History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan, Part 29

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co.
Number of Pages: 1457

USA > Michigan > Washtenaw County > History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan > Part 29

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Accordingly, the policy announced by the President was con- sistently pursued to the end of his administration. It requires but the merest reference to the names of professors appointed during his administration to show that the University brought together under this policy a galaxy of unusually able men. Boise, Palmer, Winchell, Brunnow, Ford, Frieze, White, Campbell, Walker, Cooley, Wood, Watson and Armor,-such were the assistants whom President Tappan gathered around him.

Thus, by the founding of new departments, by the establishment of new professorships, and by the appointment of men of culture and skill to fill the vacant chairs, as well as by the noble utterances of the President on educational subjects, the work of the Univer- sity was immensely extended in breadth and in depth. The first catalogue in which President Tappan's name occurs contains a list of 14 officers and 222 students; the last one shows that the number had increased during the 11 years of his administration to 30 offi- cers and 652 students.

In the summer of 1863, President Tappan was succeeded by President Haven. The circumstances attending the change of ad- ministration were such as to place serious obstacles in the way of the new President. Predictions were rife that disaster to the Uni- versity would ensue. These predictions, however, proved ground- less. It soon became obvious that the institution was too firmly established to be dependent upon any single person. Although the University, both without and within, was violently agitated, the number of students who applied for admission in the autumn of 1863 was greater than ever before. It was evident that the institu- tion had acquired a momentum which no temporary agitation could check.

Embarrassments of a somewhat serious nature, however, now be- gan to be felt. During the administration of President Tappan the financial resources of the University had been adequate to its most pressing necessities. The salaries of professors in the Lit- erary Department had been fixed at $1,500, and plans had been adopted on the supposition that these salaries would be permanent. On the outbreak of the war, however, prices advanced so rapidly that the salaries paid were no longer equal to the necessities of the position. But the income of the University was very nearly fixed

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

The large increase in the number of students called for a similar increase of expenditure, both for instruction and for incidentals; while the additional amount received from the small fees of this in- creased number was altogether inadequate to the increased demand. The University was in fact embarrassed by its prosperity.

Accordingly, in September of 1866 measures were taken by the President and the Board of Regents to bring the financial necessi- ties of the University before the Legislature. The President and several members of the Board repaired to Lansing on the opening of the session and laid the subject before the two houses.

The result of their effort afforded no relief, although it changed the nature of the embarrassment. An act, as above mentioned, was passed, giving to the University a twentieth of a mill tax (equivalent to about $16,000 per annum); but, accompanying the grant was a condition which the Regents felt it impracticable to fulfill. The money was to be paid only on condition that at least one professor of homeopathy should be appointed in the Depart- ment of Medicine.

The excitement at the University in consequence of this act was very intense. Several resignations of professors in the Medical De- partment occurred, and it was understood that all the members of the Medical Faculty wrote their resignations with the determina- tion of presenting them in case the grant should be accepted on the condition imposed.

The Medical School had become one of the most prosperous, if indeed it were not without exception the most prosperous in the country, the catalogue for that year showing an attendance of 525 students. In view of the fact that the school would obviously be broken up by an acceptance of the grant, the Regents voted to post- pone the decision of the question for one year.

At the end of 12 months, a period filled with agitation of the subject, the matter was again taken in hand. An attempt was now made to comply with the conditions of the law so far as was necessary to secure the grant, and at the same time to evade them so far as was necessary to save the Medical Department. For the purpose of accomplishing these two very desirable results, the Board "resolved to organize a school in the Department of Medicine, to be called the 'Michigan School of Homeopathy,' and to be located at such place other than Ann Arbor as should pledge to the Board of Regents the greatest amount for the building and endowment of said school." For the purpose of Carrying out that provision, a professor of theory and practice of homeopathic medicine was appointed, and $3,000 were appropriated to be expended in the organization of the school.

Before anything further was done, however, the matter was carried into court. It is enough, in this connection, to say that the Supreme Bench of the State declared that the course of the Regents was not a compliance with the requirements of the law.

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

When the Legislature met in January of 1869, the needs of the University again came up for consideration. The course of the Regents in rejecting the grant of the previous session was severely scrutinized; but in the end a majority of the legislators were brought to see that any other disposition of the matter would have imperilled one of the most prosperous departments of the Univer- sity. Accordingly a new bill was passed giving to the institution the sum accumulated under the previous grant, together with a subsidy of $15,500 a year. Best of all, the grant was free from the obnoxious conditions of the previous act. In view of the turbulent animosities which agitated the practitioners and adherents of the two schools of medicine in all parts of the States. this legislation was scarcely less creditable to the conciliatory and politic wisdom of President Haven than to the sympathetic generosity of the Legislature itself.

During the six years of President Haven's administration, the different parts of the University were steadily developed. In the Department of Literature, Science and the Arts, three additional and distinct courses of study were introduced. The Latin and Scientific course was designed to afford a compromise between the strictly classical and the strictly scientific courses. In the place of Greek were substituted French and German, and in the place of a portion of the higher mathematics were given somewhat more advanced studies in English. A course in Mining Engineering was also offered, but as the appliances for technical illustration were meager, no very marked advancement could be made. The course in Pharmacy, designed for the education of apothecaries and drug- gists, on the contrary, attracted to it so large a number of students, that the already spacious accommodations of the Chemical Labo- ratory had to be considerably increased.

In 1869 President Haven withdrew from the University leaving behind him every token of a prosperous administration. Every department of the institution had been extended in breadth and in depth; and the number of students in attendance had increased to somewhat more than 1,100.

It was two years after the resignation of President Haven before President J. B. Angell was inaugurated as his successor. Mean- while the affairs of the University were ably administered by Prof. H. S. Frieze as Acting-President.

In the course of Acting-President Frieze's term of office several measures of great importance were adopted.

The most noteworthy of these was unquestionably the opening of the University to women.

The question of the admission of women to the privileges of the institution had often been agitated. In 1858 the subject was brought before the Board of Regents by the petition of a number of young ladies asking for admission to the University. The question was carefully considered by the President and the Board. On the 8th of September of that year an elaborate and able report

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adverse to the petition was adopted by the Regents. The next step in the history of the movement was taken in the Legislature. In the winter of 1867 it was resolved " That it is the deliberate opinion of this Legislature that the high objects for which the University of Michigan was organized will never be fully attained until women are admitted to all its rights and privileges."

On the basis of this declaration the Board of Regents at their meeting in April, 1867, instructed the Executive Commitee "to consider this subject, and at some future time report whether the regulations relating to the admission of students to the different departments of the University, and to the conferring of degrees should not be so construed as not to exclude women, residing in the State of Michigan, from the right of matriculation, and to become candidates for graduation upon the same conditions and with the same requirements as are demanded of men."

In September of the same year, while the subject was still before the committee, President Haven discussed the matter at some length in his annual report. The embarrassments that would arise in case of a compliance with the declared wish of the Legislat- ure were fully considered. The conclusion reached by the Presi- dent was expressed in the declaration that "it is too late now to make this change without a revolution that should not be risked ex- cept under a necessity that cannot otherwise be met. And if in- sisted upon," continued the President, " suitable appropriations of money to meet the expense should be made. The establishment of a State college for young ladies would reasonably and successfully meet the demand."

One year later, however, the President declared that his views on the question had undergone some modification. In his report of September, 1868, he expressed the belief that, as the deliberate opin- ion of the Legislature appeared to be the opinion of the people of the State, the University, belonging to the State, ought to regard that opinion. "The more I consider the subject," declares the re- port, " and the more carefully I study the results of the education of both sexes in the same schools, the more inclined am I to the be- lief that the best method for Michigan would be to make provision for the instruction of women at the University, on the same con- ditions as men. I have come to this conclusion slowly. A few ob- jections have sometimes seemed to me strong, but the most of what is urged against it is fanciful, and partakes of the nature of the thoughtless opposition made to what is new."

In April, 1869, Regent Willard, who had from the first ardently advocated the measure, presented to the Board the following resolu- tion :

" Resolved, That in the opinion of the Board no rule exists in any of the University statutes which excludes women from admis- sion to the University."

The resolution was laid upon the table by a vote of five to three. But it was becoming more and more apparent that the demands

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

of the public could not long be resisted. The necessities of the University were becoming more and more imperative, and it seemed doubtful whether the Legislature would grant the necessary aid un- less women were admitted to a share of its benefits. It is also probably true that the difficulties in the way of an admission of women seemed less formidable on a more mature consideration. Accordingly, in January of 1870, the subject was again brought before the Board of Regents by Regent Willard; and the question was finally settled by the adoption of the following resolution:

" Resolved, That the Board of Regents recognize the right of every resident of Michigan to the enjoyment of the privileges af- forded by the University, and no rule exists in the University stat- utes for the exclusion of any person from the University who possesses the requisite literary and moral qualifications."

From what has been given in the above statement of facts it will be seen that the resolution, though unpretending and simply expos- itory in its nature, embodied in itself nothing less than a measure which had received the most careful attention, and which was fraught with the most far-reaching results.

The admission of women to the University made further appro- priation by the Legislature imperatively necessary. It was at once determined that in the Department of Medicine women should not be taught in the same classes as men, and consequently that the lectures would have to be duplicated. This fact not only made an increase of salary to the Professors in the Medical Department nec- essary, but it also called for increased accommodations in the way of buildings and apparatns. Such increased facilities, moreover, were especially imperative in the Literary Department.

Accordingly, in January of 1871, the wants of the University were brought before the State Legislature. The solicitation was not in vain. Although the homeopathic question was still unsettled, and although in consequence of this fact some bitterness toward the course of the Regents was manifested, yet it was obvious that the Legislature as a whole were proud of the University, and were determined to support it. An important appropriation was made in response to the efforts of the University authorities. This was an independent grant of $75,000 for the purpose of affording in- creased accommodations to the Literary Department, a grant from which the building known as University Hall was chiefly erected. This legislation was important not only as affording assistance to the University, but as the inauguration of a policy which, it was hoped, would afford it permanent and adequate support.

Another measure of great importance inaugurated in the course of Professor Frieze's administration was the formation of an offi- cial connection between the University and the high schools of the State.

The University from its first organization had been regarded as in reality a portion of the school system of the commonwealth. The first Superintendent and the first President had labored to

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establish the connection implied by this relationship. In the Prus- sian system of education, which President Tappan endeavored to imitate, there is an official recognition of the gymnasia by the uni- versity in the admission of the pupils of the former to the latter without entrance examination. In Michigan, however, the different parts of the system had remained, up to this time, in comparative isolation. The graduate of a Michigan high school could claim no exemption from examination on presenting himself at the Univer- sity, by reason of his diploma. This was doubtless owing to the fact that the founders of the institution had intended to place the dividing line which separated the real University from the real gym- nasium within the University itself. President Tappan, it may he remarked, had always regarded the ordinary four years' course as really preparatory to post-graduate studies. The undergraduate course, in his design, was to take the relative position of the Ger- man gymnasium. But in the years that had intervened since the opening of the University no very considerable increase of post- graduate work had been brought about. An overwhelming major- ity of students still continued to regard their University education as complete at the moment when they received their Bachelor's degree. But in the meantime the high schools in the State had been constantly raising their standards of proficiency. Thus, as it became more and more improbable that the undergraduate course could be made to correspond with the intermediate schools of the German system, it became a question whether the high schools might not with propriety be brought to occupy that position. Under these circumstances it would be folly to keep the under- gradnate course at a low standard in the hope that those who should complete it would continue their studies as post-graduates, when experience had shown that such a hope would be generally disap- pointed. Would it not be better to raise the undergraduate course to something really approaching a university course, and at the same time to raise the high schools into a rank analogous to the gymnasium? Nearly every consideration seemed to favor the adop- tion of the latter course.

In order to bring about the desired result two changes seemed to be demanded. In the first place the preparatory schools should be brought into an approximate uniformity of organization; and in the second, the collegiate course should be raised and extended as rapidly as the condition of the preparatory schools and the means at the disposal of the University would warrant. The latter of these necessary changes could easily be brought about by multiply- ing the number of elective studies in the University courses; the former could only be done by first establishing an official relation- ship between the University and the schools such as would be mutually satisfactory and beneficial. It was for the purpose of establishing such relationship that the University catalogue for 1870 published the following Special Notice to Preparatory Schools:

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" Whenever the Faculty shall be satisfied that the preparatory course in any school is conducted by a sufficient number of com- petent instructors, and has been brought up fully to the foregoing requirements, the diploma of such schools certifying that the holder has completed the preparatory course and sustained the examination in the same, shall entitle the candidate to be admitted to the Uni- versity without further examination."

This somewhat indefinite announcement was the inauguration of a policy which has since been pursued not only in Michigan, but in several of the other States. On the introduction of the system it became obviously necessary to specify with precision the conditions on which students could avail themselves of the privileges granted. Those conditions have been somewhat modified from time to time as there has seemed to be necessity.

It is worthy of mention that it was during the administration of Prof. Frieze that the first important addition by private liberal- ity was made to the University library. It became known that the library of the late Prof. Rau, of the University of Heidelberg, was for sale; and the Acting-President of the University at once set about securing the means of purchasing it. His efforts were successful. Philo Parsons, Esq., of Detroit, not only bought the library for the University, but also volunteered to fill out important sets of books and periodicals as yet incomplete. Thus the University library was enriched by an addition of about 4,000 volumes and 5,000 pamphlets devoted to the science of government, political economy and cog- nate subjects.

Soon after the resignation of Dr. Haven, Dr. J. B. Angell, of the University of Vermont, was invited to the vacant presidency. This invitation he declined. Nearly two years later, however, it was renewed and accepted. In June, 1871, therefore, President Angell was inaugurated, and in the following September he entered upon the duties of his office.

From what has been noted it will be observed that President Angell entered upon his executive duties just after several very important innovations had been determined upon. The admission of women to all the departments of the University, and the admis- sion of students from the high school of the State to the Liter- ary Department without examination were changes of too great moment to be entered upon without considerable solicitude.

Several American colleges had adopted co-education; but with these the system had grown up from the beginning. In no instance had an institution attained to eminent success on the old system, and then deliberately thrown open its doors to both sexes. But here was an army of 1,200 young men already in possession of the field; and it is not strange that the resolution to offer all the privileges of the University to women as well as to men was adopted with no little anxiety.

Even the most ardent friends of co-education were not without solicitude. As early as 1858, when the subject first came before the

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Board for serious consideration, the opinions of the most prominent educators in the land had been obtained. In a very elaborate report on the subject submitted on the 29th of September of that year, these opinions were presented somewhat at length. A majority of the educators consulted were manifestly adverse to the adoption of the proposed measure. But even those who on general principles favored joint-education seemed to think that it could be recom- mended only when surrounded by conditions such as the University of Michigan could not afford. President Mann, of Antioch College, wrote that while in his opinion the advantages of co-education were great, the dangers of it were terrible, and it ought not to be adopted in the University of Michigan unless ample provisions could be made for the exclusion of those dangers. President Finney, of Oberlin, wrote in terms scarcely less decided. Under favorable circumstances he approved heartily of joint education. But in his opinion it ought to be surrounded by numerous safeguards.

It was in the face of these somewhat dismal premonitions that the University deliberately incorporated upon itself the more comprehensive plan. Young men were not lodged in dormitories; and no dormitories were provided for young ladies. No matron with a corps of lady assistants was appointed to keep up a super- vision. In the Department of Medicine, indeed, provision was made for separate instruction to women; but with this exception no new classes were formed. The class room, the libraries, the museums were simply thrown open to the women on precisely the same conditions as to the men. In short, the University under- took no further responsibility than that of giving instruction to both sexes in the same classes and under the same conditions.

It may be too soon to speak with absolute assurance of the suc- cess of the experiment; but so far as the experience of 10 years goes to settle the question, it all tends to show that the fears and anxie- ties of the opponents of the movement were not well founded. For a number of weeks but one solitary lady chose to avail herself of the advantages held out by the new resolution; but the number has increased until, according to returns, in 1880 there are in attendance 138. It is important to note that no one of the numerous evils pre- dicted has made its appearance. Every careful observer will probably admit that neither the scholarship nor the morality of the University has suffered from this important innovation. Concerning the health of the ladies Professor Tyler, in a recent article in "Scribner's Monthly " used the following language: "The physical disasters to the women themselves, which an eminent medical authority has of late clearly demonstrated to be the penal consequences of feminine toil at the dry and arduous tasks of University study, have thus far strangely failed to make their appearance in this neighborhood. Indeed, the ladies here seem to thrive ludicrously well under the rug- ged regimen to which they have been put; and their omission to verify the predictions of an a priori alarm is something bordering upon the cruel."

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During the administration of President Angell, the work of the Senior year of students in the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, has become far more attractive. With the single exception of logic and psychology, in the first semester, all the studies of the year have been made elective. Each student is re- quired to take at least three studies, but he is at liberty to select from the long list presented in the calendar. The result of this change was in the highest degree satisfactory to both students and professors. Courses were selected which accord with individ- ual tastes and aptitudes; and, consequently, the work of the Senior year was prosecuted with an enthusiasm previously quite unknown.

It was largely in consequence of the success of this experiment that in 1877 the Faculty decided to extend the privileges of election of studies still further. After mature deliberation they decided to open the whole course to an elective system, subject only to such restrictions as might be absolutely essential. Since that date stu- dents have been allowed to select such studies as they choose, the only limitation of absolute freedom being the necessity of taking certain prescribed studies at some time in their course before pre- senting themselves for a degree.

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History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan, Part 29

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co. Number of Pages: 1457

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co.
Number of Pages: 1457