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Page 13 text:
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History of the University of Michigan Where is the alumnus who does not feel the inherent bigness of the University of Michigan? Before there were students, faculty, a permanent location, or any of the outward symbols of an institution of learning, she still commanded attention by the dignity of her name; a Catholepistermiad or University of Michigania was established by the territorial legislature in 1817. The gift of three sections of territorial land coupled with the Congressional grant of a township gave vitality to the act, and within a few years a small school under two professors opened its doors in Detroit. The real history of the University begins with the admission of Michigan as a state in 1837. The new Commonwealth, in accordance with its constitutional pledge, passed the statute providing for the organization and government of the University of Michigan in the first year of its statehood. Believing the Congressional gift of a second township in addition to the land grants to the Catholepistermiad, 48,000 acres in all, to be ample endowment, the act proposes no other method of support, but the need of immediate funds coupled with the legislative relief acts forcing the sale of the land at the low prices caused by the panic of 1837 speedily de- stroyed all hope of self-support. Ann Arbor, a small town of three thousand aided no doubt bv the natural beauty of the Huron Valley, and according to scandal-mongers still more powerfully assisted by fifty well dis- tributed shares of the Ann Arbor Land Company, won the new Seminary from its nearest rivals Monroe, Marshall, and Detroit by three votes. In 1841, four years after the cite was determined upon, stumps had been cleared, and Main Hall together with four professors ' houses stood ready for occupancy. If the front portion of the Homeopathic College is a fair sample of these early houses, straightness of line rather than beauty must have inspired the designer ' s pen. Of the other three, one has disappeared and alterations have withdrawn the remaining two into the less exposed central portions of the President ' s house and the Old Engin- eering building. More humiliating has been the fall of the Main Hall ' ' whose beauty and harmony appealed intensely to an enthusiastic press. Skeptics passing the monotonous grey sides of the north wing of University Hall with a sneer should remember that its voluptuous exterior subjected the Board of Regents to a severe gov- ernmental censure for extravagance. In its period of youthful independence the four floors of the southern third of the structure were used for chapel, classrooms, library, and museum; but neither time nor interior alterations have glossed over the historic fact that the northern two-thirds was designed for a dormitory. Natural expansion, before the war, demanded the completion of a similar building known as South Hall. Frugality and industry appear the cardinal virtues in this period of beginnings. Students, furnishing and caring for their own rooms in the college halls, lived at an average yearly expense of ninety dollars. Locking the dormitories at nine o ' clock in the evening and calling compulsory chapel at half past five the following morning conduced to seasonai le hours and in these good old days one recitation always met before break- fast. Card playing, dancing, and drunkenness equally merited the extremest penalties while an extensive sys- tem of fines made all damages to University property profitable except (those chargeable to) inevitable visita- tions of Providence. The nearest approach possible to parental control underlay the penal code of 1848, a spirit of administration strangely out of harmony with present day leanings toward student control. Limited resources, of course, forbade anything like an adequate curiculum, but comparatively little was developed from the means at hand. Greek and Latin represented the language department; Mathematics closed with Calculus in the Senior year; and short courses of a term ' s duration allowed a superficial dip into Logic, Natural Theol- ogy, Political Economy, and Constitutional Law. Rhetoric made its first appearance in the catalogue of 1845, French in 1847, German, Italian, Spanish, and History in 1849. The emphasis of academic work is strikingly shown in the Visitors ' Report of 1850: out of two thousand five hundred and fifty-five yearly recitations, six hundred and forty were devoted to Greek, three hundred and thirty to Latin, four hundred and ninety-five to Mathematics, two hundred and thirty-six to Modern Languages and only one-third ti all other subjects com- bined. Text books, unsu|iplemented by wider reading, were used exclusively and electives unknown. Even more foreign to modern University ideals was the removal of Doctor Wheedon from the chair of Philosophy in the late fifties because of his pronounced anti-slavery views and because he openly advocated the doctrine called the higher law, a doctrine which is unauthorized by the Bible (and) at war with the principle precepts and examples of Christ and his apostles. With scarcely an exception the early members of the senate were theo- logians, and denominational balance played an important part in faculty appointments. Of the first Commencement in 1845, the Detroit Advertiser writes; The pieces spoken by the graduates were for the most part of superior merit, evincing a depth and originality of thought, and clearness and beauty of composition that is seldom surpassed in the older colleges. Whether this was the same reporter that wrote of the beauty and harmony of the North Wing is undisclosed, but at any rate stores were closed and the Presbyterian Church crowded with eager towns- people as was singularly fitting to these eleven graduates, the first of alumni. Memorable as the day was in its prophesies of the future, the past was not forgotten. On Com- mencement morning, as a consequence of the death, a week previous, of Professor Whiting, the Regents re- solved; That one hundred and fifty feet square of land be set apart for a University cemetery. A shaft monument north of the Cannon still bears tribute to the first death in the University senate but the campus burying ground was never occupied. Two years later, in 1847, tne Visiting Committee made a strong plea for the planting of trees on the campus, considering that the highway of thought and intellectual development and progress, much of which is parched a nd rugged, should as far as may be, be refreshed with fountains and strewn with flowers. The professors, in this instance at least of the earth more earthy than a legislative com-
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Page 14 text:
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mittee, petition rather for walks; complaining that We are obliged before clear light of day to wend our way to our recitations through darkness and mud. As the present generation knows the faculty petition succeeded and now the oozy bottoms of the annual spring canals are paved with cement. During the first ten years of its existence the University had been without an actual permanent executive, the Governor of the State being the titular president while the real work of administration was yearly assumed by different members of the University senate. By the constitutional changes of 1850, the president received his appointment from the Board of Regents who in turn were elected by the people, thus making Michigan the first University to be governed by a body chosen directly by the people themselves. Dr. Tappan, successively a minister, a professor, and writer on moral and intellectual philosophy, received the first appointment under the new regime in 1852. He found the Medical College, started in 1850, with an enrollment of one hundred and fifty-three and set himself earnestly at work to build a University. Through his industry a partial course corresponding to the modern special course accommodated students not desirous of obtaining a degree and a more determined attack on the older provincialism secured a limited number of electives in the Senior year. Present conditions still further asserted themselves in the substitution of the semester system for the pre- vious three term year. Hut his greatest and most significant contribution to the New Semenary was the gradual abolition of the text book in favor of lecture instruction, the first trial of the German University method OLD GATE IN WINTER on this side of the Atlantic. Subscriptions from Detroit and Ann Arbor made the erection of an observatory possible and added twelve hundred books to the library. In 1858 a law school opened with Professors Cooler, Campbell and Walker in the chairs, lectures being delivered in the chapel till the completion of the law build- ing in 1863. Easy entrance requirements, (minimum age limit of eighteen and evidence of a good moral char- acter) enabled ninety men to enroll the first year in the two term course, each term of six months duration. At the same time the Literary enrollment had crept to two hundred and eighty-five and the library contained ten thousand volumes. Doctor Tappan resigned in 1863. His was a work of beginnings but he planned wisely. Withal he was a kindly man; under his administration the morning chapel hour was changed from half-past five to a quarter to eight. Throughout the succeeding administrations of Doctor Haven and acting President Frieze the University settled intoa comatose condition gathering strength for the rapid growth toward the end of the century. Between ' 63 and ' 71 only a few minor alterations were made in the campus buildings. There were however signs of a steady normal growth. The first honorary degree granted in 1867 betrays
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