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

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nouncements were made to the literary students at chapel service, and the medical students at their lectures. Conditions and plucks in examinations were made publicly before all the students an added pang to the unfortunates. The greatest disturbance of the usually quiet and even flow of the current of college life was caused by the outbreak of the Civil war in 1861. Space is lacking to do more than barely refer to this great event. The University became transformed into a camp. Men formed into companies and drilled daily on the campus. Soon came enlistments of the bravest and most heroic. The President spent more than half the hour of his class in philosophy in discussing the campaign of McClellan. The names of these brave sons of the University who gave their youthful lives to their country are to be preserved in the archives of our Alumni Association, and their memory is to be honored by a suitable monument in the Memorial Hall. In the early period of my connection with the Uni- versity as one of its teaching staff, women were first ad- mitted. This event made a great stir in the life of the university. The sentiment of the student body was almost wholly opposed to it. The majority of the faculty were understood to be unfriendly. It was looked upon as a doubtful experiment at the best. The feeling in certain quarters may be illustrated by the following anecdote : One warm spring day in 1870, when windows and doors were wide open, a large Newfoundland dog strayed into the room of Prof. Williams. When one of the boys arose to put him out, the professor jocosely remonstrated say- ing, Be careful, don ' t you know that the Regents have recently passed a law by virtue of which every resident of the State of Michigan is entitled to all the privileges of the University of Michigan? But the experiment of coedu- cation could not have been entered upon more auspiciously. The first woman in the University, by reason of her ladylike bearing and fine scholarship. soon won her way and became one of the most popular members of her class. Not long after graduation she married a class-mate, and set an example that has since been followed by many. But I have been expatiating upon the early days already beyond the bounds. A long memory makes a long story. I could easily make it longer if I dared. [13]

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middle name. It would take a pamphlet to narrate the stories that are attributed to this witty man. A collection of his witticisms and jokes might well be made and should contain also a tribute to the memory of this fatherly friend and genial counsellor of the students of those days. One story must here suffice. On a review of a course in Mathematics, a student named Brown, of diminutive stature, wishing to escape the notice of the professor, placed himself behind a man of generous proportions and shrank up within himself as much as possible. After a time the professor turned sideways, remarked, ' Brown, your ears show. Whereupon the man promptly presented himself to full view. The Campus was an open field except for a few trees, far between, such as the one now called the Tappan Oak, south of the Library. At a still earlier time the janitor of the buildings received as part of his salary the privilege of growing the cam- pus with wheat, and gathered quite a harvest from his field. The only buildings on the campus were the two wings of what later became University Hall, and the old Medical building (now to be torn down), a part of the old Chemical Laboratory, and the four houses for professors, one of which, later enlarged, still serves as the President ' s man- sion. But I must not forget to mention another structure, it was the Gymnasium, which stood where now are to be found the Engineering shops. This was a rough board structure with a floor of tan-bark and sawdust, and furnished with a meagre apparatus of ropes, rings, pumping bars, etc., that formerly served as a place for military exercises and the storing of muskets. When I first came here the traditions of a former military drill and a study of tactics by the students were still very vivid. Just why this military discipline was given up I never knew : but I suspect that the boys got too much fun out of it. The building was torn down in 1859 and there was no more gymnasium. College sports and activities were extremely few and simple in those days. The open campus was our athletic field. Baseball and cricket were the favorite games, the fellows played for sport and exercise only, and there was no crowd of mere lookers-on, but every student that wished to play took part in the game. It was a simple and whole- some kind of athletics, in which there were no coaches, no gate-money, no rooters and bleachers, no betting, no bruising. The great event of the year was the Junior Exhibition, in which picked men of the junior class displayed their powers of oratory before an admiring crowd of friends and sweethearts. This event occurred in March, at the time of the Medical Commencement, and just prior to the Spring Recess. Another important occasion was the Annual Debate between picked men from, the two literary societies, the Alpha Xu and the Adelphi. Among the rougher sports were rushing and hazing. The former consisted in contests between classes often waged on the narrow stairs in the corridors of the buildings, to see which class could crowd and force down or up the other. Hazing took the form of ducking freshmen under the pump, which stood behind the north wing, or putting them up a tree. There was no college paper; all an- [12]

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Board of Regents HARRY BURNS HUTCHINS, LL.D., President HON. JOHN H. GRANT .... HON. WALTER H. SAWYER . HON. JUNIUS E. BEAL .... HON. FRANK B. LELAND . HON. WILLIAM L. CLEMENTS . HON. HARRY C. BULKLEY . HON. BENJAMIN S. HANCHETT HON. Lucius L. HUBBARD . HON. LUTHER L. WRIGHT, Lansing, SHIRLEY W. SMITH .... ROBERT A. CAMPBELL . Manistee .... Dec. 31, 1913 Hillsdale .... Dec. 31, 1913 Ann Arbor . . . Dec. 31, 1915 Detroit Dec. 31, 1915 Bay City .... Dec. 31, 1917 Detroit Dec. 31, 1917 Grand Rapids . . . Dec. 31, 1919 Houghton .... Dec. 31, 1919 Superintendent of Public Instruction Secretary of the Board Treasurer of the Board