The University of Michigan Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TUG OF WAR ACROSS THE HURON The Freshman losing in the annual Freshman-Soph.o.m.ore Contests]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUR SOCIETY HOUSES

Psi Upsilon Sigma Phi Phi Delta Theta Collegiate Sorosis]

There are now thirteen sororities in the University. The establishment of the first one caused great amus.e.m.e.nt among the fraternities. This was Kappa Alpha Theta, which came in 1879 but fell by the wayside six years later and was not revived until 1893. The second arrival on the scene, Gamma Phi Beta, came in 1882, followed by Delta Gamma in 1885, and Collegiate Sorosis in 1886. The first professional fraternity to be established was Phi Delta Phi, a law fraternity, which organized its parent chapter in the University in 1869. It was not until 1882 that the medical fraternity, Nu Sigma Nu, and the dental fraternity, Delta Sigma Delta, established their Alpha chapters at Michigan. Since that time fourteen more professional fraternities have appeared.

These fraternities, together with the three house clubs, Trigon, Emerites and Monks, which in effect are maintained as fraternities, bring the total number of these organizations in the University to sixty-four, with an estimated active membership of something over 2,000 University men and women.

The first fraternity to establish a chapter house was Alpha Delta Phi, which occupied in the college year 1875-76, the old "Octagon House,"

later the home of Professor Winch.e.l.l, on the site of the present Hill Auditorium. The present Psi Upsilon chapter house on the corner of South University Avenue and State Street was, however, the first chapter house built for that purpose. It was erected during the year 1879-80 and preceded by four years the erection of the old Alpha Delta Phi house, the second fraternity house to be built. Sigma Phi occupied, in 1882, the old home of Professor Moses Coit Tyler, on the beautiful site of the present chapter house. The Delta Kappa Epsilon house was built in 1889; the old Governor Ashley property on Monroe Street was bought by Delta Upsilon in 1887; Zeta Psi bought the property on which the present house stands in 1890; while Phi Kappa Psi bought, in 1893, the picturesque Millen property on the triangle between Washtenaw and Hill streets they had occupied for ten years, one of Ann Arbor's landmarks which has only recently been removed to make way for a new chapter house. At the present time practically all of the fraternities either own or rent chapter houses; ordinarily purchasing the property with alumni a.s.sistance, and issuing mortgages, largely held by the alumni, or the national organization, for any unpaid balance.

A comparison of this record of fraternity establishment with similar figures from other universities will show that Michigan was one of the first of the larger inst.i.tutions in which the fraternity system took deep root. Student life at Michigan has always been colored by it, and the ma.s.s of students, from the first, has been divided into fraternity and non-fraternity elements; an unofficially recognized distinction which has had far-reaching effects in all student affairs, particularly cla.s.s-elections, student athletics, journalism, and general society membership. The "independent" suffers no particular social disability, save as he misses the pleasant club life of the fraternity. Often, if he is a man of marked ability, he finds his independence a distinct advantage in college affairs, for non-fraternity men have always been in sufficient majority to see that the choice positions go to the "independent" representatives. Within the fraternities, too, there has always existed a division between the older and the more recent organization which was, for a long time, almost as marked as the division between fraternity and non-fraternity men. This came through the rivalry that arose between two groups of fraternities. The first, known as the "Palladium," took its name from an annual, first published in 1859, which came to represent the interests of nine fraternities in college up to 1876, while a second group was made up of the fraternities established after that date. The break came through the establishment of an "anti-secret" fraternity, Delta Upsilon, which the older fraternities refused to recognize though it later a.s.sumed a pa.s.sive role, and became merely non-secret. This organization, however, with the addition of the new fraternities as they were established, formed an opposition to the older societies who stubbornly maintained their control of the _Palladium_. This continued until 1891 when the _Palladium_ finally absorbed the _Castalian_, the annual of the independents, and _Res Gestae_, the law annual, and became at last a representative University publication.

Although in 1897 the name was changed to the present _Michiganensian_, the spirit of the old "Palladium," as an inner ring of fraternities, still existed, particularly in the administration of the annual Junior Hop, which had been a definitely organized student event at least as far back as 1877, and had been preceded by a similar ball given by the Seniors since 1868. The older fraternities long maintained an exclusive control of the Junior Hop. But in 1896 the out-fraternities and the independents protested to the Regents, who sustained their contention, that the Hop, given in the University buildings, should include representatives from the entire Junior cla.s.s. The Palladium fraternities refused to partic.i.p.ate, and that year two "Hops" were given, one by eight fraternities in Toledo, D.K.E. not being represented, and one in the Gymnasium by the more recent fraternities and the independents. The question arose again the next year but was eventually settled by a plan of organization admitting representation upon the committee from all fraternities and the independents in rotation.

The establishment in 1914 of an Inter-Fraternity Conference marked a further step in the relations of these organizations to the University.

For some time "the fraternity situation," as it was usually spoken of, had been increasingly unsatisfactory. Ideals of scholarship were low, or non-existent, in practically all of the fraternities. The Junior Hop had become so uncontrolled and extravagant that the Faculty had abolished it,--while "rushing" methods, particularly the practice of pledging boys long before they were ready for college, called for drastic action. This was strongly recommended by the Committee on Student Affairs in its 1913 Report, and the fraternities were accordingly given notice to "clean house." The result was the establishment of the Inter-Fraternity Conference and the adoption of a const.i.tution just in time to avoid decisive action by the University authorities, but not without great opposition from the Palladium group. The most striking provisions of this const.i.tution are: the abolition of premature pledging through a provision that all pledging must be done in Ann Arbor and not before the tenth day previous to the opening of cla.s.ses; the prohibition of any freshman living in a fraternity house, a rule since modified; and most important of all, a provision that no initiate shall have less than eleven hours of credits of at least C grade, and that no student on probation or warning shall be initiated. The sororities took similar action in a provision limiting the amount and character of the rushing and establishing a fixed day for the extending of "bids" to be sent out from one central office.

These efforts have all had a most favorable effect on fraternity scholarship and general deportment, which has been further stimulated by the publication of a scholarship chart showing the exact relative standing of all the fraternities and house clubs in the University. This has revealed a gradual rise in the average of fraternity scholarship, though few fraternities, it must be acknowledged, have ever exceeded the average for the whole student body, which is between C and B grades.

There is significant evidence of the success of co-education, too, in the fact that few sororities have ever fallen below this average. The publication of this chart has at least had the effect of establishing a healthy rivalry among the fraternities as regards avoiding the last place on the list, whatever their att.i.tude may be as regards first place; while the scholastic standings of the various fraternities proved their value immediately as an argument with prospective initiates, something almost inconceivable fifteen years ago. The unequivocal evidence furnished by these charts has also led to numerous investigations and subsequent action on the part of the alumni of many of the fraternities.

Student journalism, though it reflects in the rise and fall of paper after paper the changing complexion of successive student generations, is, after all, one of the best mirrors of undergraduate life. It is no surprising matter, therefore, even though it is to be regretted, that no student journal has survived from the University's earlier period, although the _Michiganensian_ has a gallery of ancestors which, at least, establishes its lineage. In the very earliest period, whatever literary efforts there were, were lost or preserved only in the ma.n.u.script papers of the early literary societies, which provided the only practical outlet for the student who wanted to write. Paper and printing were too expensive for actual publication, so it was not until June, 1857, that the first real student paper appeared, with the impressive t.i.tle of _Peninsular Phoenix and University Gazetteer_, a semi-annual four page sheet whose first page was devoted to lists of University officers and secret-society members, while its existence as a gazetteer was justified by a very few "connubial" items.

The t.i.tle of this publication was truly prophetic for its successor, _The University Phoenix_, arose from its ashes the following November,--in the form of an eight-page monthly, the first number of which was largely devoted to a long editorial, an article on the University Museum of Arts, and another on the Detroit Observatory. This was published by Green and Company, an organization which consisted of one S.B. Green, a student of the cla.s.s of '60 who was a printer, and a non-existent company, though it was supposed to have the support of the three literary societies. Another publication which had appeared between the two issues of the _Phoenix_ was the one issue of the University _Register_.

Though a list of fraternity men was published in all of these sheets, the fraternities were not satisfied and decided to establish a paper of their own. Thus was born, in 1859, the _Palladium_, a four-page paper which for some time appeared semi-annually. As the first issue was apparently listed as number 2, it is probable that it was considered the reincarnation of the _Phoenix_. In the issue for December, 1860, the editor reveals the fact that 800 copies were printed at a cost of $85.

It was then a booklet of less than 50 pages, bound in glazed paper, with almost no literary matter included, although the first number did contain a "Freshman Song," the first bit of Michigan undergraduate verse. Eventually, as we have seen, it became part of the _Michiganensian_.

The _Palladium_ was not long without a rival, which came with the establishment of the _Independent_, "a small quarterly of some forty violently written pages," ill.u.s.trating "not only the bitter feeling between the societies and the independents, but also the hostile att.i.tude of students towards the Faculty." It lasted for just four issues and was succeeded by the _University Magazine_, which quietly died after one gasp, leaving the independents with no representation until 1866 when the _Castalia_ appeared. This survived through five issues, not to appear again until 1890 when the independents revived it as the _Castalian_, also merged in 1893 in the _Michiganensian_.

A combination of two publications which followed the old _Castalia_ in 1867, the _University Chronicle_, an eight-page fortnightly of sometimes "rather hot discussions," and the _University Magazine_, which had been a most creditable student enterprise, produced one of the long-standing student papers, the _Chronicle_, the first number of which appeared in September, 1869. For the first few years of its existence, it was one of the best college papers in the country, though it made great capital of the hostile att.i.tude of the students towards the Regents and Professors and undertook to speak boldly of "the evils that have crept into the University through the mismanagement of the Regents." It appeared at first as a large 16-page pamphlet, three columns to the page. At the same time the _Chronicle_ was established, a soph.o.m.ore annual appeared, _The Oracle_, which had a long and checkered career as a champion of co-education.

This triumvirate of student journals held sway with only occasional rivalry until a disputed election in 1882 resulted in the establishment of a new fortnightly, the _Argonaut_, as a rival to the _Chronicle_.

This journal became a weekly in 1884. The two soon became the organs of opposing fraternity factions, and a.s.suming a political rather than a literary character, lost ground rapidly. An eventual consolidation did not save them and the last number of the combined journals appeared in 1891. They were succeeded by two new ventures, the _Daily_, which was started in September, 1890, still with us as an inst.i.tution in undergraduate life, and the _Inlander_, whose long and honorable, if somewhat spasmodic, career as a literary magazine only came to an end finally in 1918. _Wrinkle_, Michigan's first humorous paper, appeared in 1893 and was immediately popular. It survived until 1905, when it also died of inanition, to be succeeded after a few years by the present _Gargoyle_ of varying merit. With the first discontinuance of the _Inlander_, about the same time _Wrinkle_ died, the student body was left with only the _Daily_ and the _Michiganensian_ as unsatisfactory vehicles for purely literary efforts, save occasional fugitive sheets which usually pa.s.sed away almost before they appeared. In 1916 the _Inlander_ was re-established but seemed unable to make a place for itself and was succeeded in 1919 by the present _Chimes_. Of departmental publications only the _Technic_, established by the engineers in 1885, is still in existence and thus may honorably claim to be the oldest student journal in the University.

Uncertain and varying as the careers of most of these publications have been, they have filled their place in the student scheme of existence; at least they have given valuable experience to their amateur editors and publishers and have been a needed vehicle for the expression of student opinion. The long list of editors includes the names of many alumni who have made their mark, not only in the world of letters, but in many other fields. The papers that survived longest usually lived by virtue of their independence; those that died, did so because they filled no recognized need or were too crude or too conscientiously academic. Of the present-day publications, the _Daily_ and the _Michiganensian_ are apparently fixtures. The _Daily_ sometimes tries all too apparently to ape the defects and not the merits of the greater journals and suffers from a constantly changing personnel and lack of experienced editors, but it is improving and benefiting through a certain degree of co-operation with the cla.s.ses in journalism in the University. The editor and business manager are given a salary and are subject to close supervision by the Board in Control of Student Publications, which has so wisely administered the affairs of the various papers that a fund of some $30,000 has been saved towards the establishment of a University Press. The same is true of the _Michiganensian_, which has come to be of impressive bulk, and is usually on the whole a well edited and printed annual reference book with numerous ill.u.s.trations and data concerning all of the student organizations. A directory of students in the University is also published under the supervision of the Board in Control as well as a tri-weekly paper, the _Wolverine_, by the students of the Summer Session. The alumni publication, the _Michigan Alumnus_, which first appeared in 1894, will be mentioned in a later chapter.

Interest in public speaking and debating has existed almost from the first days of the University, though it was only after the establishment of the Department of Oratory that instruction began to be given systematically and consecutively. Before that time, some elocutionary training had been given by Professor Moses Coit Tyler in combination with his work in English Literature, and later by President Hutchins, then instructor in Rhetoric and History, who introduced what was then known as the Junior Debates. These were continued by his successor, Isaac N. Demmon, who was to become in a few years Professor of English Literature. The great increase in the work in composition and public speaking which came with the broadening of the course of study in 1878, however, led to the abandonment of these debates and instruction in the subject fell to a low ebb until Professor Trueblood came in 1884 to give one-third of his time to this work. His success in this field eventually led to his appointment as Professor of Oratory in 1890.

But if the powers that be were slow to recognize the desire of the students for instruction in public speaking, there were many more or less unofficial avenues for those who desired to give vent to their oratorical impulses. Two escape valves existed almost from the first, the old literary societies, and the cla.s.s exhibitions and Commencement programs which have been mentioned. The first literary society, Phi Phi Alpha, was organized in 1842, to be followed, after an internal struggle in the older society, by Alpha Nu, which has survived to the present time and has long been the oldest of student organizations. Adelphi, the other existing society, was not started until shortly before the demise of Phi Phi Alpha in 1860. The traditional programmes of these societies were largely orations, essays, and concluding debates in which such momentous questions as,

_Resolved_: That the benefits of novel reading will compensate for its injuries.

_Resolved_: That we have sufficient evidence for belief in ethereal spirits.

_Resolved_: That brutes reason.

_Resolved_: That woman has as much influence in the nation as man.

_Resolved_: That students should not form matrimonial engagements while in college.

These societies also maintained literary papers. Phi Phi Alpha had the "Castalia," Alpha Nu, the "Sybil," and Adelphi, "The Hesperian." In 1868 they established a series of prize contests, debates for soph.o.m.ores and juniors, and orations for seniors. For these first and second prizes were awarded at public exhibitions, which never failed to arouse great interest. This traditional emphasis on public speaking has been maintained consistently down to the present time, and many distinguished alumni of the University have been numbered among the contestants.

For many years the two societies Alpha Nu and Adelphi have occupied two rooms on the fourth floor of University Hall, the only student organizations entirely independent of Faculty patronage thus recognized.

Why they have not come to occupy the prominent place that two similar organizations hold at Princeton, the Clio and Whig societies, whose two marble temples are one of the distinguishing marks of Princeton's Campus, is a matter for speculation. Probably the fact that Princeton long remained a college while Michigan early became a university with a more inclusive curriculum, will best explain it. As it is, however, these societies have in the past done a great service for the University and deserve to survive. They are not, however, the only student organizations which have had exercise in public speaking as their reason for existence, for many such have come and gone, only to be remembered by their own student generation and by the heavy weight of their cla.s.sical names. Such were a mult.i.tude of debating clubs which sprang up in the "60's" under such impressive t.i.tles as "h.o.m.otrapezoi,"

"Philozetian," "Panarmonian," or, in the Law Department, the less pretentious "Douglas," "Clay," and "Lincoln" Societies which were the forerunners of the present Jeffersonian and Webster Societies. A latter-day organization has been the long popular "Toastmaster's Club"

which aims to perpetuate the doubtful joys of after-dinner oratory.

Other means of self-expression for those oratorically bent, were those formal exhibitions of which the long-popular annual Junior Exhibition was the most prominent. Nowadays, the only vestige of student partic.i.p.ation in programs of this character remains in the annual Cla.s.s Day Exercises.

Another organization which stimulated interest in platform speaking was the Students' Lecture a.s.sociation, which was until recently one of the most successful undergraduate enterprises. It was organized in September, 1854, and continued for nearly sixty years to bring distinguished and sometimes, judged by later-day standards, undistinguished speakers before student audiences. It ceased to exist in 1912, but only after the broadening interests of the University began to attract to Ann Arbor many prominent visitors whose addresses have been usually given free of charge, while at the same time the multiplication of other forms of entertainment lessened the attractions of the traditional lecture course. But an a.s.sociation which, in its day, brought to Ann Arbor such men as Emerson, Bayard Taylor, Horace Mann, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Henry Ward Beecher, Winston Spencer Churchill, Henry M. Stanley, Wu Ting Fang, and Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Cleveland, and Wilson, played no minor role in University life. That the privilege of hearing some of these speakers was not always properly appreciated is shown by the comments of the editor of one of the local papers on a lecture by Emerson.

The subject of the lecture was "Human Beauty," rather a singular subject, it strikes us, from so homely a man as Mr. Emerson. Mr.

Emerson is not a pleasing speaker--in fact, is an awkward speaker, and yet he demands the utmost attention of every hearer.

With the gradual organization of the Department of Oratory, public speaking soon came to have a recognized place among student interests, and eventually inter-collegiate debates and contests were organized to stimulate student interest. These were first inaugurated by the Oratorical a.s.sociation, which, soon after its establishment in 1889, issued an invitation to neighboring universities to form an Oratorical Union. This resulted in the Northern Oratorical League, which has long maintained an annual series of inter-collegiate contests and debates.

The representatives of the University are selected only after several contests and preliminary debates in the various societies, with an average of at least fifty candidates partic.i.p.ating. Michigan has always maintained a leading position in this form of undergraduate activity and of the twenty-nine inter-collegiate contests in which she has taken part she has won nine first honors and four second honors. The University has also partic.i.p.ated in some sixty-four inter-collegiate debates, of which she has won forty-two; her nearest rival being Northwestern, with nine victories. Eleven of these debates were won in succession, and twenty-four by the unanimous decision of the judges.

This form of inter-collegiate rivalry has been greatly stimulated by a medal and testimonial of $85 given to the winner of the annual University Contest by the Chicago alumni and by similar prizes to the winners of the inter-collegiate contests and debates.

Interest in the drama on the part of the students was of comparatively slow development, though in recent years it has come to be one of the most conspicuous "student activities." While a "Shakespeare Club"

existed as early as 1860, the stage did not hold a particularly high place in public regard in the University's earlier years, and good plays were seldom seen in Ann Arbor. The celebrated actress, Mrs. Scott Siddons, gave several recitals in the seventies, while a performance of _Hamlet_, given in 1879 by Lawrence Barrett, was received with the highest praise. His visit gave an impetus to dramatic affairs and led to the organization of a Barrett Club which gave a performance of _Dollars and Cents_ in 1880--the first recorded amateur dramatic performance in the University. But it was not until two years later that the University's dramatic history may be said to have begun with the two Commencement plays, the _Adelphi_ of Terence, given in Latin under the direction of Professor Charles M. Gayley, '74, and Racine's _Les Plaideurs_, in French, under a.s.sistant Professor Paul R. de Pont of the Department of French.

From that time on interest in college dramatics steadily increased.

Professor de Pont, whose interest in student life never flagged, took a leading part in the presentation of several plays, and one opera, Gilbert and Sullivan's _Iolanthe_ (1883), by companies of students and faculty members. Largely through his efforts a University Dramatic Club was organized in 1885 and gave such plays as _A Sc.r.a.p of Paper_ (1885) and _The Memoirs of the Devil_ (1888), which "caused the student body to sit up and take notice." Plays of this lighter character were all that were attempted until 1890, when another Latin play, Plautus'

_Menaechmi_, was given so successfully under the direction of Professor J.H. Drake, '85, that it was later presented in Chicago. This was the last effort in cla.s.sical drama until twenty-six years later, when the _Menaechmi_ was repeated with great success in Hill Auditorium on March 30, 1916. This was followed in 1917 by Euripides' _Iphigenia Among the Taurians_, given by the students in Greek, for which special music in the ancient Greek modes was written by Dr. A.A. Stanley.

The old Dramatic Club was eventually disbanded in the early '90's, only to be succeeded by another student organization, the still existing Comedy Club, which has had a varying career. Soon after its organization it became an exceedingly close corporation among certain fraternities and confined its offerings to light comedies and farces of the type that offered no great difficulties, such as _The Private Secretary_, _All the Comforts of Home_, and _My Friend from India_. A reorganization of the Club in 1908 made membership dependent upon real ability, and since that time Farquahar's _Recruiting Officer_, (1908); Barrie's _Admirable Crichton_, (1909); Gogol's _Inspector_, (1910); Percy McKaye's _Scarecrow_, (1914), and Barrie's _Alice Sit by the Fire_, (1919), are fairly representative of the plays given.

The reorganization of the Comedy Club came largely because of the successful efforts of the Deutscher Verein and the Cercle Francais, to give a series of the best plays in German and French literature. The list of these productions has been a long and creditable one, those in German including, after their first performance, _Der Hochzeitsreise_ by Benedix, in 1904; _Die Journalisten_, (1906 and 1912); _Minna von Barnhelm_, (1908); _Egmont_, (1909); and _Der Dummkopf_, (1911). Since the French Circle made its debut in 1907, with _Les Deux Timides_ by Labiche, and Moliere's _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, several other comedies by Moliere have been most successfully given; as well as Beaumarchais' _Barbier de Seville_, (1909); Rostand's _Les Romanesques_, (1911); and Pailleron's modern comedy _Le Monde ou l'On s'Ennuie_, (1912).

Somewhat different from these revivals of the best in dramatic literature, have been the far more popular Michigan Union Operas, written and produced almost entirely by students. Originally designed as a means for raising funds for the Union, always needed, particularly in the earliest days, they speedily became an inst.i.tution in undergraduate life. All the librettos, with one or two exceptions, have been the work of students, and the same is true of the music, which has often developed an extraordinary vein of undergraduate talent. In fact, more than once it has been the music which has given these operas their chief merit. Save for one war-time emergency, when University women partic.i.p.ated, the entire cast has always been recruited from the men of the University and the burlesque of the "chorus girls" has always been one of the perennial charms of the opera in undergraduate estimation.

The first opera, given in 1908, was ent.i.tled _Michigenda_ and became instantly popular, not only because of its novelty and the excellence of its music, but also because its plot was built about the local color of undergraduate life, a precedent which, unfortunately, has not always been followed in later operas. The 1920 opera, _George Did It_, was artistically as well as financially the most successful of the Union's productions. Five or six performances are usually given in Ann Arbor, and of late years a trip during the spring vacation through the cities of Michigan and occasionally to Chicago has drawn large audiences of alumni and others, attracted by the real merit and novelty of this student effort. Not to be outdone by the men of the University, the junior cla.s.s women have also, for some years, presented a similar extravaganza which, though not open to the general public, is always noted for its cleverness and real humor.

For some twelve years also a feature of the Commencement program has been the annual play given by the senior girls, usually on Tuesday evening of Commencement Week. The list of plays presented includes, _She Stoops to Conquer_, (1905); _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, (1906); _Cranford_, (1908); Euripides' _Alcestis_, (1912), in which the cla.s.sical entrance to Alumni Memorial Hall was used most effectively; _Prunella_, (1914); _The Piper_, (1916); and in 1919, Percy McKaye's _A Thousand Years Ago_. Within recent years, "Masques," an organization of University women, has given unusually artistic performances of Pinero's _The Amazons_, (1918), and Barrie's _Quality Street_, (1919). The Department of Oratory has also interested itself in the drama and is responsible for several well-considered presentations of such plays as Galsworthy's _Silver Box_; Kennedy's _The Servant in the House_, (1916); Ibsen's _Pillars of Society_, (1917); and Masefield's _Tragedy of Nan_, (1918).

Contemporary interest in pageantry has likewise not been without its effect in the University, as was shown by a praiseworthy though perhaps over-ambitious pageant, _Joan of Arc_, given under the auspices of the Woman's League on Ferry Field in 1914, and a less elaborate but more effective celebration of the Shakespeare Centenary two years later, ent.i.tled _The Queen's Progress_, given in Hill Auditorium. The Cosmopolitan Club, composed of the foreign students, has also taken advantage of the same s.p.a.cious stage to give two elaborate entertainments in 1916 and 1917, an _All-Nation Review_, and _The Magic Carpet_.

This brief outline of student dramatic efforts in recent years reveals a multiplicity of interested organizations as well as a wide variety of offerings. Necessarily this has given rise to rivalries and sometimes inadequate preparation, though it has stimulated a vital and intelligent interest in the drama as an actual form of artistic expression. One of the greatest needs these student actors and their Faculty directors experience, is a university theater which will, in effect, be an actual dramatic workshop. These conditions have led to the recent organization of a University Dramatic Society, composed largely of members of the Faculty and a few students, whose aim is to correlate the work of the various dramatic organizations of the University and to arouse interest in the project for a Campus Theater. As a producing organization it made its bow in December, 1919, when, with the co-operation of the Michigan Union, it produced a most finished performance of Reginald DeKoven's operetta, _Red Feather_.

The first mention of any musical organization in the University occurs in some reminiscences of the cla.s.s of 1846. Winfield Smith says that the flute was very popular in those days, and that "several could be heard in different rooms when the windows were open on a summer evening." A quartette orchestra was organized by John S. Newberry, '47, while the first vocal music was started by Fletcher Marsh, of the first cla.s.s to graduate, in 1844, which "rapidly developed into a good chorus." Dr.

Nathaniel West, '46, tells of the fine singing in the chapel exercises of his time, with "excellent support from a University Band of nine pieces." With evident pride he confesses: "This hand used to slide the trombone and sometimes the cornet."

Interest in music apparently continued and was actively fostered by Professor Frieze after he came to the University. An exceptionally fine musician himself, he presided at the organ in one of the local churches for many years, and took every occasion to encourage good music among the students. The early numbers of the _Palladium_ and its rivals mention many ephemeral musical organizations beginning in 1859 with a nine-piece orchestral club, "Les Sans Souci." Evidently the name was too much for this modest effort and the same or a similar organization appears as the "Amateur Musical Club" the following year. The same issue of the _Palladium_ also lists a University Choir of four persons. After that time hardly a year pa.s.ses without vocal and instrumental musical organizations in some form; in 1863 we have the "Junior Glee Club," and the "Soph.o.m.ore aeolians," while in 1865 a "Cremona Club" appears. In 1867-68 the first "University Glee Club" of eight members was organized and in 1870, the senior year of its members, it gave some twenty-six most successful concerts throughout the State. They appeared in University caps, apparently something entirely new, as some thought they were members of a fire company, while others "mistook them for Arabs from Forepaugh's circus." The example set by this successful club, to which belongs the credit of elevating and popularizing college songs, was not immediately followed, however, and there were several years when the glee club was dormant. With its effectual revival in 1884, the history of the University Glee Club has been continuous to the present time. It was supplemented in 1889-90 by the Banjo Club and in 1895 and 1896 by the Mandolin Club--and after that time the triple organization went by the name of the University Musical Clubs. The first extended trip was taken in 1890 when the organization visited several Michigan cities, and also Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. In 1896 the trip went as far afield as Salt Lake City, an extensive itinerary which crippled more than one cash balance. Since that time, under more careful management, several most successful trips have been made to the Pacific Coast.

The various University orchestras and musical clubs supplied the University's needs until, in 1895, the University Band was organized.

This suffered a precarious existence, though much appreciated by the students, until in 1914 the Regents made an appropriation for its support which enabled it to blossom out as one of the most creditable college bands in any American University. Not only does it play at all football and baseball games, but it has come to be indispensable during such occasions as the annual Commencement.

Though not strictly a student organization, the University Musical Society and the Choral Union, since their organization in 1879-80, have had as their main object the musical welfare of the student body, and so successful have they been in their effort, that Ann Arbor has become one of the musical centers of the country. The modest concerts first given by the Choral Union, composed largely of students, prepared the way for the establishment in 1893 of the annual May Festival, which has become an established event of the University year under the energetic and able direction of Dr. A.A. Stanley, who has well accomplished the task he set himself when he came to Ann Arbor in 1888, to create a true musical atmosphere in the University of Michigan. The number of concerts given under the auspices of the Choral Union, including the May Festival Concerts, now totals 318.