies flourished in a modest way, though they never enrolled more than 400 students in any one year. But this effort, which originally aimed to cover every county in the State, soon arrived at the place which might have been foreseen from the beginning. The branches began not only to overshadow the parent institution but actually to eat up all of the University's resources. The necessary action followed quickly when the University began to demand all the available income; in 1842 the Regents gave notice that the appropriations for the branches would be reduced and by 1846 all support was definitely withdrawn.

This was practically the end of these schools, though some of them managed to maintain a precarious existence for a few years. They had, however, served a useful purpose. Without the students they trained it is difficult to imagine where the first classes to graduate would have received the preparation which enabled the University to maintain collegiate, instead of preparatory, courses,—the rock upon which so many institutions stumbled. Then, too, they accustomed the people of the State to the idea of schools affiliated with the University and prepared the way for the local high schools which within a short time came to serve the same purposes as had the branches. Finally they performed a valuable service in the preparation of teachers for the common schools. The $35,000 spent by the Regents on these branches was therefore far from wasted. Rather it was one of the series of fortunate measures, somewhat blindly entered upon, which served the University well; but it is equally true that the abandonment of the policy came only in the nick of time, for the Regents were already in serious financial difficulties.

With all of these favorable influences, the horoscope of the University was at least propitious. The people of the State were familiar with the idea of a state educational system; the immigrants from the East were for the most part homogeneous and of a progressive spirit; it was believed that an adequate income for the educational program was assured from the sale of state lands; provision had been made for the proper preparation of matriculates in the University; and above all, wise and far-sighted men had devised a scheme of organization which showed familiarity with the best there was in educational development at that time. We can now take up the story of the University itself.

CHAPTER III

THE UNIVERSITY'S EARLY DAYS

There were several candidates among the towns of the State for the honor of having the University. Detroit, Monroe, and Marshall were mentioned, but an offer of forty acres of land by the Ann Arbor Land Company, previously offered unsuccessfully as a site for the state capitol, proved the most attractive bid, and the Legislature voted in favor of Ann Arbor in an act signed by the Governor, March 20, 1837. The town was then fourteen years old and boasted some 2,000 inhabitants, who supported four churches, two newspapers, two banks, seventeen drygoods stores, eleven lawyers, nine doctors, and eight mills and manufacturing plants, including a good-sized plow factory. Nevertheless it was in essentials a frontier community. There are those still living who remember the Indians who came in to town to trade,—presumably at those seventeen drygoods stores. Transportation was primitive, the first railroad did not come until 1839; while great tracts of uninhabited land lay on every side.

Of the twelve Regents by appointment who were members of the first Board, six had been members of the Constitutional Convention, two were physicians, and four were lawyers; seven had received collegiate degrees, while one, Henry R. Schoolcraft, was the best authority of that time on the American Indian. General Crary appears to have been the only one who had previously concerned himself with educational matters, so it is small wonder that some impracticable measures were taken.

To those of us who look back now with the advantage of "hind-sight," the mistakes of the first Board are obvious. Two tracts of land were considered as possible sites for the University. The choice fell upon the wrong one, and we now have the present Campus, undistinguished by any natural advantages, instead of the commanding location on the hills overlooking the Huron, recommended by the committee appointed at the first session. We do not know now why the change was made, though there must have been some little discussion, as it was only made by a vote of 6 to 5. We can only imagine now how much more beautiful and impressive the buildings of the future University might have been, lining the brows of the hills overlooking the Huron Valley, rather than spreading over the flat rough clearing of the Rumsey farm that by that time had lost the attraction which the original forest trees must once have given it. For many years the present Campus remained what it was originally, a bit of farm land, where wheat was grown on the unoccupied portions and where the families of the four professors who lived on the Campus gathered peaches from the old farm orchard.

The Campus in 1855
(From a painting by Cropsey)

At their first meeting the Regents undertook the preliminary steps towards the appointment of a Faculty, though a resolution asking for a change in the University Act, giving them power to elect and prescribe the duties of a Chancellor of the University, suggests that they were uncertain of their powers in this matter. Four prospective professorships were established and though the report of the committee on the matter was not adopted as presented, the assignment of the subjects is suggestive; they included a Professor of Mental Philosophy, whose field was to comprise Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology, Rhetoric, Oratory, Logic, and the History of All Religions; a Professor of Mathematics, to have also in charge Civil Engineering and Architecture; a Professor of Languages, to have in charge the Roman and Greek languages; and a Professor of Law. This action came four years before the actual appointment of Professors of Languages and Mathematics and twenty-two years before a Professor of Law was needed. A librarian, the Rev. Henry Colclazer, was also appointed, the first officer of the University chosen, though he did not assume his duties or his munificent salary of $100 a year until 1841. The question of the organization of the branches, which became the perennial subject of discussion at all the early meetings of the Board, also came up at this time through the authorization of a Committee on Branches, and a request that the Superintendent of Public Instruction furnish an "outline of a plan of the University."

From this time on meetings of the Regents were held with fair regularity, either in Ann Arbor or, more usually, in the capitol city, which at that time was Detroit. Occasional difficulties in obtaining a quorum are discernible, however, in the reports of the early meetings. The trip on horseback or stage from Detroit to Ann Arbor during the first two years was not always easy or convenient, while there was little to arouse enthusiasm in the slow development of the Campus. The question of a library and scientific apparatus interested the Board from the first meeting and among their early purchases was a collection of minerals made by one Baron Lederer which consisted of 2,600 specimens, purchased in January, 1838, for $4,000. In July of the same year, Dr. Asa Gray was made a Professor of Botany and Zoölogy, the first professor to be appointed. He was contemplating a trip to Europe and was entrusted by the Regents with $5,000 for the purchase of a library. This charge he performed to the great satisfaction of the Regents, sending back a collection of 3,700 volumes in all the branches ordinarily taught at that time, including many books unobtainable in America. This task ended Professor Gray's connection with Michigan. Practically all his long and distinguished career was spent as a professor in Harvard University. Another purchase of this period, probably the first acquisition for the library, which seems curiously extravagant for the officers of an "incipient" University, was Audubon's "Birds of America." At the present time it is worth many times the $970 paid for it then, but one wonders, in view of the extreme slenderness of the resources of the University, just what was the idea which led to its purchase. It was in any case an evidence of the interest of the Board in practical scientific studies and their sympathy with what was then the progressive movement in education.

Meanwhile the Regents were making haste slowly in erecting the University buildings. In accordance with the "grand design" of the University Act, a New Haven architect was commissioned to prepare what proved to be, according to Superintendent Pierce, "a truly magnificent design." The Governor and the Board of Regents approved this plan but the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with a better sense of realities, refused his assent. He maintained that a university did not consist of fine buildings, "but in the number and ability of its Professors, and in its other appointments, as libraries, cabinets, and works of art." So this scheme which would have cost five hundred thousand dollars, or twice the amount of what had at that time been realized from the University lands, was abandoned, apparently to the great disappointment of the citizens of Ann Arbor, who showed their disapproval by a public indignation meeting.

The plan finally adopted had at least the merit of modesty and some degree of serviceability. It called for the erection of six buildings, two to serve as dormitories and class rooms and four as professors' houses, all on the Campus. The first of the dormitories was completed in 1841, at a cost of about $16,000; while the four professors' houses, which were ready at the same time, cost $30,850. The dormitory, which was the first University building, is now the north wing of University Hall. It was a gaunt, bleak structure in those days, one hundred and ten by forty feet, whose stark outlines were softened nowhere by trees and shrubbery. The original plan called for sixty-four bedrooms and thirty-two studies, but the necessity of including a chapel and a recitation room on the first and second floors, the library on the third, and a museum on the fourth, severely limited the space for the students' rooms. In 1843 the building was named Mason Hall, in honor of the late Governor who had just died, but the name was long forgotten until revived in 1914, when a tablet was placed by the D.A.R. on the building, which has since been called by that name. Contemporary opinion is reflected in a description of this building in the Michigan State Journal of August 10, 1841, where we read: "More classical models or a more beautiful finish cannot be imagined. They honor the architect, while they beautify the village." From this one cannot but suspect that journalistic exaggeration is not entirely a latter-day fault, although the opinion of Governor Barry seems to have been somewhat the same when he charged the Regents with "vast expenditures" for "large and commodious buildings, which ... will doubtless at some future period be wanted for occupation and use."

As a matter of fact the Governor's strictures were not entirely unjustified, as the four professors' houses proved a continual source of annoyance and expense, while the wisdom of erecting a building to be used largely as a dormitory when students could easily have lived in the town, as they do nowadays, was doubtful. Governor Barry is reported to have said in 1842 that "as the State had the buildings and had no other use for them, it was probably best to continue the school." That was in the period of the lowest ebb of the University's fortunes which followed soon after its doors were opened, and, as Professor Ten Brook remarked, it showed that the balance of the scale between suspending and going forward may have been turned in favor of the University by the bare fact of having these architectural preparations. The second and corresponding building was not erected until 1849 at the cost of about $13,000. A few months later the Medical Building was completed.

The affairs of the University were in a critical state by 1843. The sale of the state lands had resulted in no such sum as had been expected; the branches had been eating up what little income there was; while an unfortunate bit of financiering on the part of the Regents in 1838, involving a loan of $100,000 from the State for the immediate completion of the necessary buildings and the establishment of the branches, only added to the difficulties. The history of this loan is a complicated one which does not need to be detailed here. The expense incurred in establishing the branches, the purchases for the library and mineral collections, and the erection of the buildings practically exhausted it. When it was made the Regents supposed that the income from the state lands would more than cover the interest, but this proved a vain hope. Practically every bit of the University's income was needed for this purpose. The situation was only saved in 1844 by the Legislature permitting the Regents to apply depreciated treasury notes and other state scrip received for the sale of University lands at a fixed valuation in the payment of this debt, as well as accepting some property in Detroit. This relieved the situation so that soon after that time the Regents were able to report that the disbursements were less than the receipts. For several years the State exacted interest for this loan and in 1850 deducted $100,000 from the University fund held by the State. Three years later, however, the Legislature directed that the interest upon the whole amount of the lands sold be paid to the University. This was done by successive Legislatures until in 1877 the $100,000 was finally returned to the University fund through an adjustment of the accounting system of the State. Whether the return of this $100,000 constitutes a gift to the University by the State is still a matter of discussion. Professor Ten Brook, in his "History of American State Universities," written, however, in 1875, before the final adjustment was made, maintained that the University had already paid this debt, while Professor Hinsdale, in his later "History of the University," more properly insisted that actually the University never repaid the debt, and that this $100,000 was eventually made a gift and thus became the first direct state support of the University of Michigan.

The whole history of the early finances of the University is one of great expectations and of small resources not always judiciously used. The sums expended upon the branches were not spent in vain, for they provided the scholastic foundation of the University in its first years. Nor is the erection of University buildings to be criticized, except as to their impractical character. This defect the experience of a few years was to show, for one of the first acts of Dr. Tappan, when he became President in 1852, was to end the use of the two University buildings as dormitories; while the professors' houses, with the exception of the one reserved as the President's residence, were eventually used for general University purposes and at one time were even let as boarding houses.

In September, 1841, the University first opened its doors with a Faculty of two. The first Professor appointed to assume active duties was the Rev. George Palmer Williams, formerly the head of the Pontiac branch, who was elected in July, 1841, as Professor of Languages. In August, the Rev. Joseph Whiting was elected Professor of Languages, and Professor Williams was transferred to the Professorship of Mathematics, and, later, of Natural Philosophy. Strictly speaking these two were not the first professors in the University, as Asa Gray had received his appointment as Professor of Botany in July, 1838, and Dr. Douglass Houghton had been elected Professor of Chemistry, Zoölogy, and Mineralogy in October, 1839. Though both of these distinguished men rendered services to the University, one in the selection of the library, and the other in contributions to the scientific collections, neither ever met any classes.

The President's House
The only one of the original four professors' houses

The Old Medical Building
Torn down in 1914
TWO OF THE UNIVERSITY'S OLDEST BUILDINGS

The grand total of the students who ventured to try the educational facilities offered when the University at last got down to business was exactly six: Judson D. Collins, Lyndon Township; Merchant H. Goodrich, Ann Arbor; Lyman D. Norris, Ypsilanti; George E. Parmalee, Ann Arbor; George W. Pray, Superior; and William B. Wesson, Detroit. By the time this class was graduated in 1845, the number had increased to twelve. The mental fare set before this little company consisted of the traditional classical curriculum, which differed not at all from the ordinary college course of those days in spite of the progressive spirit of the founders. For the Freshmen, Livy, Xenophon, and algebra occupied the first term. Horace, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Roman antiquities, more algebra, geometry and botany, the second term; while Horace, Homer, geometry, mensuration, and the application of algebra to geometry completed the year. More Greek and Latin and higher mathematics were scheduled for the second year, while science in the shape of lectures in zoölogy and chemistry and two courses in intellectual and moral science, represented by Abercrombie's "Intellectual Powers" and Paley's "Natural Theology," were added to their classical and mathematical studies during the third year. Geology and calculus were introduced the fourth year, as well as courses in philosophy, moral science, psychology, logic, economics, and political science. No modern languages, medieval or modern history, or laboratory courses in science, save what practical demonstrations could be made from the cabinet of minerals, were offered, to say nothing of engineering, architecture, law, or medicine. The traditions of centuries were still too strong and the institution too weak.

Upon this modest foundation the curriculum slowly grew; new professorships were added from time to time as they became imperatively necessary, so that little by little opportunities developed for the leaven of the new spirit in education to work. In 1843 the Rev. Edward Thomson, afterwards President of Ohio Wesleyan University, was appointed Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. He only stayed one year; and was succeeded by the Rev. Andrew Ten Brook, in after years Librarian and historian of the University. In 1842, Abram Sager, M.D., afterwards a member of the Medical Faculty, was made Professor of Zoölogy and Botany, while Silas H. Douglas, M.D., who was later to organize the Chemical Laboratory, came in 1844 as an assistant to the absent Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Houghton. The chair of Logic, Rhetoric, and History was filled the next year by the Rev. Daniel D. Whedon; while the chair of Greek and Latin, left vacant by the death of Dr. Whiting about this time, was filled by the Rev. John H. Agnew. In 1846, a Professor of Modern Languages, Louis Fasquelle, LL.D., was appointed and became one of the most distinguished members of that early group.

These were the men who cast their lot with the very precarious fortunes of the new University. The first two resident members of the Faculty, who came to the University from the branches, suffered a considerable diminution of their salary, as the scale outlined at the first Regents' Meeting was more than halved; they received annually but five hundred dollars and the rent of their houses. In fact it was not for many years that the $2,000 maximum salary first established was reached. Even these salaries were not certain in the dark days of 1842 and 1843, when the Regents felt it their duty to make known to the Faculty the University's financial difficulties. The University owes not a little, surely, to these men who signified their willingness to stick by the institution and to endure privations and hardships as long as there was hope.

Life for the students in those days was also no bed of academic ease, though it was perhaps no harder than the home life to which they were accustomed. One study with the two adjoining bedrooms was assigned to two students who were expected to care for their own rooms and sweep the dirt into the halls for Pat Kelly, the "Professor of Dust and Ashes," as well as to cut their own wood at the woodpile behind the building and carry it in, sometimes up three flights of stairs. Chapel exercises were held from 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning and at 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, according to the time of year, and were compulsory. Tradition has it that the efforts of the official monitors were supplemented by the janitor, whose duty it was to ring a bell, borrowed from the Michigan Central Railroad, and who aroused more than one delinquent by shouting, "Did yez hear the bell?", a commentary either on the bell or on Pat Kelly's voice. To a student of modern days the greatest hardship would appear in the first recitation of the day before breakfast following chapel exercises. Three classes were held daily except on Saturday, when there was only one recitation and an exercise in elocution.

On Sunday the students were obliged to attend service in some one of the churches, and monitors, sometimes not overzealous, were on hand to see that they attended. The expenses are given as from $80 to $100 a year, with an entrance fee of $10 and an annual tax of $7.50 for the use of the room and janitor's services. Students were allowed to leave the Campus for their meals but were expected to be on hand from morning prayers to 7:30 a.m., from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. and from 7:00 or 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., after which no student was permitted to leave the Campus. The question of illumination was a serious one in those days, and these periods varied somewhat with the length of daylight. The cost of candles for early recitations and chapel exercises was borne by the students.

The number of students increased each year up to 1847-48, when there were 89 enrolled. After that time, the withdrawal of University support from the branches and their gradual abandonment began to show its effect in the enrolment, which dropped to 57 in 1851-52. Twenty-three students were graduated with the class of 1849, while there were only nine in 1852. The struggling little towns of the State found enough difficulty for the time in supporting primary schools. The branches, however, had proved their necessity, and it was not long before the rise of the Union schools began to provide a stream of students which has flowed to the University uninterruptedly since that time.

FOUR MEMBERS OF THE EARLY FACULTY

There was another and probably more immediate reason for the falling off in attendance. This was the great struggle between the Faculty and the students over the establishment of Greek-letter societies, a contest which became so bitter that not only the town but the State Legislature was involved. A large number of students were expelled, and eventually the whole relationship between students and Faculty was placed upon a different basis. The trouble began in the spring of 1846, when some student depredations were traced to a small log house situated in the depths of what was then known as the Black Forest, the deep wood which extended far east of the Campus. This building, which probably stood somewhere on the present site of the Forest Hill Cemetery, was discovered to be the headquarters of the Chi Psi fraternity, the first chapter house built by any American college fraternity. When the faculty investigator sought entrance to this building, he found his way barred by resolute fratres. This led to the ultimate disclosure of the fact that two fraternities, Chi Psi and Beta Theta Pi, had been established in the University for at least a year, in direct violation of a regulation known as Rule 20, apparently in force for some time, which provided that:

No student shall be or become a member of any society connected with the University which has not first submitted its Constitution to the Faculty and received their approval.

The students involved, however, were willing enough to give lists of their members, relying upon their numbers and their affiliation with similar organizations in other colleges to avoid any unpleasant consequences. The Faculty thought otherwise; though as events proved their authority was not too well defined. Meanwhile another society, Alpha Delta Phi, had submitted a constitution to the Faculty for approval; but owing to the press of other matters it was not considered and the chapter was organized with no action by the authorities. The greater number of the students in the University thus became members of the three Greek-letter fraternities.

The Faculty was disturbed, but apparently did not take the matter too seriously at first and decided to allow the societies to continue, merely exacting pledges from all new students to join no society without approval by the Faculty; thus providing as they thought, for an early demise of the fraternities. It did not work out that way, however. The chapter of Alpha Delta Phi held that their society existed at least by sufferance of the Faculty, and proceeded to initiate members, a fact that was not discovered until March, 1847. Then followed a series of suspensions and re-admissions of students who had promised not to join these societies. Not only were they obliged to resign their membership, but the original members of Alpha Delta Phi were compelled formally to submit to re-admission to the University, pledging themselves not to consent to the initiation of any members of the University in the society in opposition to Rule 20. The matter rested here until the following November, when the society presented a second constitution, which was received by the Faculty with the announcement that they had no authority to legalize the society. This reply was answered by the students with a plea that if the Faculty had no authority to legalize their fraternity then they had no authority to forbid it. Later another fraternity asked for re-admission with similar results.

Meanwhile these organizations were maintaining themselves. Letters to the Presidents of six Eastern colleges brought replies most unfavorable to the fraternities and seemed to indicate to the Faculty that elsewhere the fraternities were under a strict ban. The students, however, knew that the facts were otherwise and that fraternities were flourishing in most of the institutions where they had been established. Finally in December, 1849, a list of members of the Chi Psi fraternity, which included the names of many new students, was found in a University catalogue. The defense set up by the chapter was that they were not members of a society "in the University of Michigan" but "in Ann Arbor," that they did not meet on University grounds, and that they had admitted three members who were not students. One of these members was, in fact, a member of the Board of Regents. The society, therefore, was not connected with the University and did not consist of students. This defense was considered only an evasion and on the last day of the term in 1849 the Faculty announced that the members of Chi Psi and Alpha Delta Phi, whose names had in the meantime been made public, must cease their connection with the University, unless they renounced their connection with their fraternities. Of the members of these two societies seven withdrew their membership; the others were expelled. The members of Beta Theta Pi were not expelled until September, 1850, apparently because the constitution had not yet been signed, to the disgust of one member of the Faculty, who considered this excuse only a legalistic quibble. Some of the students expelled went to other institutions, some eventually returned to the University, while others ended their college days.

This action naturally caused an uproar; neither the Faculty nor the Regents were unanimous in approval of these measures; while the citizens of Ann Arbor held an indignation meeting and appointed a committee to ask the Legislature for a change in the administration of the University. The Faculty prepared a report to the Regents stating their case strongly and even bitterly, characterizing the whole history of these three societies as "a detail of obliquities," and their "extended affiliations as a great irresponsible authority, a monster power, which lays its hand upon every College Faculty in our country"; they were also fearful of the "debauchery, drunkenness, pugilism, and duelling, ... and the despotic power of disorder and ravagism, rife among their German prototypes." This report was signed by all the Faculty, though the opinion was not unanimous, nor had all the actions of individual members been consistent.

The Regents also made a report sustaining the Faculty, and both were submitted to the Legislature, accompanied by a reply made by the seven reinstated students, who denied the charges. They even maintained that Rule 20 was a dead letter and that one of the Professors, when consulted at the time one of the fraternities was founded, did not disapprove, or quote this law. A memorial was also submitted by fifteen "neutral" students sustaining the Faculty and suggesting that the threatened legislation, which was advocated by the committee of Ann Arbor citizens, was the greatest obstacle to harmony. Unfortunately this legislative action was just what seemed inevitable for some time. The Ann Arbor citizens represented that the University was failing, and that the only way to save it was by an entire change in its organic law, the appointment of a new Faculty, and the recognition of that natural right of man—to form secret societies if he so elects.

Their case before the Legislature, however, had been weakened by the action of two students who had circulated a week or so in advance a garbled and caricatured form of the Faculty report, which had been submitted honorably to the students to enable them to make a reply if they so desired. This undoubtedly prejudiced the student case when the truth became known, and the net result was no action by the Legislature on any of the memorials. With the withdrawal of the bill, the Faculty and the Regents were left to handle the question as seemed best to them. In the meantime, however, the opposition to the suppression of the societies had become so widespread and aggressive that one by one the fraternities were "conditionally" reinstated in October, 1850.

While the upshot of all this hostility was, superficially, only a return to the status quo, the students had won their point. The germ of the trouble probably lay in the difference between the paternalistic attitude of the Faculty, traditional in all colleges of the time, and the beginning of a new and progressive spirit in University life. The students had been brought up in an atmosphere which developed individuality and self-reliance and they resented a meticulous regulation of their lives and doubtless contrasted it unfavorably with what they knew of European Universities. The whole fraternity struggle of 1848-50 may then be regarded, in part at least, as a successful effort on the students' part to ensure a different and more liberal policy toward student life and affairs on the part of the authorities.

Not the least of the troubles this contest brought to the University was the revelation of its weakness, not only the plainly evident lack of harmony within the Faculty, but also the practical demonstration it furnished of the Faculty's lack of real power. The reasons for this go back once more to the act establishing the University, which allowed the Regents to delegate to the Faculties only such authority as they saw fit, in practice not any too much, for the Regents maintained apparently a close and personal supervision over the University. This was shown by the habit of some members of the Board, notably Major Kearsley of Detroit, of conducting final oral examinations at the end of the term. Major Kearsley, a veteran of the War of 1812, was something of a martinet and prided himself upon his learning; so he usually gave the students a very hard time. He was soon dubbed "Major Tormentum" from majora tormenta, the name given big guns, or cannon, in a Latin "Life of Washington" then used in the classes. His visits finally ceased after the students found out how to deal with him and came loaded with "grape and canister," as one member of the class of '48 put it, to return his heavy fire.

From its earliest days the University insisted upon maintaining a non-sectarian character, but this did not imply any lack of religious training or supervision,—quite the contrary, as has been suggested. The scarcity of representatives of the cloth on the first Board of Regents did not pass unremarked, and it was but a short time before several clergymen, one a Catholic priest, became members of the governing body, to offset the preponderance of lawyers and politicians and to furnish the Board the benefits of their presumably wider experience in educational matters. Every effort was made, however, to keep a proper balance among the different persuasions, and all the Protestant churches came to feel that they had almost a vested right to representation, as the long list of "Reverends" in the first Faculty list shows. Professor Williams was an Episcopalian; Dr. Whedon, a Methodist; Professor Agnew, a Presbyterian; and Professor Ten Brook, a Baptist. Whenever a vacancy occurred, the question of religious affiliations was at least as important in the ultimate selection of the candidates, as any qualifications in the subject to be taught. This situation naturally led to a certain degree of rivalry, partisanship, and lack of co-operation in the Faculty.

To this the lack of a Chancellor during those earlier years only added further confusion. From the first the Regents had proposed the appointment of such an officer, but in the absence of any clear notion of their authority and his precise duties the matter was allowed to lapse, until the financial difficulties of the early years after the University opened made it clearly obvious that such an officer would be something of a luxury. The matter was settled by making each professor in turn President, or Principal, for one year, a practice which continued until the appointment of President, or Chancellor, Tappan in 1852. This alternation in office was approved as eminently democratic and as following the practice of the German Universities, the ideal of the time. In a report submitted by the Board of Visitors in 1850, the plan was commended and it was even urged that the monarchical feature of a Chancellor should be struck out of the Organic Law, and the system then in force thereby fixed for all time.

Nevertheless the plan was none too successful in application. There was too much opportunity for jealousy and too little central authority. This is shown plainly in the contest which arose over the hours of teaching as the numbers in the University grew. The emphasis in the curriculum upon the classics has been noted. This threw the burden of almost the whole course of study upon Professor Agnew after the services of a single tutor were dispensed with in 1846. Professors Whedon and Ten Brook were therefore called upon to assist him, which they did unwillingly, Professor Whedon finally refusing to hear further classes in Greek.

The trouble grew and finally resulted in the resignation of Professor Ten Brook in 1851, because of the opposition of three other members of the Faculty. In after years he came to consider this action a mistake; particularly as he had the respect and friendship of the Board of Regents, who brought about the downfall of his opponents within six months. This began in an action against Professor Whedon, who had for some time aroused opposition by his pronounced anti-slavery views. As a result of this feeling, on December 31, 1851, at the last session of the Board of Regents by appointment before a new Board elected under the new State Constitution was to take its place, a resolution was introduced requesting the removal of the Rev. D.D. Whedon for the reason that he had—

not only publicly preached, but otherwise openly advocated the doctrine called "the higher law," a doctrine which is unauthorized by the Bible, at war with the principles, precepts and examples of Christ and his Apostles, subversive alike of civil government, civil society, and the legal rights of individual citizens, and in effect constitutes, in the opinion of this Board, a species of moral treason against the Government.

This resolution seems to have expressed the real sentiment of the Regents; but the actual measure passed was a resolution declaring, that in view of the fact that a new Board of Regents was to take charge and appoint a President, it was expedient that the terms of Professors Williams, Whedon, and Agnew terminate at the close of the year. This was an out and out partisan matter, as there was no reason for such action inherent in the change of the governing body, particularly as it did not affect two members of the Faculty who had avoided participation in this family jar. The new Board chose, however, to act upon it and the three resignations were accepted. Professor Williams was later reappointed, as he had apparently taken a minor part in the opposition to Professor Ten Brook. This whole episode was most unfortunate and was brought about by the lack of a strong guiding administrative policy. Professor Ten Brook in his later review generously says of these men: "A stronger body of men of the same number was probably never associated in such an opening enterprise," and again, "We should find that their merits would be magnified and their mistakes diminished by a consideration of the complicated, and till then unknown difficulties with which they had to contend."

With a Chancellor to guide and direct the Faculty and to exert, on occasion, a restraining hand, a large part of these troubles might have been avoided. The Regents had early discovered their dependence upon the whims of the Legislature, particularly in financial matters, while the Superintendent of Public Instruction was given too much authority. In fact, a Committee of the Legislature appointed as early as 1840 stated in its report: "A Board of experienced Regents could manage the funds and machinery of the University better than any Legislature; and the Faculty could manage the business of education—the interior of a College—better than any Regents."

This was becoming recognized; the University's difficulties only emphasized what had become a general opinion. Accordingly the sections of the new Constitution of 1850 relating to the University were thoroughly discussed in the Convention; with the result that certain new provisions were incorporated which gave the University of Michigan a unique standing among state universities. Particularly important were the measures relating to the Board of Regents. In the first place, it was provided that they should be elected by the people, one for each judicial district, and at the same time the judges of each circuit were elected. Ten years later the latter provision was changed so that the number of Regents was definitely fixed at eight; two to be elected every two years at the regular election of the justices of the Supreme Court. In the second place, it was provided that while the Regents should have only general supervision of the University, they should have the direction and control of all expenditures from the University interest fund. These provisions were far-reaching. They made the Board of Regents a constituent part of the State Government, on an equality as regards powers with the Governor, the Legislature, and the Supreme Court.

From the time this action went into effect we may date the larger growth of the University. The selection of the Regents is as far removed from political influence as it is possible to make it under our electoral system, and they are given absolute control of the income of the University and the appropriations of the Legislature, once they are made; provided of course they are used for the purposes designated.

A further provision of the Constitution specified the immediate appointment of a President. The old plan was not considered suitable for an American college. This sentiment was so strong that the Convention was unwilling to leave this matter to the discretion of the Regents and therefore they made action imperative. All that was necessary now was the adaptation of the organic Act of the University to the new Constitution. This was accomplished on April 8, 1851, when a new Act was adopted, in essentials far simpler and more general in its terms than the old one, which left the University free to enter upon the remarkable growth and expansion which began with the administration of President Tappan.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST ADMINISTRATIONS

The new University Act had charged the Regents with the duty of electing a President immediately. It was some time, however, before they found the right man, Henry Philip Tappan, LL.D., who was inaugurated as the first President of the University of Michigan on December 22, 1852. Dr. Tappan's name was first suggested by George Bancroft, the historian, who was also considered for the position, but there was some opposition, which seems to have centered about the fact that Dr. Tappan had once consulted a homeopathic physician, and he was not elected until August 12.

President, or as he was often called, Chancellor Tappan was a man of wide culture, of established reputation as a scholar, and an author on philosophical and educational subjects. His personality was magnetic and commanding, but it was combined with a frank and fatherly attitude toward his students which won their immediate and life-long friendship. Born at Rhinebeck on the Hudson, of mixed Dutch and Huguenot ancestry, on April 18, 1805, he came to Michigan in time to give his best years to his new work. Many of his friends may well have been astonished at his acceptance of a post in a tiny college far on the outskirts of a village in the Western wilderness, which carried with it the munificent salary of $1,500, together with a house and an additional $500 for traveling expenses. Yet he came. The principles of the University agreed with the ideals he had received in his long study of European methods and his personal experiences in German schools. He determined to make a real university in the West; he fixed his glance upon the opportunities for future development rather than the bareness and inevitable crudity of pioneer life. For the first time he found his cherished ideas embodied in the provision for a state university; and though he realized they had not been made effective, he believed that in the West, if anywhere, was his opportunity to put them into actual practice, unhampered by the traditions which had grown up everywhere in the East.

The new President, in the first catalogue issued under his administration, let the world know in no uncertain terms what the University was to become as long as his was the guiding hand. He traced the succession of state schools up to and through the University, where, he declared, it was his purpose "to make it possible for every student to study what he pleases, and to any extent he pleases."

Some of his proposed measures must be regarded as prophecies for the future; they could hardly have been taken seriously at the time. They are not all realized even now; but they show the breadth of his conception of a real university. He emphasized openly the correspondence between the Michigan and the German systems of education, and declared that;

It is the cardinal object to make this correspondence as complete as possible. Hence, it is proposed to make the studies here pursued not only introductory to professional studies, and to studies in the higher branches of science and literature, but also to embrace such studies as are more particularly adapted to agriculture, the mechanic arts, and to the industrial arts generally. Accordingly, a distinct scientific course has been added, running parallel to the classical course, extending through the same term of four years, and embracing the same number of classes with the same designations.

These ideas he put into practice at once and Michigan became the first university in the country to introduce practical scientific courses within the regular arts curriculum, and, following Harvard by only a few years, was the second university in the country to break away from the accepted hard and fast course in which the humanities were the beginning and the end of education, acknowledging the claims of science by granting the degree of Bachelor of Science. He was likewise a pioneer in other ways; for the University was the first to recognize the needs of special students who, while not seeking a degree, were anxious to pursue studies in special subjects.

President Tappan was wise enough not to seek the establishment of his grand object at once, but he did announce in that first catalogue that he proposed—

at as early a day as practicable, to open courses of lectures for those who have graduated at this or other institutions, and for those who in other ways have made such preparation as may enable them to attend upon them with advantage.

Here was the germ of a Graduate School, though for many years the lectures were more in evidence in the catalogue of the University than in the class room. He was sufficiently practical to realize that the collegiate course, "with its schoolmaster methods and discipline," of his time must be retained for a period, though he aimed eventually to transfer its work to the high school, gradually swinging the University to "true university methods, free and manly habits of study and investigation." He also aimed to gather about him a Faculty in which every chair was filled by a man of exceptional ability and thorough training, "not a picked up, but a picked out man," to quote Professor Frieze in his Memorial Address on Dr. Tappan.

These are the cardinal principles which guided Michigan's first President throughout his career in the University, and, as ideals, have been a powerful factor in its growth since his time. More apparent to his contemporaries were the immediate benefits of his strong administration. He saw at once the urgent need of more funds for the library and obtained a subscription from Ann Arbor citizens of some $1,515, to which the Regents added $300, resulting in an increase of 1,200 volumes. From that time dates the steady and consistent growth of the University Library. Even more pressing appeared to him the need for an astronomical observatory. From the very day of his inauguration, he made the raising of sufficient funds for this purpose one of his first tasks and so effective were his efforts that the Observatory was opened in 1855; the result of a gift of $15,000 by citizens of Detroit, to which the University had added an appropriation of $7,000. This gave Michigan one of the three well-equipped observatories in the country at that time. The telescope, a thirteen-inch objective, was purchased in this country, but other items of equipment were obtained in Berlin under the advice of Professor Encke, the Director of the Royal Observatory, whose assistant, Dr. Brünnow, came to America as Michigan's first Professor of Astronomy.

It was during Dr. Tappan's administration also that the professional departments, as they were long called, came into their own. The Medical School had been organized since 1849, when the first building was completed at a cost of about $9,000; but the work was only fairly under way when he came. The new department was opened in October, 1850, with ninety matriculates and grew with extraordinary rapidity, so that for the first years the enrolment exceeded that of the Literary Department. When Dr. Tappan left the University in 1863 there were 252 students in the Medical Department and by 1866-67 their number increased to 525, the largest enrolment in the history of the School. The creation of a Law Department was considered at the same time the Medical Department was organized, but lack of resources as well as any enthusiastic support from the legal profession in the State postponed its opening for ten years. The growing number of petitions for its establishment, however, finally led to the opening of the School in 1859 with a Faculty of three, and ninety-two students. Hardly less important was the establishment in 1855 of a course in civil engineering. It was organized in connection with the Department of Physics, however, and did not attain to the dignity of a separate department with its own head for many years. Even so modest a beginning as this for technical courses in the University found precedent in those days only at Harvard. Lack of funds and co-operation from the Legislature seems to have been the only reason which led to the abandonment of plans for the creation of departments of Agriculture and Military Science which were seriously considered at that time.

The inauguration of these different schools was all a part of Dr. Tappan's scheme for the development of a true university. Though he deplored their necessarily lowered requirements, he saw the day when they would be graduate departments, as in effect the Law and Medical Schools are in the way of becoming now, at least insofar as they require a minimum of two years' work in the Literary College before the student is permitted to enter upon his professional studies. They formed, as it was, with the various scientific courses established in the Literary Department, a significant departure from the single "cast iron" course of the Eastern colleges. By very reason of this innovation Michigan, in President White's words, "stands at the beginning of the transition of the old sectarian college to the modern university."

In all this President Tappan's influence was vital. He entered whole-heartedly into the life of the University, displaying a remarkable shrewdness and charity in his dealings with the students, and sympathizing heartily with the work of every professor. One of his students, Byron M. Cutcheon, '61, afterward a Regent of the University, thus describes him:

As I remember him, he was fully six feet tall, with a grand head set upon massive shoulders. A full suite of dark brown hair, worn rather long and considerably disordered, crowned and adorned his head. His face ... was pleasant and attractive though never exhibiting levity, and rarely, humor. The nose was large and somewhat Roman. The rather long side beard had not yet turned gray. His carriage was upright and dignified. I never saw him in a hurry. He was always approachable, but never familiar nor invited familiarity.

The powerful frame and compelling presence of Chancellor Tappan are well portrayed in the magnificent bas-relief by Karl Bitter, now in Alumni Memorial Hall, a fitting tribute to his influence upon the University on the part of his former students. Especially noteworthy is his representation here with his favorite mastiff, "Leo," his inseparable companion. No reminiscence of a student of that time is complete without mention of "Leo" and his later companion "Buff," an only slightly less huge animal acquired during the later years of Dr. Tappan's administration. So when, in the popular air of the sixties, his students asked:

"Where, O where, is Dr. Tappan?"

The answer was:

"He went up on Buff and Leo,
Safe now in the Promised Land."

President Tappan was not fortunate in his appearances before the State Legislature to ask for appropriations. He was too good a speaker not to command a hearing, but his repeated references to the German prototypes of the University were resented; while the opposition of the smaller church colleges, who represented the unsectarian character of the University as "Godless," was very evident in the indifferent and even discourteous attitude of the individual members of the Legislature. Finally President Tappan became disgusted and as he left, never to return, he made the memorable prophecy: "The day will come, gentlemen, when my boys will take your places, and then something will be done for the University." Within a decade this began to come true, but not in time to save to the University the services of Dr. Tappan.

It was one of the University's greatest misfortunes that her first President was not permitted to work out his plans. The story of his removal is a sad one, though fortunately the issues were largely personal and did not involve fundamental University policies. When Dr. Tappan came to Michigan he found the Faculty and Regents entirely ready to co-operate with him; glad, in fact, to have a strong hand at last at the helm. The Board sympathized with his ideals and the Faculty seconded him loyally in all his efforts. This happy state of affairs continued from 1852 to 1858, when, in conformity with the constitutional provision of 1850, a new Board of Regents succeeded the one which had chosen him as President. This Board was not only entirely new, but it was composed of men who lacked what would seem to be the elementary qualifications for such a task; in fact, few if any of them had had any academic training whatever. Nevertheless this did not in the least embarrass them, and they proceeded at once to take a very active part in University life. It soon became evident that there was a great difference between their views as to the duties of the President, and those of Dr. Tappan, who assumed that, as executive officer, his authority in the internal affairs of the University and over the Faculty was, under certain limitations, comprehensive and effective. He could not see how the University could properly develop otherwise.

The new Regents, on the contrary, seemed to feel that not only the administration of the University finances but a great share of the legislative and administrative power rested with them; and they proceeded to act upon that assumption. They prepared a set of rules for the conduct of the University without consulting President Tappan, and appointed a series of executive committees which seriously limited his control. Certain of the Regents were particularly aggressive, especially Levi Bishop, the Detroit member of the Board, who for a long period wrote anonymous articles on the University in a Detroit paper, giving his biased view of all that happened in the Regents' meetings. The Ann Arbor Regent, Donald MacIntyre, whose banking office became the unofficial center of University affairs, also proved himself unfriendly to the President.

The Faculty, unfortunately, was divided in its sympathies. It may be said that Dr. Tappan possessed the defects of his qualities. He showed a certain lack of fellowship and understanding in dealing with some of his associates and assumed, perhaps unconsciously, an air of authority and an attitude of superiority which was resented. Where his pre-eminent position was unquestioned, as in his relations with the students and with the people of the State, the charm and graciousness of his manner and his parental kindness won him universal friendship and respect. Moreover Dr. Tappan was courageous, generous, and direct in all his dealings, in spite of that touch of condescension. He insisted strongly, however, on what he regarded as his prerogatives and exhibited a certain lack of diplomacy and forbearance in dealing with the Regents and Faculty, which under ordinary circumstances would have been regarded as the personal idiosyncrasy of a great man. But with a majority of the Regents definitely opposed to him from the first and with a growing Faculty cabal in support, it weighed heavily against him. His every action was criticized. Though he was a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church, and was affiliated with the Presbyterian church in Ann Arbor, he emphasized the University's non-sectarian character, and paid no attention to the denominational affiliations of the candidates in making appointments to the Faculty. He carried this policy so far that he took no active part in the affairs of his own church in Ann Arbor, a course which was resented by the Presbyterians, while it won him no friends in the other churches which he attended impartially. His European habit of serving wine at his table also was severely censured, particularly by the local Regent, who was a Presbyterian and a strong prohibitionist. Finally, his efforts to maintain a high standard in the Faculty by holding in subordinate positions men who had not proved their ability did not increase the number of friends among his colleagues.

A change was anticipated in 1864, when a new Board of Regents offered promise of a different order. Dr. Tappan therefore, in spite of many temptations to resign, continued to hold his position, largely because of the appeals of his friends, particularly students and alumni, to "stick it out." But certain members of the old Board, it was said, had stated that they would bring about his removal before the end of their term. The event proved their intention, for the retiring Board, on June 25, 1863, without warning, and only giving him a few hours to offer his resignation, summarily removed him from the offices and duties of President and Professor of Philosophy. At the same meeting Dr. Tappan's son was also removed from the position of Librarian, which he had held most successfully for some years, while Dr. Brünnow, who had married his only daughter, was dismissed from the Professorship of Astronomy, where he had contributed so much to the reputation of the University. The Board then elected to the Presidency and the Professorship of Rhetoric and English Literature Dr. Erastus O. Haven, who had served as Professor of Latin, and later of History and English Literature, from 1852 to 1856, and who had afterward been engaged in the publication of a religious paper of the Methodist Church in Boston. Dr. L.D. Chapin, Amherst, '51, pastor of the Ann Arbor Presbyterian church, who was among those considered for the Presidency, was elected to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy.

Dr. Tappan never returned to Michigan. He spent the rest of his life in Europe and died in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1881. He had come to Ann Arbor with high hopes, the fulfilment of a desire to take part in the "creation of an American University deserving the name," and his disappointment and disillusionment was a crushing blow. His spirit still lived, however, in the institution he loved and served, for we know now that no man has had so large a share as he in shaping the course the University was to take or insuring a proper direction of the first steps. When he came he found a small struggling college of 222 students; when he left there were 652 students in three flourishing departments and the beginning of a real University. Were he alive today he would realize that his great work was not in vain. The earnest invitation of the Regents that he be the honored guest of the University at the 1875 Commencement, which was declined because of failing health, must have softened bitter memories, particularly as the message of acknowledgment included a statement renewing the invitation for the following year and incorporated a resolution erasing all criticism from the Regents' record.

The situation which faced his successor was a delicate one. The removal of Dr. Tappan had created a storm which grew rather than decreased, and President Haven found an unfriendly community and a hostile student body awaiting him. Every effort, in fact, was being made to secure the re-election of Dr. Tappan as soon as the new Board of Regents was in authority. President Haven, however, who had known nothing of the circumstances which led to the removal of Dr. Tappan when he accepted the Presidency, showed great wisdom and tact in this emergency. He won the respect of every one by an announcement that he did not intend to stay unless re-elected by the new Board, and appealed for harmony and good feeling in the face of what was to all a difficult situation. At their first session the new Board of Regents considered the recalling of Dr. Tappan. Floods of letters had been received from alumni, students, and friends of the University, advocating such action, but the Regents felt that this course would be unwise as it would have involved practically a reorganization of the whole Faculty. The personal character of the trouble which resulted in the removal of Dr. Tappan, emphasized later by an injudicious statement issued at the suggestion of some of his friends, would have rendered such a course almost inevitable.

Dr. Haven was not a man of the powerful caliber of his predecessor but he proved a most satisfactory administrator during a trying period. Of a more conservative temper, he devoted himself to caring for the immediate affairs of the University rather than the problems of future development. He was born in Boston, November 1, 1820, and was graduated from Wesleyan University in 1842. After a few years spent in teaching, he entered the ministry of the Methodist Church, but resigned in 1852 to accept the professorship of Latin in the University. Like his predecessor, he had an extraordinary ability as a speaker, though he was more given to epigrams and felicities of expression, with which his speeches fairly sparkled. His characteristic humor, quoted by Professor Winchell in his Memorial Address, is illustrated by the following passage:

Might not a parasite on the back of an ox ... having found out by actual measurement the circumference of the ox, and by mathematical calculation, the diameter of the ox, and having ascertained that as he inserted his proboscis into the hide of the animal, say the sixteenth of an inch, it gradually and regularly grew warmer, infer, in like manner (as the geologist) that the center of the animal was red hot lava!

Henry Philip Tappan, LL.D. (1805-1881)
The first President of the University, 1852-1863
(From a bas-relief by Karl Bitter in Alumni Memorial Hall)

Dr. Haven, in spite of his active denominational ties, was a strong supporter of the non-sectarianism of the University. "I maintain," he said, "that a State University in this country should be religious. It should be Christian without being sectarian," and again, "Those questions upon which denominations differ—however vital they may appear—should be left to their acknowledged teachers outside the University."

In his general policy he faithfully followed the paths which had been laid out for the University's development; and despite predicted disaster he saw a great increase in her material welfare and her standing in the academic world during the six years he was President. Within four years the attendance practically doubled from 652 in 1862-63 to 1,255 in 1866-67. This was due to the great and somewhat disproportionate growth of the two professional schools, which were now well under way, and to the reaction following the falling off of students during the Civil War. In 1864 a School of Mines was announced, but it did not prove successful and was soon absorbed in a Department of Mining Engineering which in turn failed to survive. In 1867-68 a Latin and Scientific course was established, substituting modern languages for Greek as cultural studies, an innovation which speedily proved popular and widely imitated. A course in Pharmacy was first given in 1868, though it did not become a Department for some years. The Library also grew from 13,000 volumes in 1864 to 17,000 in 1869, including one gift to the law library of 800 volumes. Other gifts increased the scientific resources of the University.

This growth in students and in the scope of the curriculum made additions to the buildings and equipment imperative. The Medical Building was enlarged by a new section, erected at a cost of $20,000, one-half of which was raised by the townspeople of Ann Arbor by general taxation; while an addition to the Observatory and its general renovation cost $6,000, an expense again defrayed by Ann Arbor and Detroit citizens. A much needed addition to the Chemical Laboratory was also made, and one of the dwelling houses on the Campus was made into a Hospital.

The financial situation during most of this period, however, was threatening. The great increase in the cost of living which followed the Civil War was making existence difficult for the whole University. The total income was but $60,000, while the average professor's salary was only $1,500. Up to this time the State had contributed nothing to the University for its support, aside from the loan made in 1838, though it was glad enough to bask in the reputation which the great and growing institution brought to the Commonwealth. The University, in fact, had grown beyond its resources, and something had to be done. The Regents accordingly took the University's case to the Legislature, which granted, in 1867, a tax of one-twentieth of a mill on each dollar of the taxable resources of the State, yielding a prospective income of about $16,000 annually—provided, however, that a Professor of Homeopathy be appointed in the Department of Medicine and Surgery.

This actually proved worse than nothing, for it increased tenfold the difficulties of the University and precipitated a long and violent discussion which nearly disrupted the Medical Department. The Regents were not compelled to take the money; so they postponed action and sought to evade the issue by proposing to establish a Department of Homeopathy in some other place than Ann Arbor. But this was held illegal by the Supreme Court and the matter was again postponed. At the end of two years, partly at least as a result of President Haven's masterly statement of the University's plight before the Legislature, a new law was finally passed giving the University not only an annual subsidy of $15,500 for the two ensuing years, but granting also the sum that had accumulated for two years as a result of the first Act. Thus was the University saved once more. The Board was not only enabled to bring the University's facilities into correspondence with its rapid growth; but more to the point, it could now increase the salaries of the Faculty so that full Professors in the Literary Department at last received the $2,000 originally provided in 1837. This relief was of the utmost importance. Still more significant was the fact that a new policy was inaugurated by which the necessity of state support for the University was recognized; support which has never since been withheld, for the tax was successively increased to one-sixth of a mill in 1893, to one-fourth in 1899, and finally in 1907 to the present three-eighths of a mill. At last Michigan, in the fullest sense of the term, became the University of the State of Michigan.

This was the culmination of President Haven's administration. A few weeks later he resigned to accept the Presidency of Northwestern University, a school maintained by his own denomination, where he doubtless felt there were wider opportunities in his chosen field. His resignation was accepted by the Regents with regret and the declaration that the success of the University during the preceding six years "to a large extent had been due to his learning, skill, assiduity, and eminent virtues," a statement which was given added force by an unsuccessful attempt to have him return during the interregnum of two years that followed. He died in Salem, Oregon, August 2, 1881.

The Regents were not able at once to find a successor to President Haven, so Professor Henry S. Frieze, who held the chair of Latin, was appointed Acting President. This position he filled so successfully for two years that he was asked informally whether he would accept the Presidency. The choice, however, fell in turn upon Professor Julius H. Seelye of Amherst College and President James B. Angell of the University of Vermont, both of whom visited Ann Arbor but afterward declined the appointment.

Meanwhile the good fortune which led to the selection of Dr. Frieze as Acting President was shown by two important measures which were the outstanding features of his administration. For many years there had been a growing sentiment in favor of the admission of women to the University, which had been steadily resisted by the students, Faculties, and Regents. President Haven had come to see its inevitability, particularly in a state institution, and perhaps its advisability, but successive discussions had only postponed action from year to year. So it was not until January 5, 1870, that the great step was taken in the following innocuous resolution:

Resolved, That the Board of Regents recognize the right of every resident of Michigan to the enjoyment of the privileges afforded by the University, and that no rule exists in any of the University statutes for the exclusion of any person from the University who possesses the requisite literary and moral qualifications.

The Two Main Buildings of the University about 1860
(From an old photograph)

Great was the opposition, particularly from students and Faculties. The Medical Department was especially concerned and even organized an elaborate duplication of courses with an increase of $500 in professorial salaries, measures which later proved unnecessary. One month later, on February 2, 1870, the first woman was enrolled in the University; Miss Madelon L. Stockwell, now Mrs. Charles K. Turner of Kalamazoo. She was the only woman student until the fall term, when eleven others entered the Literary Department, three the Department of Pharmacy, eighteen the Department of Medicine, and two the Department of Law, with four graduating the following June. Tradition has it that they had a hard time at first. They were treated with indifferent courtesy, college journalism had its fling at them, many boarding places were not open to them, and in fact life was made as unpleasant as possible. But they had good friends in the President and in many members of the Faculties; they asked no favors, and they gained the education on a masculine plane they sought. The experiment proved successful, as the roster of Michigan alumnæ will show; and it was not long before co-education became the rule in all American colleges save the older institutions of the East.

Michigan now, as we have seen, was a state institution in reality as well as in name; but the educational arch of which she was the keystone was not yet completed. The earlier close connection between the University and the schools of the State, contemplated when the branches were established, had proved impossible of realization, and the union high schools which soon succeeded them were tied to the University only incidentally and indirectly through the influence of such teachers as had been students at the University. Their graduates came in increasing numbers, it is true, but they were admitted by examination upon the same basis as the graduates of any school.

The Acting President saw the need of a closer relationship, which would not only strengthen the high schools, but would relieve the University of its elementary courses by eventually making the high schools the equivalent of the German Gymnasia; in effect the present junior colleges, the establishment of which we are now witnessing in all the larger high schools. Professor Frieze therefore proposed that special faculty committees be sent to examine the character of the work in the high schools of the State. If this were approved, a certificate stating that a proper preliminary course was satisfactorily completed, would admit any student to the University without examination. This simple plan was severely criticized by some educational authorities of the time as revolutionary and as a lowering of standards. It soon justified itself, however, and has come to be the general practice; in fact, it has also been extended to cover a reciprocal arrangement on the part of all the leading state universities as well as many of the privately endowed institutions. Again Michigan led the way.

The growth of the University continued undiminished, and soon the need of a large auditorium became increasingly apparent, to say nothing of more offices and class rooms. The Legislature therefore voted in 1869 the sum of $75,000 for the erection of the present main section of University Hall lying between the two original wings, the first buildings of the University. This included a large auditorium, seating nearly 3,000 persons, with a chapel and the necessary offices and recitation rooms on the first floor. The tower, which was the striking feature of this building, was replaced in 1898 by the lower and much safer dome of the present time.

The ability and success with which Dr. Frieze had conducted the affairs of the University was publicly recognized by the Board of Regents at the end of his term, and it was on his advice that the invitation was once more extended to his former pupil at Brown University, Dr. James B. Angell; this time with successful results.

CHAPTER V

PRESIDENT ANGELL AND PRESIDENT HUTCHINS

Dr. Angell, fresh from his work in the East as Professor of Modern Languages at Brown University, war-time editor of the Providence Journal, and President of the University of Vermont, came to Michigan eight years after the departure of President Tappan. The Faculty of thirty-five which greeted him was a brilliant company, though small in comparison with a roll over ten times as long when he resigned his office. The catalogue of 1871 shows 1,110 students in the University at that time; at the end of his term of office there were 5,223. The thirty-eight years of his administration not only covered a significant period in the history of American education but it was as well a critical time in the life of the University. In the years between 1871 and 1909 the University showed, once for all, that the experiment involved in its establishment, the popularization of education and the maintenance of a school system and a university by the State, was not only justified but even more, it was extraordinarily successful.

While the University might have developed much as it has without the guidance of President Angell, it may be questioned whether it would have been as effective as a leader in the new movement. The principles which underlie the state university system were stated well by the founders, who incorporated the fundamental idea of popular education in the first constitution of the State, and Michigan's first great President, Chancellor Tappan, tried his best to make them practical. But he was ahead of his time, and it was not until President Angell took the helm that there was progress towards a true University. When he came Michigan was still in many respects little more than a collection of colleges. It was the work of Dr. Angell to build, and to build well, upon foundations already laid; to harmonize, with practical idealism and diplomacy, the advanced ideals of the University with the slower progress of the Commonwealth. While it has come to be no reproach upon the fame of Dr. Tappan that he failed in just this particular, it is the great achievement of Dr. Angell that he succeeded. He made Michigan the model for all succeeding state universities.

The new President was born in Scituate, R.I., January 7, 1829, of good New England stock. Throughout his youth he lived the simple life of a country boy, attending the village school, the academy of one Isaac Fiske, a Quaker pedagogue,—until he was ready for more advanced studies at the academies of Seekonk, Mass., and North Scituate.

This early training, in his later estimation, furnished the best possible instruction, because it involved personal attention from special instructors, a good old-fashioned method which the rapid development of this country has made almost impossible, yet a practice for which he stood consistently as far as possible throughout his whole career as an educator. In speaking of his early schooling he said that "no plan had been marked out for me; being fond of study and almost equally fond of all branches, I took nearly everything that was taught, merely because it was taught."

His health as a boy, however, was delicate, giving small promise of his hale and hearty fourscore years, and he spent perforce two years, from fourteen to sixteen, on a farm. As to the value of this experience, far from uncommon in the lives of many men eminent in the history of this country, he said, "I prize very highly the education I received then. I learned how much backache a dollar earned in the field represents." He prepared for Brown University at a "grammar school" in Providence, where he studied under Henry S. Frieze, destined to become his immediate predecessor in the Presidency of Michigan. He was graduated from Brown, with highest honors, in 1849.

This early New England training was particularly fortunate for one who was to come into such close relationship with the pioneer settlers of Michigan,—New Englanders to a very large extent. Equally fortunate was his later training. His first residence abroad, where he acquired the familiarity with modern languages which fitted him for his first professorship, had been preceded by a year as assistant in the library at Brown University; then he became tutor, and later a student of civil engineering in the office of the city engineer of Boston. In fact, he spent this period to such advantage that later, upon his return from Europe, he was given the choice of a professorship either in civil engineering or modern languages, an evidence of the wide range of his interests. He finally chose modern languages as his subject, and entered upon his career as a teacher, where he developed the highest qualifications. He remained at Brown for seven years.

Many articles and reviews published in the Providence Journal justified his selection in 1860 as the editor of that paper, a position which he held throughout the Civil War with singular distinction.

In 1866, Dr. Angell was offered the Presidency of the University of Vermont, and he accepted it. He took charge of the University when its fortunes were at a low ebb, and the future was not bright. It was due to the administrative ability of the new President as well as to his ripe experience and culture that the day was saved and Vermont prospered, intellectually and financially, during the five years of his administration.

Of his decision to come to Michigan, Dr. Angell said twenty-five years later: "While, with much embarrassment, I was debating the question in my own mind whether I should come here, I fell in with a friend who had very large business interests, and he made this very suggestive remark to me: 'Given the long lever, it is no harder to lift a big load than it is with a shorter one to lift a smaller load.' I decided to try the end of the longer lever."

James Burrill Angell was inaugurated President of the University of Michigan in June, 1871. From that time his life was the life of the University except for interludes of diplomatic service in China, Turkey, and upon various commissions. His diplomatic career, though only incidental to his life work as an educator, showed that he possessed the necessary qualifications for what might well have been a very distinguished career in other fields. At the time of his appointment to China as Minister Plenipotentiary, diplomatic relations in the East were decidedly indirect and characteristically Oriental. It had just taken Germany two years to conclude a rather unimportant commercial treaty, and upon his arrival at Peking his colleagues in the diplomatic service laughed at him for supposing that his one year's leave of absence would suffice for his far more important mission. Yet the revision of the Burlingame treaty, restricting the importation of cheap coolie labor into this country, which he sought, was accomplished within two months. Another important commercial treaty relative to the importation of opium was likewise completed at the same time. He was also successful in his mission to Turkey in 1898 and as a member of the Alaska Fisheries and other international commissions.

But his heart was in his work at Ann Arbor, and thither he always returned despite flattering temptations to enter diplomatic life. A great opportunity lay before him when he took up his new duties and he recognized it. It was his task to bring the State, exemplified in particular by a not always sympathetic Legislature, and by a Board of Regents of continually varying complexion, to a realization of the true function of a university supported by the State. He must arouse the enthusiasm for education and learning which he knew lay deep in the hearts of the people of Michigan. As Professor Charles Kendall Adams, later President of Cornell and Wisconsin, said: "What was called for first of all was the creation and dissemination of an appreciative public opinion that would produce, in some way or other, the means necessary for the adequate support of the University." So well did Dr. Angell accomplish this purpose that of late years he loved to dwell, in his speeches before the alumni, upon what he chose to call the "passion for education" on the part of the people of the State, forgetting utterly the yeoman service he performed all his life toward bringing about that same regard for popular education.

It is true that the foundation and declaration of the educational ideals of the West cannot be ascribed to him. Nevertheless he must be regarded, more than any other one man, as the successful pilot who avoided the difficulties which the very novelty of the situation presented. The comparative freedom from precedent offered an unrivaled opportunity to try new theories in education, and was a continual temptation to try policies which must have proved too advanced for the place and the time.

Alumni Memorial Hall

A survey of the educational system in the West at the time he came to Michigan may be of interest. As regards the number of students, quality of work, and the eminence of the men upon her Faculties, Michigan stood far in advance of other state institutions. This very pre-eminence, however, threw a greater responsibility upon the new President. Lacking precedents, he had to make them for himself, so that the place of the state university in the educational world today is in great degree the measure of success he had in dealing with the practical problems which confronted him throughout his extraordinarily long term of office. When he came to Michigan there was only one other state university of any size, Wisconsin, although several others had already been established. According to the report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1871, none of them except Michigan, and possibly Wisconsin, were in anything like a flourishing condition. While Michigan had, all told, 1,110 students, of whom 483 were in the Literary Department, Wisconsin had only 355, omitting a preparatory department of 131 students. Minnesota had but 167 students with 144 in the preparatory department, while Kansas enrolled 313. No figures were given for Illinois, which was then the Illinois Industrial University, and Nebraska, both of which had been established for several years.

Yet Michigan, although she was well in the lead in point of numbers as well as in the strength of her professional schools, was far from realizing her possibilities. It would, of course, be a rash assertion to say that she has realized them now. But it is safe to say that no state has maintained more truly the type of the well-rounded university, a large college of liberal arts, with traditions of culture and scholarship which began with its very foundation, surrounded by a ring of effective professional schools.

Two years after he came the present system of revenue from the State was first made operative. This came in the form of an annual proportion of the state taxes, fixed at first at one-twentieth of a mill on every dollar of taxable property; a proportion which continued for twenty years. Since then it has been increased several times until it is now three-eighths of a mill on every dollar; it netted the University in 1909, the last year of his administration, $650,000 instead of the $15,000 of 1873. The total income of the University for that year was $1,290,000 as against $76,702.52 received during his first year.

It was perhaps on the more strictly academic side of the development of the University that Dr. Angell's peculiar genius as an administrative officer was most apparent. When he came, he was forty-two years of age, and in Professor Hinsdale's words, "brought to his new and responsible post extended scholarship, familiar acquaintance with society and the world, administrative experience, a persuasive eloquence, and a cultivated personality." This urbanity and extraordinary ability as a speaker won for him from the first a place in the hearts and in the imaginations of the people of the State. But the most vital administrative task which faced him was to make Michigan a true university as distinguished from a college. He had to correlate and concentrate the various departments, and make them complete by making a place for effective graduate work. Certain revolutionary measures, such as the admission of women, the first tentative steps toward free election of studies, the introduction of a scientific course, had been instituted by his immediate predecessors; it became his duty to make them a success.

Almost contemporaneous with Dr. Angell's inauguration as President was the introduction of the seminar system of teaching, in effect a further application of the foreign methods; not only should the teacher be an investigator and searcher after truth, but the student as well; and more important still, the student should be taught how to carry on original investigation himself by means of seminar classes where student and teacher worked together on original problems.

With all these innovations under way, Dr. Angell found many other opportunities for the introduction of new ideas in education—some of them as startling and as revolutionary as certain of the earlier experiments. These included a modification of that traditional course of classical studies, which can be traced back directly to the Middle Ages. The establishment of the Latin and Scientific Course, which dropped the requirement of Greek, was the first step; this was carried further in 1877 by the establishment of an English course in which no classics were required. The scientific course also underwent further modifications during this year (1877-78), which was characterized by many changes regarded then as radical, though they do not strike one so nowadays. A still more revolutionary step was taken by throwing open more than half the courses to free election, permitting some students to shorten their time in college, and enabling others to enrich their course with other than the prescribed studies, heretofore compulsory and admitting of almost no variation.

All these changes resulted in an immediate increase in attendance, almost 20 percent the first year they went into force. As a direct result of Dr. Angell's recommendation the first chair in the Science and the Art of Teaching in any American university was established in 1880, coming as a necessary corollary to the intimate relation maintained and encouraged by the University between itself and the high schools of the State. In 1891 this department was empowered to grant certificates permitting any student possessing one to teach in any high school in the State.

The Graduate School practically came into being during his administration, as there was really nothing worthy of the name of graduate work before, in spite of the heroic efforts of President Tappan. It was established as part of the Literary Department. When he first became President both the Law and Medical Schools consisted of two courses of lectures of six months' duration, with no severe examination required for admittance. At present they require three and four years of nine months each, as well as two years of work in the Literary College.

President Angell's administration, however, was by no means all smooth sailing. The question of finances, for one thing, was always with him, particularly during his first years, when deficits were regularly reported and as regularly taken care of by special appropriations of the Legislature. The situation became particularly acute in 1879 and as a result the scale of salaries for the President and the Faculty was reduced materially, in the President's case from $4,500 to $3,750. The increase in the value of money following the panic of 1873 was given as an excuse for this action.

Questions of student discipline also disturbed these early years. The eternal rivalry between the Freshmen and Sophomore classes, with its attendant rushes and hazing episodes, was growing stronger every year, until in the fall of 1873 the report that thirty freshmen had been "pumped," a more or less self-explanatory term, stirred up enemies of the University throughout the State. In April, 1874, three freshmen and three sophomores were suspended for hazing. This aroused the student body. The two classes concerned met at once and some eighty-four students signed statements that they were equally guilty. The Faculty, after giving these students a week of grace to withdraw their names, finally suspended eighty-one of the signers.

Two problems which arose in connection with the Medical School also proved most embarrassing. Throughout the history of the University there has been a disposition on the part of some members of the medical profession to advocate the removal of the school to Detroit. This question first arose in 1858 and was definitely settled at that time in favor of a united University. The matter came to the fore once more in 1888 when it was proposed to move only the clinical instruction to Detroit. Dr. Angell took a vigorous stand in opposition and by a careful and well-reasoned statement of the case convinced the Regents of the inexpediency and impracticability of such a measure. Though echoes of this project are even now heard occasionally, Dr. Angell's masterly and diplomatic course at this time assured, apparently once for all, the integrity of the University in Ann Arbor. Two members of the Medical Faculty, however, were so committed to the program for removal that they continued the agitation until their resignations were requested by the Regents the following year.

A further difficulty arose over the establishment of a Department of Homeopathy, which had long been the subject of agitation. The Regents postponed action from year to year and refused to appoint two Professors of Homeopathy in the Department of Medicine as directed by an act of the Legislature. In this course they were sustained by the Courts. But in 1875 the Legislature authorized the establishment of a Homeopathic Medical College and made a permanent appropriation of $6,000 for its support. The Board then gave in and proceeded to organize the College, to the great concern of the members of the regular Medical Faculty, many of whom were threatened with professional ostracism, since they were expected to give several preliminary courses to the students in the new college. The venerable Dr. Sager, who was then Emeritus Professor, even thought it necessary to resign all connection with the University. Though for a few years the position of the medical men was difficult, the situation eventually adjusted itself as the new Department grew.

The most trying period of Dr. Angell's long administration, however, were the years from 1875 to 1879, when a comparatively trifling discrepancy in the books of the Chemical Laboratory developed into a struggle which almost disrupted the University. The story of the trouble, which is generally known as the Douglas-Rose controversy, is too long to be told here. In its beginning it was a bit of carelessness on the part of Dr. Douglas, the director of the Chemical Laboratory, in checking over the accounts of his assistant Dr. Rose. The latter was charged with petty defalcations over a long period of years, involving eventually a total of $5,000. Dr. Douglas was an Episcopalian, Dr. Rose a Methodist, and the friends and fellow churchmen of the two men rallied to their support. The Board of Regents became sharply divided. Political influence was used and the State Legislature became involved through an investigating committee which, after a long session, reported in favor of Dr. Rose, who had in the meantime been dismissed from the University. Dr. Douglas was then likewise dismissed.

The University finally brought suit against the two men for the recovery of the laboratory deficit, which resulted in fixing Dr. Rose's liability at $4,624.40, eventually covered by a one-half interest in the Beal-Steere Ethnological Collection, offered by Mr. Rice A. Beal and Mr. Joseph B. Steere, '68, afterward Professor of Zoölogy. Dr. Douglas was charged with the balance of about $1,000, which, however, was practically covered by sums which had been advanced by him for University and laboratory expenses. Eventually Dr. Rose was reinstated as a result of continued agitation, though his connection with the University was not for long; while Dr. Douglas, by a decision of the Supreme Court, to which the case was carried, was completely exonerated; a number of the initials on the disputed vouchers were pronounced forgeries, and some $2,000 and heavy costs were returned to him by the University. This was officially the end of perhaps the greatest period of disturbance in the University's history, a struggle which was in every way a loss, in prestige and internal unity even more than financially. That the growth and development of the institution continued almost unabated through these years proves the fundamental strength and momentum attained by the University in less than forty years.

But neither the successful handling of such administrative problems as are suggested in the preceding paragraphs, or even the improvement in the equipment and personnel of the University, represent rightly the real work of President Angell. His greatest influence lay in his dealings with the students, and through them, upon the educational ideals of the West. And it is precisely this influence, quietly acquired and characteristically wielded, that represents what is perhaps his greatest claim upon the consideration of the future. No one who had the privilege of hearing him speak failed to respond to the quiet persuasiveness of his presence and the charm of his personality. There are some persons in whom is inherent a certain magnetic mastery over numbers. He had this to an extraordinary degree. Merely by rising he could bring absolute stillness upon a cheering throng of students or alumni, and with a few words, quiet but distinct, he could rouse to a remarkable pitch that sentiment known as college spirit. His whole figure was expressive of a benign goodness, illuminated most humanly by the worldly wisdom of an old diplomat. His ability to deal with those who came to him on various errands was remarkable. This is amusingly illustrated by the experience of one man who went to him to present his claims for an increase in salary. His memories of the interview were most delightful but exceedingly hazy as to the matter in question. His only distinct impression was that the interview ended with himself on the door-mat earnestly discussing Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature" with his host, who had shown him to the door.

During the latter years of his life Dr. Angell published a book of reminiscences which was most favorably received and widely noticed. One well-known journal, however, remarked that it was rather "naïve," a criticism which greatly delighted the man who had met the diplomats of China and Turkey on their own ground and defeated them.

James Burrill Angell, LL.D. (1829-1916)
President of the University, 1871-1909
(From a copyright photograph by A.G. Gowdy)

Many honors came to Dr. Angell in the course of his long life, as was inevitable. His scholarship was universally recognized. He received the degree of LL.D. from Brown University in 1868, Columbia University in 1887, Rutgers College in 1896, Princeton University in 1896, Yale University in 1901, Johns Hopkins University in 1902, the University of Wisconsin in 1904, Harvard University in 1905, and the University of Michigan in 1912. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston, and the American Historical Association, of which he was president in 1893. Dr. Angell was a charter member of the American Academy at Rome. For many years he was also Regent of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. He was always a leader in the Congregational Church and presided at the International Congregational Council which met in Boston in September, 1899. This body was composed of delegates from all parts of the world and represented the scholastic and ecclesiastical organization of the church in the persons of its most distinguished members.

All through his career, Dr. Angell gave evidence of certain characteristics which had definite effects upon his policy as President. Professor Charles H. Cooley, '87, has characterized the especial qualities which made for his success as "his faith and his adaptability." Dr. Angell always believed in the tendency of the right to prevail, and was willing to wait with a "masterly inactivity," avoiding too much injudicious assistance. He was always able to maintain a broad and comprehensive view, the attitude of the administrator, and was faithful in his belief in the Higher Power which guides the destiny of men—and universities. His diplomatic genius, the combination of teacher and man of the world, enabled him to keep in close and sympathetic touch, not only with the student life about him, but also with the difficult problems of an ever-growing Faculty. He always showed himself surprisingly shrewd, yet withal charitable, in his judgments of men and their character, a qualification which enabled him to follow a laissez-faire policy until the proper time. Often his penetration and insight, in analyses of current problems and questions, which might be supposed not to interest so particularly a man of his years, surprised his young associates and gave evidence of the wonderful vitality, the spirit of youth, which lived within him.

Ann Arbor was long accustomed to his familiar figure on his invariable morning constitutional, walking with an elastic, springy step and a ruddy freshness in his complexion which almost belied his gray hairs and his well-known age. He passed few blocks without a word to some one, for a simple, kindly interest in those about him was one of his chief characteristics. It was his essential democracy which kept him for so many years in personal relations with his students, an interest which never flagged until the last, and which was shown by the close track which he always kept of the alumni of the University. For the alumni, he always bore that simplest and most beloved of academic titles, "Prexy." No gentler tribute has ever been paid than the words of his former pupil, Professor Charles M. Gayley, '78, now of the University of California, in the Commemoration Ode, read at the Quarter Centennial of Dr. Angell's Presidency:

"For he recks of praises nothing, counts them fair nor fit:
He, who bears his honors lightly,
And whose age renews its zest—"

To James Burrill Angell must be given a pre-eminent place among those who have made advanced learning for the young people of the land a matter of course. More than any other one person he helped to give to this country one of her proudest distinctions, the highest percentage in the world of college men and women.

President Angell's long administration of thirty-eight years came to an end October 1, 1909, when he resigned what had become a heavy burden to become President-Emeritus. Even now we cannot properly estimate how distinguished that service was. He was then eighty years old and had given the University the best that was in him. The death of his wife, Sarah Caswell Angell, in 1903, was a blow from which he never recovered. She was the daughter of President Alexis Caswell of Brown University, and her sympathetic co-operation and especial interest in the women of the University was no small factor in his success.

For seven years after his resignation he lived in the home on the Campus he had so long occupied, loved and honored alike by students, Faculty, and alumni; and watched with interest and appreciation the development of the University under the new leader. Here he died on April 4, 1916. No tribute to a great leader was ever more fitting than the long double file of students that lined the whole way to Forest Hill on the day he was laid to rest under the simple monument which marks his grave.

No effort was made immediately to find a successor. Dean Harry Burns Hutchins of the Law School, who had once before served as Acting President during Dr. Angell's absence in Turkey, was asked to act again in that capacity. This he did so successfully that on June 28, 1910, he was unanimously elected to the Presidency. He accepted, but upon the condition, expressed in his letter of acceptance, that he serve but five years. The new President assumed his duties when the tide of the University's progress was at the ebb. It is no disparagement of his predecessor to say that for some years the affairs of the University had been allowed to take their course with little aggressive action; his period for vigorous measures had passed. There was much therefore that needed to be set in order in the academic establishment and to this the new executive set himself immediately.

President Hutchins is the first graduate of the University to become its President, for he received his degree in 1871 at the same time Dr. Angell delivered his inaugural address. He was born at Lisbon, New Hampshire, April 8, 1847, and came to Michigan in 1867, the year he entered the University. After his graduation he was for one year Superintendent of the Schools of Owosso, Michigan, after which he returned to the University as instructor in history and rhetoric, becoming Assistant Professor in 1873, a position he held for three years. In the meantime, however, he had been preparing himself for the practice of the law and in 1876 resigned his academic duties to enter active practice in Mt. Clemens. He was recalled to the University in 1884 as Jay Professor of Law, a position which he held so ably that when the trustees of Cornell University were looking for a man to organize a law department four years later their choice fell upon him. This work he undertook and completed with great success, remaining Dean of the Cornell Law School for seven years. In 1895 he was once more recalled to his alma mater as Dean of the Department of Law, a position he resigned to become the fourth President of the University.

For this task he was peculiarly fitted, not only through his previous executive experience and his intimate knowledge of the University, but also by those qualifications which had made him so long a leader in the Faculties of the University. An unusually dignified presence and somewhat judicial manner only conceal a rare simplicity, directness, and kindliness revealed to every one with whom he comes into personal contact. He has the rare qualification of a real and sincere interest in the affairs of those with whom he is dealing, and the kindly sympathy, invariably shown toward every one with whom the wide range of his duties brings him into contact, inspires universal respect and affection, even from those who have on occasion disagreed with his policies. Moreover, he is always ready to listen with open mind on any subject, willing to be convinced, and what is more to act quickly upon conviction. Emphatic in stating and enforcing his conclusions once they are reached, he is always careful of others' opinions.

It is not yet the time nor have we the perspective to view adequately President Hutchins' administration. It has been a period in Michigan's history as distinct in most respects as those of his predecessors. While he followed the academic traditions established in former administrations he devoted himself particularly to the unification and co-ordination of the University as a whole, to the establishment of the necessary financial support on a firmer and more adequate basis, and to the cultivation of more intimate relations with the alumni. Though his influence in the academic life of the University has perhaps never been so personal and compelling as that of his predecessors, largely because the rapidly increasing numbers of students and Faculties alike make the close relationship of an earlier era impossible, the University has not only marched in the ways long established, but has grown and expanded under his sympathetic guidance and with the momentum of her past, until she has come at last to fill in, in great part, the slender lines of the sketch made by President Tappan and the early fathers. This is no small achievement.

The policy first inaugurated in President Angell's time of requiring a combined course in the Literary College and the Medical School for all medical students was extended during President Hutchins' time to the Law School and the Homeopathic Medical School, while the course in the College of Pharmacy was increased to three years and in the College of Dentistry to four years, with an ever-increasing emphasis on the desirability of preliminary work in the Literary College. These measures, though warmly advocated by the respective Faculties, did not come without opposition. The tendency of the time was unmistakable, however, and the University has been strengthened accordingly. Other significant actions taken during President Hutchins' administration were the establishment of many special courses leading to degrees such as Public Health, Aeronautical Engineering, and Municipal Administration, and special curricula in Sanitary, Automobile, and Highway Engineering, Fine Arts, and Business Administration. The special summer courses in Library Methods were introduced just before he took office, and have become an important part of the summer curriculum. It is also not amiss to note that the first three women to hold Professorships in the University were appointed in 1918.

It was also during President Hutchins' administration that the present effective University Health Service came into being. This resulted from a series of recommendations made by a committee of students which were presented to the Regents in November, 1912. These were immediately approved and by October, 1913, three University physicians, including one woman, undertook the systematic care of the health of the student body. At present the staff includes four doctors, besides two nurses and assistants, who give their whole time to this important work. The Service is maintained in its own building, a remodeled dwelling house at the rear of Hill Auditorium, where a free dispensary is open five hours daily. Prescriptions are filled at the Health Service Pharmacy in the Chemistry Building, while provision for the care of seriously sick students is made at the University Hospitals ordinarily at no expense to the student. The cost of the maintenance of this service is supported by a small charge included in the annual fees.

Not the least of the many effective measures taken during President Hutchins' administration was the establishment of the Graduate School as a separate department of the University. For many years it had been maintained as a part of the Literary College, or Department, as it was then, and was administered by a committee appointed from the Literary Faculty. This anomalous position of the graduate work in the University eventually gave rise to suggestions for a change from many different sources, particularly from the Research Club, an organization of many of the leading men in all the Faculties, which came to the attention of the President when he took up his new duties. He at once recognized the desirability of enlarging the scope of advanced study and it was with his active co-operation and hearty support that the new School was created with Professor K.E. Guthe as its first Dean.

The growing cordiality between the University and the other educational institutions of the State is a significant development of late years. This is evidenced by the establishment with several of them of combined courses, which enable their students to pursue a portion of their preliminary work in the smaller school. This spirit of co-operation has also been most effectively advanced through the creation by the University of a series of State College Fellowships with a stipend of $300 each, to be held each year by especially chosen graduates from each of ten colleges in Michigan.

The establishment of extension courses, with the aim of bringing the University into a closer relationship with the people of the State, has also come as the result of the recognition by President Hutchins of the real need of such co-operation. Starting at first from a desk in his own office, from which members of the Faculty were sent to deliver lectures before various bodies about the State, the work speedily grew into a Department under the charge of Professor W. D. Henderson, '04, as Director. At the present time several special courses in literature, history, philosophy, and economics, corresponding exactly to similar courses given in the University are offered in various cities of the State, as well as three hundred lectures by different members of the Faculty. In addition the University has undertaken the training of teachers of industrial subjects under the Congressional provision known as the Smith-Hughes Bill, which provides for the training of teachers in agriculture, industrial subjects, and home economics. For its share in this work the University receives annually, partly from the Government and partly from the State, the sum of $24,000. This work is carried on, not only at the University, where it is under the charge of Professor George E. Meyers, Ottawa College, '96, but in Detroit and Grand Rapids as well as other extension centers, under charge of special Professors of Industrial Education.

Likewise the cordial relations between the University and the high schools of the State have developed consistently as is sufficiently shown by the appropriation of $300,000 made by the 1919 Legislature for the establishment of a demonstration school for the training of students who are preparing themselves as high school teachers.

The University under President Hutchins was thus particularly happy in its relations with the people of the State. This is especially true of their representatives in the Legislature. From time to time he laid before them the needs of the University so effectively that we now have, largely as the result of his efforts, the series of buildings erected recently, including the Natural Science Laboratory, the heating plant, and the new Library, probably the best arranged and most convenient in its appointments in the country, as well as the projected University Hospital, to cost eventually $2,000,000, and the Demonstration School. In addition he secured from the Legislature in 1919 an appropriation of $350,000 to cover the deficit due to the extraordinary war-time expenditures, when the cost of everything was doubled and the income from fees materially lessened, and even more important, an additional $350,000 for two years to cover an increase in Faculty salaries. This item was later superseded by an increase in the valuation of the property in the State, made by the State Board of Equalization, which added over $600,000 to the annual income of the University. Thus was the University saved from what easily might have been a disastrous situation arising from the threatened loss of many members of the Faculty. No event of recent years is of more fundamental importance than this material aid which came to the institution at so critical a period.

No less important and encouraging in their promise for the future have been the gifts of the graduates which have resulted in no little measure from President Hutchins' efforts to stimulate the interest and support of the alumni. The former students of the University have been bound to their alma mater as never before; they have been brought to see that it is their responsibility and privilege to aid the University in many ways impossible to the taxpayer. The Hill Auditorium, the Martha Cook Building, the Newberry and Betsy Barbour Halls of Residence for women and the Michigan Union, to which over 14,000 alumni have contributed over a million dollars,—a record perhaps unparalleled in any university,—to say nothing of scores of other benefactions, are examples of this new spirit on the part of the alumni which President Hutchins has done so much to foster. The continued increase in enrolment from 5,343 in 1909 to 7,517 in 1916-17, with a total of 9,401 in 1919-20, is also an evidence of the effectiveness with which the University has continued to perform its mission, though this continued influx of students brings with it responsibilities and difficulties which have taxed the physical resources, and the ability of the Faculties. Happily the increase in income granted in 1919 is an augury of a better era, if the growth for the next few years is not too overwhelming.

Harry Burns Hutchins, LL.D.
President of the University, 1909-1920
(From a copyright photograph by J.F. Rentschler)

President Hutchins desired to resign the Presidency in 1914, at the end of the term fixed by him in his letter of acceptance, but the Regents were unanimous in their desire to have him remain in office. He again asked to be relieved of the duties of the office in 1916, but once more action was postponed and it was not until March 12, 1919, that his resignation was finally accepted with the regret of the Regents, who expressed "their sincere appreciation of his wise, efficient, and devoted services in behalf of the University." This was to take effect June 30, 1919. The Board thereupon took immediate steps to secure a successor to President Hutchins, but were at first unsuccessful, and once more prevailed upon him to remain in office. This he consented to do reluctantly and only because of his interest in the institution he had served so long and faithfully, postponing yet another year his well-earned rest.

Several noteworthy celebrations have served to emphasize the University's progress. Two of them marked her semi-centennial and her seventy-fifth anniversaries, comparatively brief periods, perhaps, when contrasted with Harvard's celebration of her two hundred and fiftieth year, shortly before Michigan signalized her fiftieth, but symbolizing nevertheless an extraordinary and impressive transformation; the progress of a little backwoods college into one of the greatest of modern Universities. This was the inspiration that underlay these two occasions, made peculiarly significant through the congratulations and messages of good will borne by distinguished ambassadors from other institutions, and through elaborate memorials sent by the Faculties of European Universities, to whom the University's accomplishment was a greater marvel than it was to those more familiar with the conditions which had brought it into existence.

The fifth of June is the natal day of the University and therefore both celebrations were most appropriately held during the Commencement Week of the anniversary years, 1887 and 1912. A Commemoration Oration, in which President Angell surveyed with wise sympathy and a just pride the University's record was the special feature of the first celebration. Somewhat more ambitious was the seventy-fifth anniversary which took place twenty-five years later. Owing to the fact that Hill Auditorium was still unfinished, and the old University Hall was by no means large enough to shelter all who desired to attend, a special tent was erected near the Gymnasium for the Commemoration Exercises. The Hon. Lawrence Maxwell, '74, of Cincinnati delivered the principal address, a review of the University's history. The special guests and numerous representatives from other universities were tendered a reception and dinner in the University Library, at which President Andrew D. White, of Cornell, held the place of honor upon the program as a representative of the University's earlier days. The whole celebration was in no small part a tribute to the two elder statesmen, Dr. Angell and Dr. White, who had played so great a part in the drama of American education which the occasion symbolized.

Dr. Angell's own share in the history of the University was also marked by the celebration on June 24, 1896, of his twenty-fifth year of service as President. As was inevitable the exercises were a series of personal tributes to Dr. Angell, in which the congratulations and felicitations of Regents, Faculties, and teachers of the State were fittingly expressed. A particularly graceful tribute was the "Commemoration Ode" by Charles M. Gayley, '78, of the University of California.

Of an entirely different character was the great "National Dinner," designed to celebrate the University's services to the Nation, held in the ballroom of the Hotel Astor in New York, February 4, 1911. This was one of the greatest alumni dinners ever held by any university, as there were nearly eight hundred alumni present, including a large delegation from the University, and from Detroit and Chicago, Mr. Justice William L. Day; '70, of the United States Supreme Court, and some twenty-eight members of both houses of Congress. Earl D. Babst, '93, the general chairman of the committee in charge, acted as toastmaster of this gathering, the spectacular character of which was emphasized, not only in the speeches, songs, and college yells, but also by a huge painting of the University Campus filling a good part of the wall above the speaker's table.

On December 29, 1919, it was announced that Marion LeRoy Burton, President of the University of Minnesota, was to become the fifth President of the University on July 1, 1920. This announcement was a great surprise, as his name was only one of many which had been discussed as a possibility by those interested, but the decision was most favorably received by the University body and the alumni. The new President is a young man, but his record of accomplishment has great promise for the future. He was born in Brooklyn, Iowa, August 30, 1874, and was therefore forty-five years old at the time of his election. His earlier education was received in the schools of Minneapolis and at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, where he was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1900. After some years spent in teaching he eventually entered the Yale Graduate School, where he received his doctorate in 1907.

Two years later he was elected President of Smith College, but spent a year in travel abroad before taking up his duties at Northampton. He remained at Smith until 1917, when he succeeded Dr. George E. Vincent as President of the University of Minnesota, the position he resigned to accept the Presidency of Michigan. He comes to his new task as did his predecessors, Dr. Tappan and Dr. Angell, with a vision for the future of the University. He believes, as they did, that in the State University lies the future of education in this country, and Michigan, with her strategic position between the East and the West, the prestige of her years, the wide distribution of her students, and the proved loyalty of her great body of alumni, offered him a field which he could not well refuse. He has before him the prospect of many years of service, for he is only three years older than was Dr. Angell when he first came to Michigan.

Dr. Burton was officially inaugurated President of the University on October 14, 1920. His formal acceptance of his office was made the occasion of a significant and stimulating educational conference, which lasted for three days. Some two hundred representatives of the leading American Universities and educational bodies listened to the discussion of vital academic and administrative problems of the modern state university during the five sessions, which covered the general topics; "Educational Readjustments," "Administrative Problems," and "Constructive Measures." The inauguration banquet was held at the Michigan Union on the evening of October 15, 1920. President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, President E.A. Birge of the University of Wisconsin, President Harry A. Garfield of Williams College, and the Hon. Thomas E. Johnson, Superintendent of Public Instruction, were the speakers on that occasion.

Marion LeRoy Burton, LL.D.
President of the University of Michigan, 1920-

CHAPTER VI

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS

As the University grew, the first Faculty of two members gradually increased, though for years the roster was far from impressive. What this first Faculty lacked in numbers, however, it made up in character and ability. One has only to read the whole-hearted and loving tributes of early graduates to discern the powerful personalities which inspired them. It is true that for the most part they were scholars of an older school, content to hand on the classical learning of the contemporary college course, rather than original investigators. But how well they performed this task! They inspired a real enthusiasm and love of knowledge for its own sake in those they taught, and furnished them, as well, an ideal for right living—all for five hundred dollars a year. We of a later generation cannot honor them too much.

About these men, strongly individualized in the minds of their students, have clustered stories which have become almost classic. Sharply contrasted in particular characteristics, they have lived as vivid personalities for future college generations in the memories of those students, "who studied syllogisms under the noble Whedon, who polished Greek roots for the elegant Agnew, who bungled metaphysics to the despair of the learned Ten Brook, who murdered chemistry under the careful Douglas whose experiments never failed, and who calculated eclipses of the moon from the desk of Williams, the paternal." This characterization by a member of the class of '49 is paralleled in a more caustic estimate of a somewhat later Faculty by a member of the class of '65 who speaks of "Boise the precise, Frieze the effusive, Williams the plausible, and White the thinker."

Always first in any reminiscences of the early days was Professor George Palmer Williams, the first real member of the Faculty, always known to his students as "Punky," possibly, as Professor D'Ooge suggested, because of the "dryness of his wit." Freshmen were even known to address him as "Professor Punky," only to be pardoned with a never to be forgotten kindliness when they discovered their awful mistake. Professor Williams was a graduate of Vermont (1825) and came to the University from the Pontiac branch to take the Professorship of Natural Philosophy. He was especially loved, not only for his fatherly kindness and genuine sympathy that won the confidence of his students, but also because "the college student pays unstinted admiration to a witty teacher, for no teacher ever had more ready wit and such genuine humor." The Rev. Theodoric R. Palmer of the class of '47, who for ten years was Michigan's oldest graduate, told how Professor Williams on discovering a goose occupying his chair remarked: "I see you have a competent teacher," and wished the class "Good Morning," leaving them to discover the point of their joke.

Professor Williams' strong religious spirit did not prevent an apt employment of examples from the Scriptures on occasion, as his rebuke to an overgrown and too active freshman showed: "Sir, you remind me of Jeshurun; the Bible says 'Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.'" But in the class room he was traditionally lenient. One student who found himself unable to fit his carefully prepared notes and the examination questions together, finally handed them both in and was passed, but only because it was the "wrong year"; "I condition one every other year and if I conditioned you I would have to have you again next year."

Professor Williams served the University long and faithfully, and only resigned his active work in 1875. In 1876 the alumni established a Williams Professorship Fund which eventually amounted to nearly $30,000. This eased his last years until his death in 1881 at the age of 79 years. Although the fund was subsequently greatly lessened by very careless administration, it now amounts to something over the original sum and is administered by the Regents in the form of a retiring allowance, the holder being nominated by the Alumni Association.

The Rev. Joseph Whiting, Yale, '23, under whose charge was the classical training of the six youngsters of that first class, was a man of different type. A fine scholar, he made Greek and Latin "glow with life and beauty," and by his distinguished bearing formed a happy complement to the "jovial and rotund" Williams. His death while he was serving his term as the annual President just before the first class was graduated, was recognized as a great loss by the students, as well as by the Regents, who acknowledged "his urbanity and gentleness of manners," and "his knowledge of character and other properties which especially fitted him to act the part of a governor and counselor of youth."

Professor Douglass Houghton died during the same year, 1845. The services of these two men, as well as those of Charles Fox, Professor of Agriculture, and Dr. Samuel Denton of the first Medical Faculty, are commemorated by the little weather-beaten monument with the broken shaft, which has doubtless aroused the idle curiosity of thousands of students, who have never taken the trouble, however, to decipher the Latin inscriptions which set forth the life records of these early professors.

In 1842 Dr. Abram Sager, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1831), who later became the first Dean of the Medical Faculty, came to the University as Professor of Zoölogy and Botany. He was then about thirty-two years of age and had for some time been connected with the State Geological Survey as botanist and zoölogist. His contributions to the University while in that position formed the foundation of the present zoölogical collection. One of his students speaks of him as "of exceedingly sensitive mind and heart and of very high and pure morality." A Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, the Rev. Edward Thomson, Pennsylvania, '29, was appointed in 1843, but served only one year. He was succeeded by the Rev. Andrew Ten Brook, Madison University, '39, who took a vigorous part in the University's life until his resignation in 1851, not to return until 1864 as Librarian—and historian of the University's early days. Professor Ten Brook was of the Baptist persuasion, exceedingly well read, particularly in the literature of his chair. Ordinarily in his classes he was master of the situation, "so long as he had Dugald Stewart's Metaphysics before him," but when discussion became free in his classes and "scholastics were let loose" one of his thought students they "got a little the better of him." That he was a shrewd and honest observer with remarkably little personal prejudice—even in memories of trying times, is shown by his book on "American State Universities" which offers much that is fascinating to those interested in the first days of the University.

A General View of the Front of the Campus
Showing University Hall, including the old North Wing, with the Law Building in the background

In the same year Silas H. Douglas, M.D., who studied at the University of Vermont, was appointed assistant to Dr. Douglass Houghton, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Zoölogy, who never took up the active duties of his chair. Dr. Douglas speedily became one of the "strong men" of the Faculty and created the Chemical Laboratory which lent so much prestige to Michigan in its early years. He was of a systematic and orderly temperament whose experiments before the class always came out brilliantly. His careful business-like methods were greatly appreciated by the Regents and he was entrusted with the oversight of the construction of the South College when it was erected in 1849. So successful was he that he saved some $4,000 over the cost of the first building and had enough bricks left besides to build a large part of the Medical Building which was completed in the same year. Those who knew him best supported him loyally in the great dispute which arose over his administration of the affairs of the Chemical Laboratory and their confidence in his uprightness and sterling integrity was justified by the final decision in that most unfortunate case.

These were the men who taught the first class that was graduated from the University in 1845. The same year saw two additions to the Faculty, the Rev. Daniel D. Whedon, Hamilton, '28, who was elected to the chair of Logic, Rhetoric, and History, and Dr. John H. Agnew, Dickinson College, '23, who assumed the Professorship in the classics left vacant by the death of Dr. Whiting. Both had a prominent share in University affairs for a few years. Professor Whedon was a Methodist clergyman, lank and angular in form and feature with a "considerable sprinkling of vinegar at times in his ways of expressing himself," but, according to our oldest living graduate, "his commanding presence, imperative logic and sesquipedalia verba, always used with mathematical precision, hammered truth into us and clinched it." Professor Agnew has been described as a Greek from head to foot, the exact opposite of Dr. Whedon, extremely careful in his dress and appearance and correspondingly neat and precise in the expression of his thoughts. He represented the Presbyterian and Congregational element in the University. The reasons for the resignation of these two Professors in 1852 have already been suggested in the lack of unity and the sectarian rivalries of their time.

Perhaps the most picturesque figure of this early group was Louis Fasquelle, the first Professor of Modern Languages, whose widely used text-books contributed not a little to the prestige of the University. When he came in 1846, his chair was almost a new field in an American college. Only a single term in French was given at first and in fact neither he nor Dr. Sager, charged with the scientific course, were required to give their whole time to their university work for some years. It is somewhat suggestive too, that both Spanish and Italian were offered in the University before a course in German was announced in 1849. Professor Fasquelle was educated at the famous École Polytechnique in Paris, but was obliged to leave France on account of his participation in the revolutionary movement of that period. As Professor in the University he proved "peculiar, but very learned and efficient." The stories of his difficulty with the English language are many, and most of the classic stories told of various members of the French Faculty by successive student generations were originally told of him. He was the first "infiddle," though he was always punctilious in attendance at chapel, which he adjourned on one occasion because the "praying Professor" did not appear. His "vocabul'-ary" was good, but in the words of the time-honored song, "He went up on his emphas'-is."

The new régime of Dr. Tappan witnessed the establishment of a different tradition. The former deference to denominational precedent was definitely abandoned and increasing stress was laid upon scholarly as well as personal qualifications. The new President took the chair of philosophy left vacant by the resignation of Professor Ten Brook, while the old chair of ancient languages was speedily divided. James R. Boise, Brown, '40, who already enjoyed a growing reputation as a scholar, became Professor of Greek, while the Rev. Erastus O. Haven, Wesleyan, '42, afterward the second President, became Professor of Latin. Professor Boise though of a delicate physique possessed great force and impressed the students with the absolute necessity of getting their Greek lessons, ruat coelum. His insistence on discipline and high standards in recitations had a profound influence on the mental habits of those in his classes. Professor D'Ooge, '62, his successor, remarks of him that "probably no teacher of those days got so much downright hard work out of his pupils." Alvah Bradish was also appointed to the chair of Fine Arts at this time, but without compensation, and, though he apparently lectured occasionally, the course soon disappeared from the catalogues, not to be revived for fifty years. The name of the Rev. Charles Fox also appears momentarily as a Professor of Agriculture, a department also destined to quick extinction with his death in less than a year, in spite of the President's best efforts, for the Legislature had already taken the preliminary steps toward the establishment of a College of Agriculture at Lansing.

The strength of President Tappan's policy is shown in the group of men he appointed to Professorships—leaders as well as scholars. Among the first was Alexander Winchell, Wesleyan, '47, whose versatility was shown by the range of his teaching as well as by his long list of published works. He came to Michigan in 1853 as Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering, but within two years was transferred to the chair of Geology, Zoölogy, and Botany, which he held until his resignation in 1873 to accept the Chancellorship of Syracuse University. He returned to Michigan in 1879 as Professor of Geology and Paleontology, and ended his days in Ann Arbor in 1891. With a personality vigorous and powerful, if somewhat unyielding, he was always a factor in faculty affairs, though he was not so happy in his relations with the students as some of his colleagues and therefore does not figure so prominently in their reminiscences. He has been described as a sober, earnest, eloquent, sometimes shrewd and witty but very absent-minded, scholar whose "beautiful and even eloquent language led many to an admiration and love for sciences." His work on the Michigan Geological Survey of which he was twice director, and his life-long effort for the reconciliation of science with religion, brought wide recognition to the University.

A totally different personality was Dr. Henry Simmons Frieze, Brown, '41, who came to Michigan the next year as Professor of Latin Language and Literature, in place of Dr. Haven, who assumed the Professorship of History and English Literature. No name on Michigan's long Faculty roll has been more honored than his. He brought to the University not only well-grounded ideals of true scholarship, but also a broad culture, not too common in those days, and an inspiring interest in literature and art which left a deep impression. It was such spirits as Dr. Tappan, Dr. Frieze, and Andrew D. White, who was also of that early company, that set for the University standards in academic life and ideals which have never been lost, and which enabled Michigan to take her place with such extraordinarily little delay as one of the country's great educational forces. Unhampered by the formalism and traditions of the Eastern universities of that time, these men found here an opportunity for the establishment of the progressive methods of the better European universities. The services of Dr. Frieze as Acting President for the two years preceding President Angell's election are mentioned elsewhere. He was once more called upon to be Acting President during the year Dr. Angell was in China in 1881 and again for a few months in 1887. But these were only interludes, for his influence during his long Professorship, where he easily stood primus inter pares, must be the gauge of the high favor in which he was held by students and Faculty alike. Among the many facets of his genius was a remarkable ability as a musician, and the impetus he gave the musical life of Ann Arbor resulted in the organization of the Musical Society and the naming of the Frieze Memorial Organ in his honor. Andrew D. White tells us, in his "Autobiography," that he found him one of the most charming men he had ever met,—simple, modest, retiring to a fault, yet a delightful companion and a most inspiring teacher. "So passionately was he devoted to music that at times he sent his piano away from his house in order to shun temptation to abridge his professorial work, and especially was this the case when he was preparing his edition of Virgil. A more lovely spirit never abode in mortal frame. No man was ever more generally beloved in a community; none, more lamented at his death." Hardly less important was the inspiration and support Dr. Frieze gave to the study of art through his contributions to the University's art museum. This dates particularly from a gift he made of books, engravings, photographs, and copies of statues and paintings, purchased abroad in 1856 with the unexpended balance of his salary, amounting to $800. This was the real beginning of the University's art collection.

The same day in June, 1854, that witnessed the appointment of Dr. Frieze, saw the election of Dr. Franz F.E. Brünnow, a graduate of the University of Berlin, as Professor of Astronomy and Director of the new Observatory. He too was destined to have a profound influence upon the future of the University though his years in Ann Arbor were comparatively few. Dr. Brünnow had already gained a European reputation as a scientist before he decided to come to America, which he did largely upon Humboldt's advice, and because of his desire to use the astronomical clock and meridian circle which were made in Berlin under his direction for the new observatory in Ann Arbor. The long list of distinguished astronomers who have been students at Michigan may be said to trace their academic lineage back to his acceptance of this position. His successor, James C. Watson, was his pupil and Professor C.K. Adams in his memorial address on Professor Watson said: "During the senior year the Professor of Astronomy lectured to Watson alone. And I remember years afterwards hearing Professor White say to one of his historical classes that the best audience any professor ever had in this University was the audience of Dr. Brünnow when he was lecturing to this single pupil." Dr. White dwells with particular appreciation on the little musical circle formed by Dr. Frieze, Mrs. White, and Dr. Brünnow, which may well have been the original impulse for the future development of musical interests in the University and the community. Dr. Brünnow's quiet simplicity, which led those "who knew him best to love him, most," sometimes led to humorous situations, as on the occasion when President Tappan requested Dr. Brünnow to find some one to take his place at morning prayer the next day. This commission was performed with Teutonic literalness, for each of the professors interviewed was greeted abruptly with the somewhat startling question, "Professor, can you bray?" He returned to Europe at the same time Dr. Tappan left the University, but his influence remained in the work of his students and the scholarly traditions he established.

Andrew D. White, Yale, '53, came as Professor of History and English Literature in 1857. His influence was only less vital than that of Dr. Tappan and Dr. Frieze because his active service with the University was to last but six years. He was a very young professor, indeed—only twenty-four—but he had had the best of training in France and Germany and was inspired by a vision of a chair of history alone, unencumbered by any allied, or supposedly allied, subjects; something apparently unknown elsewhere, certainly at Yale, his Alma Mater.

He tells with relish in his "Autobiography" of the attentions paid him by the students. As soon as they caught sight of him at the station they asked him if he were going to enter the University. Of course he was. They immediately proceeded to "rush" him, not discovering that he was the new Professor of History until he signed the hotel register. His students were often older than he was and his experiences were many, particularly when he had it out with one student whom he had sized up as a ring-leader in class disturbances. This man was always elaborately innocent when trouble was brewing, but the young professor was sure he was right in his suspicions as to the seat of the trouble. Finally he delivered an ultimatum: "I see either you or I must leave the University." The student pleaded not guilty but Professor White insisted, suggesting that the Regents might feel the same as he in the matter. After some diplomatic passages, in which the student seemed not unimpressed by the importance given him, he acknowledged that perhaps he had been a little foolish and suggested that they try to live together a little longer. He afterwards became a strong friend of the young teacher and later fell at the head of his brigade at Gettysburg.

The success with which Professor White and his contemporaries labored among their students is shown by his later statement that from among them came senators, congressmen, judges, professors, lawyers, heads of great business enterprises, and diplomats. One became his successor in the Professorship of History and later in the Presidency of Cornell, and a well-known American historian of his time. Another became his predecessor in the Embassy to Germany. Professor White left Ann Arbor in 1863, partly because of business interests, partly because of his election to the New York State Senate and the Presidency of Cornell University.

With these men as leaders Michigan boldly embarked on a series of departures from educational precedents. Though the time was not ripe for graduate study, its desirability had been recognized emphatically in the annual catalogues. In their class rooms several of the Faculty endeavored to do more than follow the accepted textbooks, through lectures, assigned readings, and exercises designed to develop the individual powers of each student. Professor White was particularly fertile in these expedients. The claims of comparatively new subjects, foreign to the traditional curriculum, were recognized in chairs of history, English literature, the modern languages, and above all the sciences, where true laboratory work was gradually introduced until Michigan had under Professor Douglas what was probably in its early years the largest chemical laboratory in any American university. The new scientific course, which was established within the Literary Department and not as a separate school, was particularly significant of the progressive spirit of this early Faculty. This came to be so well recognized that Dr. Angell remarked in his inaugural address that the drift of intelligent opinion had been for twenty years towards some of the positions early adopted by the University, such as elective studies and larger opportunities for the study of history, modern languages, and the natural sciences. He also took occasion to suggest that the University would always have to be in a measure dependent upon the alumni, since the Legislature would never become so generous in its appropriations as to make private gifts undesirable or unnecessary.

While the liberal policy which laid the foundation for this expansion of the University's field may properly be said to have been formed during President Tappan's administration, it was continued and wisely expanded under his successors. President Haven's first years were difficult, but he had the support of his colleagues and was fortunate in the appointment of the new members of the Faculty necessitated by the reorganization which ushered in his administration. One of the first of his appointments was that of Dr. Brünnow's favorite pupil, James C. Watson, '57, to succeed him as Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory. Professor Watson's brilliant work had already attracted wide attention, he "was bagging asteroids as though he lured them with a decoy" though he was at that time still a very young man, and his methods as a teacher somewhat peculiar. He paid scant attention to those not vitally interested in his subject, and, as one chronicler observed, showed the folly of a set course of studies and contributed in this way not a little to the eventual adoption of the elective system in the University. His lectures were sometimes brilliant and always lucid, though he was not exacting in recitations or in examinations. The story is told of his passing one student in an examination who had died earlier in the year; he had merely taken the name from the roll prepared the first day of the semester. Whatever were Professor Watson's personal qualifications, however, the long list of eminent astronomers who were his pupils during the years from 1863 to 1879 are ample evidence of his genius, for they include such names as those of his successor Professor Harrington, '68, Otto J. Klotz, '72e, of the Observatory of the Dominion of Canada, Monroe B. Snyder, '72, Director of the Philadelphia Observatory, Robert Simpson Woodward, '72e, President of the Carnegie Institution, John M. Schaeberle, '76e, Astronomer in the Lick Observatory from 1888 to 1897, and George Cary Comstock, '77, Director of the Observatory of the University of Wisconsin.

Edward Olney, whose spirit still lives in the memory of older graduates, also came at this time. He was, unlike most other members of the Faculty, for the most part a self-made scholar of whose ability as a teacher one former student rather ruefully remarked that the "students knew something about mathematics when they got through with him." He was always a prominent figure in the shaping of University policies and to him no small measure of credit is given for the diploma system of admission from the high schools in '71 and the elective system of '78.

The year 1867 brought the appointment to professorships of two men, already mentioned, whose reputation eventually became nationwide. The first was Charles Kendall Adams, who afterward became President of Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin. He was graduated from the University with the class of '61, and after some years as instructor and Assistant Professor followed Andrew D. White in the chair of history. The other was Moses Coit Tyler, Yale, '57, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, whose "History of American Literature," published before he left Michigan in 1881, to go to Cornell, as well as many later works, gave him an established place as an authority in this field.

Professor Boise resigned the chair of Greek in 1868 to accept a similar place at the University of Chicago. It is said that his reason for the change was, in part at least, his desire to give his daughter, Alice Boise, an opportunity to matriculate in an institution where women were enrolled. While living in Ann Arbor she had already attended unofficially at least two classes, and was probably the first woman to recite in the University. Professor Boise was succeeded by Professor Martin L. D'Ooge, '62, whose fine enthusiasm for the best in classical culture and his genius for friendship were long with the University. For several years before his death in 1915, Professor D'Ooge was, with Dr. Angell, one of the few links which tied the present Faculty to the era of those earlier leaders.

But the names of all the hundreds of members of the Faculties, who came in ever-increasing numbers after this period, cannot all be mentioned, though many have played important rôles in the growth and development of the University. No record of the Faculty, however, can be left without mention of the Rev. Benjamin F. Cocker, M.A., Wesleyan, '64, who succeeded Dr. Haven in the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy in 1869, a strong and vital figure, of English birth but a citizen of the world, who at one time nearly lost his life at the hands of cannibals in the South Seas. He and his family arrived in America penniless, but his ability as a thinker and preacher soon made him a place and eventually a professorship in the University, where he was long remembered. He was succeeded by Professor George S. Morris, Dartmouth, '61, who had come to the University in 1870 as Professor of Modern Languages, a man of totally different caliber, not so rugged and picturesque but more sensitive and profound, the first real scholar in the modern sense in the Department of Philosophy. Upon his death in 1889 he was succeeded by the eminent philosopher John Dewey, Vermont, '79, who was followed in turn in 1896 by Robert Mark Wenley, who came to Michigan bearing the highest honors of the University of Glasgow. Within the Department of Philosophy has also developed the special chair of Psychology, held by Professor Walter B. Pillsbury, Nebraska, '92, who came to the University in 1897 as instructor in the subject. Of these men it may be said that they have all contributed their share to the singularly high place the study of philosophy and metaphysics has continued to hold, even in this utilitarian age, among the students of the University.

Elisha Jones, '59, who became Assistant Professor of Latin in 1875 and Associate Professor in 1881, was also a teacher to whose memory long generations of students pay tribute, not only for their introduction to Latin through his textbooks, but for his fine simplicity and enthusiasm for his work. At his death in 1888 his widow established a fellowship which for many years aided many embryo classical scholars. Professor Frieze, the head of the department, outlived him and was succeeded by Francis W. Kelsey, Rochester, '80, whose labors in behalf of the classics, and as president of the American School of Classical Studies at Rome, and the Archeological Institute of America, have been widely recognized. Associated for long years with Professor D'Ooge in the Department of Greek was Albert H. Pattengill, '68, who died in 1906. He was another extraordinary teacher, whose strong personality will long be remembered, while his love of outdoor sports will be honored by generations of athletes whose interests he served unselfishly throughout his lifetime.

The resignation of Charles Kendall Adams brought another loved personality to the University, Richard Hudson, '71, whose gentle peculiarities only endeared him to his students. He succeeded Professor D'Ooge as Dean of the Literary College in 1898. He was a most conscientious teacher who believed in the meticulous presentation of facts in his lectures, though one student at least found that after a long series of lectures about the "low countries," "Flanders," and the "Spanish cities," something else was needed, when confronted by an examination on the history of Belgium. His method of teaching was his own but effective, though many alumni will appreciate his remark to a young instructor, as he poised his right forefinger in midair and cleared his throat, "I wonder if you have any mannerisms that would make you conspicuous before a class?" Professor Hudson not only gave his library to the University but also left a legacy of $75,000 for the establishment of a Professorship in History. Another popular figure of a generation not too long ago was Andrew C. McLaughlin, '82, the son-in-law of Dr. Angell, now Professor of History at the University of Chicago. Upon the retirement of Professor Hudson in 1911, Claude H. Van Tyne, '96, Professor of American History since 1906, became head of the Department.

In the Department of English and Rhetoric Professor Tyler was succeeded in 1881 by Isaac N. Demmon, '68, who had been Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and History since 1876. Professor Demmon's service in the University, which did not end until his retirement as Emeritus Professor, and his death, in 1920, was long and self-sacrificing. He left a monument to his interest in the Library in several special collections, particularly in the Dramatic and Shakespearian libraries, while his knowledge of the University's history and his remarkable acquaintance among the alumni have been invaluable in the editing of various editions of the Alumni Catalogue, and the revision and extension of Professor Hinsdale's "History." In 1903 Fred N. Scott, '84, became head of the newly created Department of Rhetoric. As occupant of this chair Professor Scott, in addition to his scholarly work, evinced by many books and articles, has been an inspiration, guide, and father confessor to hundreds of students and alumni whose interest lay in literature and authorship.

In modern languages, the task dropped by Professor Fasquelle at his death in 1862 was continued by Edward Payson Evans, '54, until 1870 and then by George S. Morris until his acceptance of the Professorship of Philosophy in 1879. Edwin Lorraine Walter, '68, was then elected to the chair. In 1887 the Department was divided and Calvin Thomas, '74, became Professor of Germanic Languages and Literature, to be succeeded, after his call to Columbia University in 1896, by George A. Hench, Lafayette, '85, who lost his life three years later in an accident in the White Mountains. Max Winkler, Harvard, '89, the present occupant of the chair, eventually succeeded him. After Professor Walter lost his life on the Bourgogne in 1898, the chair of French was filled by Arthur G. Canfield, Williams, '78.

When the new chair in the Science and Art of Teaching was first established in 1879, William H. Payne was appointed as the first Professor. He was an experienced teacher in the secondary schools of the State and contributed much to the eventual success of the new department. After he resigned in 1887 to become Chancellor of the University of Nashville, Burke Aaron Hinsdale, a graduate and for some time President of Hiram College, Ohio, and an intimate associate of President Garfield, was elected to succeed him. Under Professor Hinsdale's strong and vigorous guidance, the department rapidly advanced to a recognized place in the curriculum. Though his bearing was somewhat austere and overwhelming, he could unbend, as was proved on one occasion in the Library when his booming voice brought an admonition from an official. Just then an influential member of the Library Committee chanced to appear. He proved a greater disturber of the peace than Professor Hinsdale, who, nudging his companion, slyly inquired, with the suspicion of a grin, "Why don't you tell him to keep quiet?" Professor Hinsdale was distinguished by his prolific and scholarly writings and left a monument in his "History of the University," which will long be recognized as the standard for the period up to 1900. His death occurred in that year, and the chair thus left vacant was occupied by Allen S. Whitney, '85, whose title was changed in 1905 to Professor of Education.

After the resignation of Professor Watson in 1879, the chair of Astronomy was occupied by Mark Walrod Harrington, '68, until 1892; later he became President of the University of Washington. He was succeeded by William J. Hussey, '89. Since the death of Professor Olney in 1887, the Department of Mathematics has been under the charge of Wooster W. Beman, '70, a member of the Faculty since 1871, whose name now stands first as to length of service on the academic roster.

Albert Benjamin Prescott, '64m, who eventually succeeded Dr. Silas H. Douglas as Director of the Chemical Laboratory, became Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1865. He organized the course in Pharmacy three years later, becoming Professor of Organic and Applied Chemistry and of Pharmacy in 1870. In 1876 he became Dean of the new College of Pharmacy and in 1884 Director of the Chemical Laboratory. Upon his death in 1905 he was succeeded as Director of the Chemical Laboratory by Edward DeMille Campbell, '86, who had been Professor of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry since 1902. After the retirement of Professor Williams in 1877, Charles K. Wead, Vermont, '71, became Acting Professor of Physics, to be succeeded in 1885 by Henry Smith Carhart, Wesleyan, '69, who held the chair of Physics and the Directorship of the Physical Laboratory until his retirement in 1905. His successor was John Oren Reed, '85, who became also Dean of the Literary Department in 1907. Upon Dean Reed's death in 1916 the Professorship of Physics passed to Harrison McAllister Randall, '93, who became Director of the Physical Laboratory in 1918.

The University Observatory
The original building at the right