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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: MARION LEROY BURTON, LL.D.
President of the University of Michigan, 1920-]