University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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NINETEEN-TEN MICHIG A.NENSI AN The Home of the University HERE are times when a traveler toil- ing up a mountain suddenly reaches a warm, sheltered pe ak whence he can survey the valley far below him. He lays aside his burden, wipes the sweat from his eyes and views the landscape. Gradually, insensibly, his tired muscles relax. He forgets the lofty, ice-clad peaks he still must scale and lets his fancy wander back to the lowly valley whence he came. So shall we today, from our sheltered coign of vantage, look back over the path this great in- stitution of ours has traveled and from the difficulties which have been surmounted in the past take renewed courage to meet the trials of the future and renewed appreciation of this beautiful home of ours. In the daily routine of our work we are apt to forget how beautiful is the home of this University. Our hearts thrill when we hear Old Harvard and Fair Cornell immortalized in song and story. Antiquity lends romance, even as dis- tance lends a charm. Our alma mater is not as old as some of the time-honored colleges of the east and we should be glad that it is so. We are, in comparison with Harvard, still in our youth. But what a gay and buoyant youth it is! And what a glorious home in which to expand and grow strong! do out on the hills that girt us round on every side, follow the Huron where it winds between its terraced heights, go out into the country and look across fields growing green in the springtime sun and ask where could be found a fairer dwelling place: ' Loiter beneath Ann Arbor ' s pines and elms, linger through the campus when the dome on University Hall glows with the light of the setting sun and the library chimes play their silvery tune, and try to conjure up a more idyllic place in which to study and trace the stream of learning to its source. It is fitting that such a University should be builded here, a University whose keystone is democracy and whose gates stand open for all to enter. There would be something incongruous about having such an institution in a city, where life is congested and distinctions of class are closely drawn. But here where life is (ill

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m m ftlNKTEKN-TKN MICHIti A N t MSI , IH untnimmeled and things are new, liberty in its broadest sense has found a dwelling place, liberty which eternally battles against caste and unjust discrimination. We who enjoy the beauties of this college town often forget how this fair home came into our possession. As we read the story of that early time a singularly pathetic interest attaches to the event. The Chippewas, Ottawas and Potta- watomies were disappearing. Before the onslaught of the whites their vaunted power was fast being overthrown and the forests they had once called their own were falling under the axes of the conquerors. There gradually grew in the mind of these simple red men a realization of the fact that the superior training and science of the whites enabled them to prevail over the red man ' s undirected daring and courage. The silent arrow of the Indian was no match for the white man ' s thunderous fire arms. The wild sortie availed little against the ranks of firm, well- dis iplined fighting men. So it came to pass that by the Treaty of Fort Meigs, in the year 1817, the Ottawas, Chippewas and Pottawatomies gave six sections of land to the white men. By the terms of the agreement, these six sections were to be divided between the Church of St. Anne, in Detroit, and what was called the College of Detroit, the ancestor of the University of Michigan. This land was granted by the Indians in the hope that perhaps some of their ancestors might at- tend this institution of white men ' s learning and receive the education and scientific training that had made the white man all power- ful. Additional pathos is con- nected with the event because there is no record of a full- blooded Indian of any of these tribes who has received his ed- ucation at the University. We are able to appreci- ate much more fully our pres- ent home by contrasting with it the beginnings of the Univers- ity. In the present age of com- fort and even luxury, it is al- most impossible for us to re- alize the privations and sacrifices of our ancestors. We, who nowadays nonchal- antly press a button and flood our study room with electric light, find it hard to believe that less than a century ago our forefathers studied by the light of smoky, evil-smelling tallow candles. History shows us that even before the State of Michigan had a separate existence, when it was still a part of that vast Northwest Territory whose boundaries were so vaguely drawn, plans for the establishment of a great State University were being formulated. As early as 1817, twenty years before Michigan was admitted into the Union as a state, the governor and judges of the Territory passed an act for the establishment of the University of Michigan. In 1821 was formed the Uni- versity of Michigan at Detroit. This act created the University as a body politic and corporate. In 1837, the year that Michigan was admitted to the Union, the State Legislature passed an act for the organization of the University of Michigan. The next year this act became the law of the State and by its terms the University came into being. In March, 1838, the state loaned the Regents the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. It was resolved in September of the same year that eight sections of the north wing be immediately commenced. Months of weary- ing delay passed and it was not until the 8th of April, 1840, that the plan for the main building, now the north wing, was adopted. The estimated cost of the building was to be sixteen thousand dollars. It was to be one hundred and ten feet m i m m