The University of Michigan Part 10

This ended that epidemic and bolting henceforth became individual and not collective.

The burning of "mechanics" was also a popular rite, which in its earlier days celebrated the completion of the course in physics under Professor Williams. This time-honored ceremony took the form of a procession of solemn officials which escorted the "corpus," borne on an elaborate bier, to a place of judgment, where it was condemned most impressively and executed with elaborate rites. The "corpus" was well guarded,--on one occasion at least by eight juniors armed with bayonets,--from the soph.o.m.ores, who were infuriated by the fact that the head of the intended victim, a skull furnished from medical sources, was crowned by a mortar-board, the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s insignia. A formal trial followed, presided over by a Pontifex Maximus, in which a Judex, an Advocatus Pro, and an Advocatus Con partic.i.p.ated, with the foregone result that the culprit was sentenced to be hanged, shot, and burned; a decree carried out on a gallows and bonfire previously prepared in spite of the soph.o.m.ores' best efforts.

This annual fracas a.s.sumed a particularly lurid character in 1860 and the printed program was especially objectionable, a fault quite characteristic of those days. The night had been a wild one and when it became known that Dr. Tappan was to discuss the matter the next morning in Chapel, there were many misgivings. To every one's surprise, however, "there was no touch of reprimand in voice or word. In a sympathetic and familiar way, he began to talk about college songs." He told how he had once been greeted, upon opening his mail in Sweden, by a copy of the song "Where, Oh Where, is Doctor Tappan?" an evidence of student interest in his whereabouts which had cheered and inspired him mightily.

Then, as merely incidental, and by way of contrast, he referred in mild tones to the obnoxious print of the night before,--"no moralizing but a salutary and effective talk, which was greeted by hearty cheers."

Thus far we have been considering the student life of a University which, judged by modern standards, was small and comparatively h.o.m.ogeneous. The student of those days knew every one in college. The professors were able to take a personal interest in all their pupils; even the President made it a point to know every one by name. All this has been changed within the last twenty-five years. Where in 1885 the student enrolment was only about 1,300, it increased to 2,200 in 1890 and to 2,800 in 1895, and this rate of growth has continued almost unbroken up to the present time. The result is that now there are nearly 9,000 students on the Campus during the college year, and with the extraordinary increase which has followed the late war, there is every prospect of this growth continuing.

In itself this is good evidence of the University's success as a center of education; but these increasing throngs of students bring many difficult problems, not the least of which is the necessity of finding an adequate supply of teachers, cla.s.s rooms, and laboratories. Equally, life in the University becomes more complicated. The ideal simplicity of academic life, the intimate contact between fellow-students and between students and Faculties, is all too easily lost in the leveling tendencies which numbers make inevitable. This is the great danger of the large University--but a peril that has been recognized and has been met with at least some degree of success.

The student organizations, fraternities, and clubs, which have multiplied to so remarkable a degree, are perhaps the first and most important student reaction. Many if not most of these organizations have some connection with individual Faculty members, either through alumni on the Faculty or through honorary members, and this forms a basis at least for some extra cla.s.s-room relationship. Sometimes, on occasion, a certain restraint on the part of the Faculty becomes inevitable, and the establishment of a Committee on Student Affairs, originally a committee on "non-athletic" relations, created some fifteen years ago, has resulted. This committee has accomplished much towards directing student activities into proper and worthwhile channels, though the ghost of the cla.s.sic charge of unwelcome paternalism arises occasionally. The only answer necessary is the evident improvement in the general standards of all student organizations and the mere fact that they have, for the most part, continued to exist through several student generations; no little accomplishment in itself, when one remembers the almost automatic rise and fall of these societies in the early days.

If the University and particularly the Faculty has been concerned with these problems, incident upon the University's growth, so have the students themselves. They have seen the necessity for constructive effort and have established such agencies as the Student Council and the Inter-fraternity Council among the men, and the corresponding Judiciary Council and Pan-h.e.l.lenic a.s.sociation among the women. Above all, the University has profited by the two great organizations which have been the most effective expression of student life and ideals,--the Michigan Union and the Women's League.

While the fundamental control of the student body rests, as it always has, with the Faculty, the students have almost always shown themselves ready and able to deal with questions of a certain type more promptly and effectively than the Faculty. This is evident by the good record of the Student Council since its organization in 1905. The members of this body are elected during the last half of their Junior or the beginning of their Senior year, and are usually the strongest men in their cla.s.ses, though not necessarily the most popular or the best students.

Most of the Council's work has had to do with student customs, the regulation of old, and the establishment of new, "traditions," a paradoxical procedure perhaps, but a source of much that is picturesque.

Of these traditions, none has been more acceptable than the custom of requiring freshmen to wear the little gray caps, or knitted toques in the winter, with a b.u.t.ton at the top, signifying by its color the College or School of the wearer. No more inspiring or beautiful ceremony occurs in university life than the annual "cap-night" celebration when the student body meets in "Sleepy Hollow" near the Observatory, about a great bonfire, to watch the burning of the caps, and the formal initiation of the freshmen into the responsibilities of college life.

The dance of the freshmen about the fire and the showers of caps falling into the flames (they have been sent to the Belgians the last few years), combined with the vigor and idealism of the speeches which follow, all conspire to produce one of the most stirring and impressive events of the year.

Of more fundamental importance has been the Council's regulation of the irrepressible freshmen-soph.o.m.ore rivalry, which long took the course of medieval hair-cutting forays, sometimes, as in 1904, carried on even within the sacred precincts of the Library. The reform came through the establishment in 1908 of a series of inter-cla.s.s contests. Particularly picturesque are those held in May, which include a tug-of-war across the Huron River, a series of obstacle relay races, and a ma.s.sed battle about a six-foot push ball on Ferry Field as the finale. While not entirely innocuous, these games form an apparently necessary and acceptable safety valve for the exuberances of cla.s.s spirit. The upper-cla.s.sman is most sensitive to the good name of the University; to him the dangers of undue newspaper notoriety are quite apparent, and thus through the Council the students themselves have been able on the whole to control successfully what is always a difficult and delicate question for university officers. Hardly less important among the Council's functions is the management of various undergraduate occasions, ma.s.s-meetings, campus elections, and inter-cla.s.s athletics, demonstrations where trouble might brew without the guidance of wiser heads. More than once when a ma.s.s of under-cla.s.smen has seemed on the verge of a dangerous explosion, the members of the Council have intervened quietly and effectively. Ordinarily, this modesty has been characteristic of the Council's work. A similar regulation of the affairs of the women is exercised by a Judiciary Council organized at the suggestion of the University Senate in 1913.

Of all student organizations, however, the Michigan Union has accomplished the most toward promoting the best interests of the student body since its establishment as a general organization in 1904. To those who are only familiar with the Union of later years, the name will almost inevitably suggest the building rather than the organization. The new club house, practically completed in the first months of 1920, is naturally the obvious embodiment of the Union which strikes the observer upon first acquaintance. It cannot be emphasized too strongly, however, that the building is, after all, but the home of an organization. This is the essential fact which has never been forgotten by the officers of the Union. Their efforts from the first have been to make it, both as an organization and as a building, of practical service for Michigan's immense student body, which without the resources of a large city, needs peculiarly such headquarters for all its wide and varied interests.

Perhaps the most concise definition of the Union is contained in the preamble of its present Const.i.tution:

To establish a University social and recreational center; to provide a meeting place for Faculty, alumni, former students and resident students of the University; and to help in fitting Michigan men for the performance of their duties as good citizens.

It is the Union as a _body of students_, using the building as a means to promote the best things in college life, to bring about a closer co-ordination of all university activities, and a more sympathetic co-operation between the undergraduates, Faculty, and alumni, that must justify the money and energy spent in this great departure in American college life,--for there is nothing in any American university today that approaches the Union in size or the scale upon which its activities are planned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MICHIGAN UNION]

The need of such a building had long been felt by the students before the first discussion on the part of the members of the senior society, Michigamua, led to a call which brought representatives of all the leading organizations in the University together in the spring of 1904.

The idea proved popular at once, though it was again the organization, and not the somewhat remote prospect of a building, that won support.

From the first the Union aimed to be an expression of student life as a whole and almost immediately, side by side with an active campaign for a building, it undertook to correlate and to unify the interests of the students in the different departments, cla.s.ses, and organizations. The alumni, too, were knit into a body which aimed consistently to recognize the claim of the University to the regard and loyal support of every Michigan man. The Student Council was established at the inspiration of the Union soon after its organization. Some years later a similar movement inspired by the Union resulted in the establishment of the University Health Service through a series of recommendations made by a committee of Union members to the Board of Regents. Ma.s.s meetings and smokers were held and a great annual dinner was initiated the first year, at which the ideals of the University and the aims of the Union were discussed. Funds were raised for the portrait of President Angell by William M. Chase. Musical shows and carnivals were held, not merely to raise money for the Union, but to bring the student body together in one absorbing interest. In December, 1906, Judge Cooley's old home on State Street was purchased, to be used temporarily as the Union Club House and eventually to be replaced by the present building. The house was altered extensively,--two dining-rooms were installed, together with other features of a club, and for nine years it served the University well, though its facilities became increasingly inadequate as the ma.s.s of students grew.

Not for one minute, however, was the need for a greater building forgotten, and through ma.s.s meetings, alumni dinners, and University publications, the alumni were educated as to the aims and ideals of the organization and the vital need of a building which should adequately serve as the center of the life of the thousands of men in the University. All this was not accomplished without opposition, which centered largely in the rival claims of the committee charged with the raising of funds for Alumni Memorial Hall. Fortunately this misunderstanding faded away when the Memorial Building was completed in 1909 and the purpose of the Union became better understood.

This long effort among the alumni eventually began to have its effect and for several years before the actual campaign for funds for the Union was launched, alumni everywhere were asking: "When are you going to ask us to contribute toward the new Union? I want to do something." Yet the actual result of the campaign, when it was finally launched in 1915, was in many ways a great surprise. Within a little over a year some $800,000 was subscribed and work on the new building was begun. The most remarkable aspect of this response was the fact that no large subscriptions were made,--$10,000 was the largest. In fact the majority of the subscriptions came in the form of $50 life memberships which not only made the graduates of the University partic.i.p.ants in an inst.i.tution concerned with the fundamentals of University life, linking students, teachers, and alumni in a common cause, but gave the graduates a home in Ann Arbor to which they could return as of right, asking no favors. It is doubtful if any large undertaking in any university has ever been more widely supported by general alumni subscriptions.

The declaration of war in 1917, and the almost immediate increase in building costs, made more difficult the completion of the building, though a supplementary campaign in 1919 increased the funds to over the million dollars originally asked for. Even this proved inadequate and when the Union was finally opened in the fall of 1919, there was still some $200,000 to be raised, secured by a mortgage on the building.

This, in effect, represented the increase in the cost of building during the war. The completion of the Union was felt to be a vital matter and while the wide-spread interest of the alumni in the building made it practically certain that the necessary funds would be forthcoming within a few years; to delay until the full amount was in hand would have been disastrous. During the abnormal years of 1918-19, $60,000 alone was added to the building fund through student life memberships, while the following fall over $110,000 more was pledged this way, a practical evidence of undergraduate interest and support.

The Union is peculiarly a Michigan product. It stands not only on the site of Judge Cooley's old home but also on that of the boyhood home of the architects, Irving K. Pond, '79, President of the American Inst.i.tute of Architects in 1910 and 1911, and his brother Allen B. Pond, '80.

Strong and masculine in all its lines, the building throughout is a consistent interpretation of the artistic faith of the architects, who have been bold enough to break with overworn conventions in the design and have made it peculiarly an expression, in its whole conception as well as in its finest details, of a distinctly American spirit. A suggestion of the English collegiate Gothic style in its larger forms was deliberately chosen as typifying the fundamental source of our inst.i.tutions; but in the general treatment, particularly in the simple, modern, truly American ma.s.ses and details, which are everywhere full of a refined and delicate symbolism, the building is an interpretation of the underlying spirit of American Democracy. That the architects have been successful no one can deny who has seen the Union and has felt the rugged beauty of its central tower, which became at once the striking feature of Ann Arbor's skyline.

The building is necessarily large; it is 168 feet in all across the front and 233 feet deep, with four stories, a bas.e.m.e.nt, and sub-bas.e.m.e.nt. In addition to other usual facilities of a large club, it contains a swimming pool (not completed in 1920), a bowling alley, an immensely popular cafeteria for men, known as the Tap-Room, a woman's dining-room with a separate entrance, a billiard room, with twenty-five tables, a large banquet and a.s.sembly hall, 58 by 104 feet, for dinners, dances, and large gatherings, besides innumerable smaller rooms which can be used either for dinners or for cla.s.s and society meetings. There are in fact dining-room accommodations for over 1,200 guests at one time. Offices and various headquarters for campus organizations are also included as well as one feature particularly welcome to alumni, some 48 sleeping rooms accommodating 69 visitors.

Thus the Union has realized its ideals. While the success of the Union is due to the continued and self-sacrificing efforts of hundreds of Michigan men, students and alumni alike, special recognition will always be due Dean Henry M. Bates, '90, of the Law School, whose strong support and practical idealism as a member of the Board of Directors from the very earliest days carried the project through many dark periods, as well as to the energy and enthusiasm of Homer Heath, '07, manager of the Union Building from the first, to whom is due in no small degree the successful outcome of the campaign for the building, and its final completion.

The control of the Union is vested in two organizations; a Board of Directors composed of students, Faculty representatives, and alumni, which has in general the supervision of the activities of the Union as an organization, and a Board of Governors, created upon completion of the building, composed of the student President of the Union, one member of the Board of Regents, the Financial Secretary appointed by the President of the University and four members appointed by the Board of Directors of the Alumni a.s.sociation, to have financial control of the building and organization as a corporation.

With the opening of the University in 1919, when the enrolment exceeded by 1,500 the previous record attendance in 1916, the Union entered upon a new and more effective period of service, not entirely equipped and ready, it is true, but sufficiently prepared to justify at once the vision of those responsible for the result. Even without any endowment it demonstrated from the first that it could be maintained as an essentially self-supporting concern.[3]

[Footnote 3: A careful estimate, made in October, 1920, showed that an average of 7,500 persons daily pa.s.sed the doors of the Union. Some 2,200 persons were also served daily in the Tap-Room or cafeteria, in addition to the regular dining-room service.]

As the Union served the life of the men in the University, other agencies have come to do the same for the women. Long before the Union was even thought of, the Women's League maintained headquarters in the parlors of Barbour Gymnasium, which, with Sarah Caswell Angell Hall and the adjoining gymnasium, served the women well. These, with the three recently constructed halls of residence, including the Martha Cook Building, perhaps the most beautiful and luxurious dormitory ever built in an American university, will go far towards answering the social needs of the women. They have at least made the general scale of living conditions far more favorable for the girls of the University than for the men, who for many years have been sadly in need of the facilities offered by such a building as the Union. Fortunately there is every prospect that some dormitories for men will be forthcoming in the near future.

The religious life of the students has never been neglected, though the careful non-sectarianism of the University led it at first to be regarded with suspicion by the various religious bodies of the State, and their opposition, sometimes veiled, and sometimes open, proved embarra.s.sing. It has been shown how this sentiment was met by a prevailing clerical complexion in the Faculty and an emphasis on daily chapel exercises which were maintained long after the practice of considering religious affiliations as one of the prime professorial requisites was abandoned. This emphasis on the proper observance of the Sabbath is rather amusingly ill.u.s.trated in the regular practice in those days of having the Monday Greek lesson consist of a chapter of the Greek Testament; it being no sin to study the scriptures on Sunday. From which we might gather that in some essentials, such as Sunday study, the student of 1850 was true grandfather of the undergraduate of today.

Every effort was made to make college regulations a subst.i.tute for home influences, and the members of that first Faculty were all remembered for their kindly and paternal relations with the students. It was largely because of the personal qualities and wisdom of these men that the inst.i.tution was able to steer successfully between the dangers of religious indifference and sectarianism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DOORWAY OF THE MARTHA COOK BUILDING]

The changes from those stricter days have come gradually and as a reflection of the spirit of the age; the scientific and not the ecclesiastical spirit rules, with the result that the student is left more to his own devices in ordering his life. The discipline of the old days would not be tolerated now and any tendency towards firmer regulation of undergraduate life is often resented. The break came first, perhaps, in a new spirit of independence which followed the fraternity crisis in 1850. This was emphasized by the fact that the students in the professional schools were excused from compulsory church and chapel attendance, a discrimination which did not fail to react upon the literary undergraduates. The rule still held, however, until 1871; though the Sunday monitor who checked church attendance had long disappeared. Daily prayers were maintained until 1895 when they were succeeded by semi-weekly vesper services, which, in turn, were eventually discontinued. Current opinion upon this gradual change is possibly reflected in the statement made in 1900 by President Angell:

Where, as at the University of Michigan, the average age of the freshman on entering college is 19.5, it is at least open to discussion whether the spiritual welfare of undergraduates will be promoted by their being driven to religious services under fear of the monitor's mark.

A religious census made in 1894 showed that of approximately 3,000 students, 2,500 were church members or church adherents, and that 301 students had become clergymen or missionaries. A similar census of the men in 1919 showed that of a total of 5,804, 3,501 were church members, while 943 others expressed some church preference. This included all forms of belief. These statistics seem to indicate that there has been very little change in this respect in the last twenty-five years, though some decrease in church attendance would not be surprising in view of the great increase in students and the less h.o.m.ogeneous character of the student body. No one familiar with the student life today, however, will question the vitality and effectiveness of the religious influences which reach the students through the various churches and religious organizations of Ann Arbor, particularly in view of extensive plans now under way for further co-operation on the part of the churches.

The pa.s.sing of the old Chapel in the religious life of the University was marked by the growing strength of religious bodies among the students. The strong religious spirit of the early Faculty was reflected by their encouragement of an organization known as the Union Missionary Society of Inquiry, which followed the great missionary movement of the first part of the century, and served as a rallying point for undergraduate religious life. This organization, however, according to Professor Hinsdale, was "anything but an unmixed blessing, either to the inst.i.tution or to the students," though in what particular is not disclosed. There also existed from earliest days, a Sunday morning service which the students conducted in the Chapel. The old Missionary Society came to an end in 1857, to be followed by the Students'

Christian a.s.sociation, which soon became one of the most effective factors in university religious life. It was the first a.s.sociation of this character organized in any American college, and through what may be regarded as a fortunate accident in its name the opportunity for membership was left open to women students upon their admission twelve years later. This brought to it a powerful reinforcement.

The a.s.sociation professed no creed, the members merely pledging themselves to religious character and work. The meetings were held at first on the fourth floor of the old South College, but this proved inadequate and with the coming of President Haven, the a.s.sociation was established in a room especially fitted up for it on the first floor.

Eventually these quarters in turn became too small, for, at the time of the semi-centennial celebration of 1887, when the need for a new home for the a.s.sociation was discussed, the membership of 300 was far too large for this room. A movement for a new building arose, therefore, which led to a successful appeal to the alumni; though it was not until June, 1891, that the Students' Christian a.s.sociation Building which stands on State Street almost directly across from University Hall was formally dedicated. The total cost was about $40,000 and of this amount Mrs. Helen H. Newberry of Detroit gave about $18,000; the building being known as Newberry Hall in honor of her husband, John S. Newberry, of the cla.s.s of '47.

From this time the work of the Students' Christian a.s.sociation, now carried on under far more favorable circ.u.mstances, expanded rapidly. A further extension of the religious life of the University came in 1895, when a University Y.M.C.A. was established by some members of the Students' Christian a.s.sociation who had become dissatisfied with the older organization and desired, moreover, to become a.s.sociated with the strong international Y.M.C.A. body. This new organization found a home eventually in McMillan Hall on the corner of State and Huron streets, where it grew in influence with the student body until the time seemed to many propitious for a reorganization of religious work among the students. This was effected in 1904 through the incorporation of the old Students' Christian a.s.sociation into the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. with separate headquarters in McMillan and Newberry Halls respectively, although the old t.i.tle, Students' Christian a.s.sociation, was nominally retained.

McMillan Hall was eventually taken over by the Tappan Presbyterian a.s.sociation, the owners of the building, and the resulting need for new quarters for the men led, in 1915, to the successful solicitation of funds for a new Y.M.C.A. building. Two years later, on March 2, 1917, the new building, known as Lane Hall in honor of Judge V.H. Lane of the Law School, who has been President of the a.s.sociation for many years, was formally opened. It stands on the corner of State and Washington streets, and represents an outlay of approximately $125,000, of which amount $60,000 was contributed by the Rockefeller Foundation under the provision that a like amount be raised within a certain period. It was designed by William A. Otis, 78_e_, of Chicago. Dignified and simple in its general architectural lines, it is a distinct addition to the public buildings of Ann Arbor, and in many respects represents a new style of building for a Y.M.C.A. This results from the fact that it is designed primarily to serve only the religious interests of the students, and does not aim to a.s.sume the broader social functions of the Union or the physical training supplied in Waterman Gymnasium. Grouped around the large hall or lobby in which the work is centered, are rooms for the officers of the a.s.sociation and offices for the pastors of the Ann Arbor churches. A large library and adjoining study is also situated on the first floor. A small but most attractive auditorium, seating some 450 persons, occupies the second floor, with a dining-room and four cla.s.s rooms at either end. The bas.e.m.e.nt contains a social or club room and additional cla.s.s rooms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANE HALL The University Y.M.C.A. Building]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEWBERRY HALL The University Y.W.C.A. Building]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEWBERRY RESIDENCE FOR WOMEN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARBOUR GYMNASIUM FOR WOMEN]

A final modification of the religious activities in the University in 1919 resulted in an approximate return to the plan of organization of the old S.C.A., under which the a.s.sociation became a clearing house for all the churches within the University community. Under this plan all students who are church members become _de facto_ members of the a.s.sociation, and, as far as their church affiliations permit, of the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.; while the two buildings, Lane Hall and Newberry Hall, are considered exchange centers for all the churches and religious organizations, including the Jewish Student Congregation.

No single factor in the life of the University has been more effective than the close relationship of the Faculty and students with the town, an entente which has been carefully fostered by the Ann Arbor churches.

A large proportion of the Faculty have always been church members, and this has led to very active efforts to reach the students through the employment of student pastors, and the establishment of several church guild houses, which include Harris Hall, Protestant Episcopal; McMillan and Sackett Halls, Presbyterian; and Tucker Memorial, Baptist; all on Huron Street, while across from University Hall is the Catholic Chapel which was remodeled from the old home of Professor Morris. There is also every prospect that a number of new church buildings of this character will be erected in the immediate neighborhood of the Campus within a few years.

Michigan students have many songs which celebrate not only the delights and care-free charm of college life but also their regard for their University. Some of them are among the most inspiring and beautiful of all the great body of melodies which our American colleges have inspired. They have become an essential of undergraduate life and bear most effective witness to the sentiment of love and loyalty which, though often hidden, binds the student to his alma mater.

Always first among Michigan songs is "The Yellow and the Blue," written by Charles M. Gayley, '78, now of the University of California, when an a.s.sistant Professor of English in the University. It first appeared in a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Songs of the Yellow and the Blue," published in 1889.

This collection included a number of songs which have always been favorites, by Professor Gayley and Professor Fred N. Scott, '84, for which the music, in many cases, was written by Dr. A.A. Stanley. The words of "The Yellow and the Blue," which are set to the air of Balfe's "Pirate's Chorus," are as follows:

Sing to the colors that float in the light; Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue!

Yellow the stars as they ride thro' the night, And reel in a rollicking crew; Yellow the fields where ripens the grain, And mellow the moon on the harvest wain; Hail!

Hail to the colors that float in the light; Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue!