The University of Michigan Part 9

It cannot be claimed of course that this record in scientific inquiry and advanced scholarship will equal what has been done in certain other universities, whose riper traditions and great endowments have enabled them to carry on special investigations, establish research professorships and support publications, which have thus far proved impossible for a state inst.i.tution, whose first obligation rests in its relations with the people of the commonwealth. Nevertheless Michigan has been happy in this, as in so many other respects. The liberality and sympathetic understanding of the public opinion upon which the success of the University rests fundamentally, have enabled it to develop scholarly ideals and a recognition of true scholarship which have given Michigan a high rank among American universities.

This fortunate and early recognition of the highest mission of the University was made possible only through co-operation on the part of the Regents, who, as the governing body, have been able on the one side to encourage scholarly ideals in spite of the occasional lack of appreciation of the University's aims on the part of some individual members of the Board, and, on the other, to secure and preserve the University's freedom, threatened by the efforts of the State Legislature to interfere with its affairs. This relationship of the Regents to the maintenance of the University, and to the State, has had a very important effect upon the development of higher learning and research and may therefore properly be outlined at some length in this place.

The University has been truly fortunate for the most part in the men who have composed the governing body. There have been times, it is true, when relations between the Regents and the Faculties have been far from ideal, but it is no less true that the history of the past eighty years will show a remarkable spirit of co-operation and harmony between the two bodies. Otherwise the University could not have become what it is.

While the Regents for the most part have not been men primarily interested, or trained, in educational matters, they have taken their duties seriously and have been unselfish in their service for the inst.i.tution, with no reward for their labors save the honor inherent in their office. They have sought earnestly to understand the problems before them, and, in whatever measures they took, to keep always before them the welfare of the University as a whole. With the ever increasing numbers enrolling as students and the consequent well-nigh irresistible pressure for elementary and the so-called "practical" courses, they have been strong enough and wise enough, and sufficiently sympathetic with the scholarly preoccupations of the leaders of the constantly growing Faculties, to maintain and encourage the higher aims of the University as a center of learning. It is true that the Board is sometimes criticized for taking upon itself functions which might with propriety rest with the Faculties and their administrative officers, but there is at least a legal justification for this in the legislative provisions upon which the powers of the Board of Regents rest. Thus in the Act of March 18, 1837, the Regents are empowered to "enact laws for the government of the University," and to appoint the professors and tutors and fix their salaries. The number of professorships was specified and fixed at thirteen; though it was provided in the first organization that;

the Regents shall so arrange the professorships as to appoint such a number only as the wants of the inst.i.tution shall require; and to increase them from time to time, as the income from the fund shall warrant, and the public interests demand; _Provided, always_, That no new professorship shall be established without the consent of the Legislature.

The immediate government of the several departments was to rest with their respective Faculties, but;

the Regents shall have power to regulate the course of instruction, and prescribe, under the advice of the professorship, the books and authorities to be used--and also to confer such degrees and grant such diplomas as are usually conferred and granted in other universities.

The Regents were also to have the power of removing "any professor or tutor, or other officer connected with the inst.i.tution, when in their judgment the interests of the University shall require it." This specification of the powers and duties of the Regents was repeated with some modifications in the Act of April 8, 1851, which followed the revision of the Const.i.tution of 1850. The Const.i.tution itself merely stated that the Regents "shall have the general supervision of the University and the direction and control of all expenditures from the University interest fund."

These are the general provisions upon which the relations between the Regents and the university body are based. In practice the Faculty has come to have a greater degree of autonomy in certain directions than might be suggested by a strict interpretation of these measures, while in most cases the "advice of the professorship" is sought and followed readily and sympathetically in so far as is warranted by the financial situation, as it appears to the Board.

The University Faculties are organized first by Departments, with one member as head; the Schools and Colleges are also organized under the separate Deans to carry on their own work, while the general organization of the whole Faculty rests in the University Senate, composed of all members of professorial rank, including a.s.sistant Professors. In addition there is a smaller body, known as the Senate Council, composed of the Deans and one other representative of the different Schools and Colleges as well as the President, a secretary, and the chairman of the Committee on Student affairs. To this body are referred many questions of importance for immediate action or reference to the Regents.

The independent position of the Board of Regents as the governing body of the University has not gone unquestioned by the other divisions of the state government, and a series of decisions and judicial interpretations of the const.i.tutional and legislative acts regarding the University have been necessary to establish the powers of the Regents as a separate branch of the state administration. Fortunately for the University these are now well recognized.

The first decision arose through the efforts of the Legislature to compel the Regents to establish a Professorship of Homeopathy in the University, and a _mandamus_ action was brought in 1865 to compel the University to carry out the provisions of a clause to that effect, inserted in the Organic Act of the University in the years before. This was unsuccessful, though not on the ground that the act was unconst.i.tutional but because one Elijah Drake, who brought the action, was not connected with the University and was not, therefore, privileged to sue for the writ. The question was brought up again in 1867, this time by the Regents, who sought to secure the payment of the $15,000 granted to the University upon condition that they establish a Professorship of Homeopathy, by authorizing a School of Homeopathy in Detroit. Again the Court failed to grant the request. Two years later the question came up once more in its first form, in an effort to compel the Regents to establish the proposed Department. The Regents argued;

If the Legislature could require the appointment of one professor, it could require the appointment of another, or any number of others. If it could say what professorships should exist, it could say what professorships should not exist, and who should fill professors' chairs; moreover, if it could regulate the internal affairs of the University in this regard, it could do so in others, and thus the supervision, direction and control which the Const.i.tution vested in the Regents would be at an end.... Either the Legislature had no power of the kind, or it had unlimited power; either the Regents were the representatives of the people who elected them, or they were servants of the Legislature.[2]

[Footnote 2: From Hinsdale, _History of the University of Michigan_, p.

143.]

Again, however, there was no decision; the const.i.tutional status of the University was undecided. But in 1892 a decision did establish that the people of the State, in incorporating the University, had, by their Const.i.tution, conferred the entire control and management of its property upon the Regents, and had thereby excluded all departments of the state government from any interference with it. The property of the University was state property it is true, but it could only be administered by the Board of Regents as a separate division of the State administration.

Finally in 1895 it was definitely decided that the Legislature had no const.i.tutional right to interfere in or dictate as to the management of the University. The question was once more the Homeopathic issue, which took the form of a legislative action to compel the Regents to remove the School to Detroit. This time the Regents reversed their earlier policy and the measure was stoutly resisted by the Board. Judge Claudius B. Grant, '59, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, laid down the principles now accepted as governing the relations of the University and the Legislature. The Board of Regents, he maintained, was the only corporation whose powers were defined in the State Const.i.tution, whereas in the case of every other corporation established by the Const.i.tution it was provided that its powers should be defined by law. "No other conclusion was, in his judgment, possible than that the intention was to place the inst.i.tution in the direct and exclusive control of the people themselves, through a const.i.tutional body elected by them." Otherwise the Regents would become merely "ministerial officers" with no other duties than to register the will of the Legislature.

The independent status of the University has also been more firmly established in late years by other legislative enactments and decisions.

As early as 1863 it was recognized that the Regents had power to hold and convey real estate, though they had no authority over the land granted by Congress for the support of the University, nor over the princ.i.p.al of the fund established through the sale of that land. In 1890 such property was declared exempt from taxation, and in 1893 the Board of Regents was declared to be alone responsible under contracts made by it for the benefit of the University. In the new Const.i.tution of 1908 the Regents were given the right of eminent domain, and on a number of occasions since that time have been able to acquire "private property for the use of the University in the manner prescribed by law." It is difficult to see how the growth of the University during the past twelve years with its constantly expanding building program could have taken place without this salutary check upon the exorbitant demands of property owners in the neighborhood of the Campus.

This financial autonomy of the Regents, once an appropriation is made by the Legislature, has not gone unquestioned, however, particularly by the Auditor-General. The University fund from early years has been borrowed by the State which until 1896 paid the original interest rate of seven percent. The Auditor-General then decided that the legal rate of six percent should be enforced. The matter was laid before the Supreme Court, however, and the old rate was restored. In 1900 it was definitely ruled by the Attorney-General that "the Auditor-General has no authority to refuse to audit and pay vouchers for real estate purchased by the Board of Regents," and subsequently in 1911, the Supreme Court maintained that the "judgment of the Regents as to the legality and expediency of expenditures for the use and maintenance of the inst.i.tution" could not be considered "subordinate to that of the Auditor-General."

The powers of the Regents have also been strengthened by other rulings of the Attorney-Generals of the State. Thus in 1900 the power of the Regents to determine student fees was declared not subject to legislative control, while in 1911 the same freedom in the matter of the determination of entrance requirements was conceded. The Board was also declared in 1908 free from the application of an act of the previous year providing for the approval and regulation of salaries in the various state inst.i.tutions.

The University has thus been as fortunate in the development of its relations with the State as it has been in its internal growth. Though there have been many critical times, the movement has always been forward. The Regents have been careful and conservative in their relations with the Legislature, but they have insisted upon the independence of the University and have been sustained in this position with increasing firmness by the Supreme Court. The Legislature has shown an ever-increasing friendliness toward the University and has never refused to come to the aid of the inst.i.tution, whatever its views as to the const.i.tutional questions involved in the establishment of the University. This was shown as never before by the 1919 Legislature, which not only granted to the University appropriations amounting to $2,200,000, but gave it by the unanimous vote of both houses, a thing which had never happened before. The Legislature even included one item for which the officers of the University had hardly dared hope to have favorable action at that session.

With its const.i.tutional status so well established; with the Legislature so ready to co-operate in furthering the best interests of the University, with its curriculum continually expanding, though wisely and not too rapidly, and with an ever-increasing emphasis on the highest ideals of scholarship and service, there is every promise for a future of greater usefulness and effective service for the University. We, who love the University of Michigan for what it has accomplished, for what it is, and for what it may become, may well look for a development through the coming years that shall be a fitting continuation of the remarkable success of the great experiment involved in its establishment.

CHAPTER IX

STUDENT LIFE

Although the life of the student in the earliest days of the University had a bucolic simplicity almost unimaginable to the undergraduate of these days, it was not without its sterner side. The Rev. Theodoric R.

Palmer of the cla.s.s of '47, who entered the University in 1843, thus emphasizes the contrast between those times and the present:

But twenty-five years had elapsed since the first steamship crossed the Atlantic and the first ten miles of pa.s.senger railway in the United States had been laid but fifteen years. The telegraph was a recent invention ... electricity was a plaything, and electrical engineering unknown.

Nothing will point this contrast better, perhaps, than the mere fact that the Michigan Central, which had only reached Ann Arbor a year or so before, was running one train a day between Detroit and _Dexter_. Most of the students we may a.s.sume, therefore, rode into town on horseback, as he did, with their gear behind them, or perhaps took advantage of the several stage lines which centered in Ann Arbor.

They found a little town charmingly situated in forests and farm clearings, lying for the most part in the valley of the Huron, though gradually reaching out toward the University, from which a few houses could be seen along the western side of the country road which now is State Street. The Campus, which for years "looked like a small farm,"

was surrounded by a fence with a turn-stile on the northwest corner.

This was often broken and was finally replaced by a series of steps, over which the students pa.s.sed to their boarding houses in town after their morning recitations and their afternoons of study. In time this stile gave way to posts with room enough between for a man, "but not for a cow." Early hours were imperative, for kerosene or "coal-oil" was practically unknown in the forties, and candles and whale oil were the sole source of illumination, while the wood yard, always mentioned with deep feeling by every alumnus of that period, was the source of heat.

Time went according to a bell mounted on a post at the rear, which seemed to have been a prolific source of student humor. It was turned upside down in winter and filled with water, with a corresponding vacation the following morning; the clapper was stolen; and finally in Dr. Tappan's day it was even carried away, post and all. The President, however, was a match for the jokers and simply announced that as the bell was a convenience which the students did not seem to need, cla.s.ses would be held henceforth without the usual call. As the regulations were very strict as to attendance and four unexcused absences a matter for the higher powers, it was not long before a student rose in Chapel and requested permission to reinstate the Campus time-piece,--which was graciously granted.

There are stories innumerable of donkeys and geese appearing in unusual places and of the Chapel on one occasion being filled with hay, while once a whole load of wood, wagon and all, was laboriously set up on the roof of the college hall. On another occasion a number of students, waiting for their recitation period, corralled a herd of cows grazing on the Campus, and so thoroughly frightened one calf that he rushed into the open door of the building as the safest refuge. Some one shut the door instantly, and when Professor Winch.e.l.l's cla.s.s-room door was opened, in rushed the badly demoralized animal. The effect may be imagined. Professor Winch.e.l.l always thought it a "proposed and deliberate insult," but, as the historian of the incident in the "Cla.s.s-Book" of '61 observes: "Any one will at once perceive that no one was to blame but the calf, who lost his presence of mind." All this humor, however, was rather elementary; for the most part life was sufficiently sedate, and the pranks ordinarily far from atrocious.

In the earliest days the term fees of $7.50 covered the cost of rooms in the dormitories, while the cost of board ranged from $1.50 to $2.00 a week. H.B. Nichols, a student in 1850, gave his father the following,--

account of monies, by me expended. In it I put an estimate of the term tax at $6.00. It is $6.62-1/2 and divided as follows, viz: Room rent, $1.50. Janitor's fees, $1.50. Wood bill $2.87-1/2 and Hall tax for damages to the Buildings, viz. Brokens doors and windows, $.75, making in all the sum of $6.62-1/2. Last term $4.60.

So you see it is all a humbug for the catalogue to say the charges will range from $5.00 to $7.50 per year, as it will not be less than $15.00 to each student, or $30.00 to each room and if a student rooms alone his charges will be $21.00 per year!

As for his boarding place:

I changed or rather left Mrs. Andrews and went ... to Professor Ten Brook's. I like it so well at the Prof's that I have remained there since. Lest you should be unwilling, or perhaps fearful for my health, I would say that the Prof. has kindly offered me his horse to use every morning or as much as I please. A ride on horseback is exceeding good exercise. Especially when a horse is as hard to ride as the Prof's is wont to be. Do you recollect a sorrel steed you sold to Mr. Dan Stowell? Prof's horse's movements are just about as _convenient_ as that one's were. My objection to boarding at a public boarding house, is, that no regard is paid to the rules of politeness and _good_ manners. Every one for himself, is the motto. Not so in a private family. Mrs. Ten Brook is a very accomplished lady and the Prof. is not much behind her in that respect. They set a _good_ table, not a very _rich_ one, but rather a plain one. In the morning, Buckwheat pancakes and maple mola.s.ses, besides potatoes and sausage. At noon, 'steak,' sometimes fish. The professor charges 12 shillings for board. I like _him_ of all the Prof's, the best.

What would a student nowadays think of a menu like that for $1.50 a week?

The first boarding club was established in 1860 in the house, not far from the ancient "Cat-Hole," of one Mrs. O'Toole, "a pretty good all-round cook, whose forte was apple dumplings" served daily. The steward was Charles Kendall Adams, '61, while other members were Walter W. Perry and Byron M. Cutcheon of the cla.s.s of 1861 and Martin L. D'Ooge of the cla.s.s of 1862.

Recreation was not a part of the earlier curriculum and athletics were unknown under that name, though feats of strength, jumping, lifting dumb-bells, the heavier the better, and foot-races, were common. Perhaps that woodyard and the favorite games of one-old-cat and wicket, a modification of cricket, were sufficient subst.i.tutes, occasionally varied by a fishing trip on the Huron or a walk to Ypsilanti, whenever the necessary permission from the authorities to leave Ann Arbor was forthcoming. Social opportunities came largely through the relations of the students with the townspeople and their lovely daughters, particularly at the popular church socials. Many of the brightest and most beautiful local belles came from "lower town," or north Ann Arbor, a most important section at that time,--some even lived nearly a mile beyond the old long bridge at the foot of Broadway hill. To them the new students were invariably introduced; the wise ones surrendering all rights, so that when the social was over, it was only natural for the new men to ask for the privilege of escorting them home; something of an ordeal on a winter night. The old wooden viaduct over the tracks was known in those days as the "Bridge of Sighs."

Of conviviality there was comparatively little in the earliest days, though occasionally some students succ.u.mbed to the beer and wine of the German townspeople. A certain drinking bout in 1858, however, had most serious consequences; one student died as the result, and this, with the resultant expulsions, seems to have had a very restraining influence for some years. Societies or other groups often went down to a Mrs. Slack's restaurant, where they were served by a pretty waitress named "Rika"--whose only claim to fame lies in the reminiscence of those undergraduates of '49 who were her patrons. But for the most part the life of the University was lived in a sane and wholesome atmosphere. The students were almost all from farm homes; they were used to the simple life and were in earnest in their efforts for an education. They were watched with a paternal eye by the Faculty and duly admonished at the two daily chapel exercises, long a part of University life. Their hours were carefully provided for; their courses were compulsory; and their attendance at cla.s.ses insured by numbers on the cla.s.s-room benches which had to be duly covered. For this, the shawls that the students wore in the late fifties seem to have been popular--several students, plus shawls, were able to conceal many gaps if the monitor were not too observant.

Throughout the earlier years there was a great emphasis on public speaking, for which ample opportunity was given in various "cla.s.s exhibitions." These were inaugurated by the soph.o.m.ores in 1843 with a programme of four orations, four dissertations, four essays, and one poem. The same cla.s.s continued the precedent the next year, followed by succeeding junior cla.s.ses, so that these exhibitions became an inst.i.tution, long supported not alone by the students but by Faculty and interested citizens as well. The end did not come until 1871 when the last junior exhibition was held. The first cla.s.s-day was held by '62 in the spring of their junior year, but it was celebrated informally and not taken very seriously until 1865 when the first real exercises took place in May at the beginning of the "Senior Vacation." The place was the old Presbyterian church, which seems to have been the favorite auditorium. The "presentation" of the cla.s.s was made in Greek by Professor Boise, while President Haven replied in Latin. In one at least of these first cla.s.s-day programmes the oration and poem only were public, while the history and prophecy were submitted to the cla.s.s at a convivial session at the popular Hangsterfer's.

The place which these early platform efforts took in the life of those days is shown by two incidents. The first is related by Gen. W.H.H.

Beadle, '61, later President of the University of South Dakota, who tells how an address by "one student" in 1858, denouncing the iniquity of the Mexican War as begun and waged for the extension of slavery, called him to the attention of the abolitionists, one of whom asked him if he would care to take a "long ride on a good horse." He would of course, and did, carrying a message to a Quaker farmer in Lenawee County, whose home was a station of the underground railway. Andrew D.

White also describes with reminiscent pleasure how he groomed one of his students to defeat a local politician, known as "Old Statistics," who was characterized by his senatorial aspirations and his carefully appropriate garb, tall hat, blue swallow-tail and buff waistcoat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. The wrath of this worthy, as a disciple of Henry Clay, had been aroused by the teachings of Professor White, who at that time was opposed to a protective tariff, and a public debate was to clinch the discussion. The result was a complete victory for the young David, who had the audience with him from the first, to the immense chagrin of his pompous opponent.

The annual Commencement exercises were usually held in one of the local churches and sometimes, after 1856, in the hall of the Union School building, though nowhere was there an auditorium large enough to hold all who wished to attend,--a situation not changed, in fact, until the erection of Hill Auditorium in 1913. Upon one occasion women were admitted an hour earlier than men, a bit of partiality which drew a protest against such injustice and a reference to the perfectly good s.p.a.ce wasted through the necessities of the prevailing crinolines. One cla.s.s, at least, that of '46, held its exercises in a great revival tent, especially imported from Chicago and set up after a week's strenuous exertion on the part of the students. The programme consisted of short orations by the graduates, who were democratically placed on the programme with no reference to standings. The increasing size of the cla.s.ses led eventually to a Faculty selection of certain speakers to represent the students. In 1878 cla.s.s partic.i.p.ation was abolished and the practice of inviting distinguished men to give the Commencement address was inaugurated. The old practice of giving the seniors a vacation period in which to prepare their speeches also came to an end with this change.

The traditional rivalry between cla.s.ses in the University existed from the first and many were the lessons taught the upstanding freshmen, with natural retaliations on the soph.o.m.ores. To this was added a natural inter-departmental rivalry which came with the establishment of the professional schools. The "medics" and the "laws," however, soon grew strong enough to take care of themselves and were in fact for many years largely in the majority. And with this growth of cla.s.s and departmental spirit, which increasing numbers brought, the rushing and hazing episodes in the seventies and eighties became more serious--not so much because of their dangerous character in themselves, as for the opportunity they gave to unfriendly critics of the inst.i.tution. The usual student, however, yields to no one in his love for his alma mater and time and again it has only been necessary to point out the real danger to the University arising from such practices to bring about their abandonment,--until the next crop of hazers has to go through the same process of education.

This inter-departmental rivalry, which was most intense about 1900, naturally led to many escapades. One picturesque incident resulted when 1900 ran a flag bearing the cla.s.s numerals to the top of the University flag-pole, and left it to sweep the skies with the halyards cut. A Western sharpshooter was enlisted from the ranks of the Law Department and the offending emblem was brought down on the second shot, to the great satisfaction of the "laws." Less excusable was the method the cla.s.s of 1902 took to immortalize its victory over the "laws" by painting the cla.s.s numerals prominently on the soft sand-stone of the Law Building, of which traces remain to this day for those who know where to look. The guilty cla.s.s was made to feel mightily ashamed of itself for a while, but in after years it has proudly borne the t.i.tle of "Human Skunks" conferred upon it at the time.

Ma.s.s action has always been a favorite method of student expression. Of this the organized "bolting" of the years just after the war is an example. This went on to such a degree that it became necessary for the Faculty to pa.s.s a resolution stating that "in the absence of an instructor, his cla.s.s shall be expected to remain until at least five minutes after the ringing of the bell." Apparently this did not stop the practice, and suspension or dismissal were threatened in 1867. This rule was drastically applied in 1871 when a large number of freshmen and soph.o.m.ores, who had found Van Amburgh's circus more attractive than their cla.s.ses, were actually suspended. It is not difficult to trace in this affair the origin of the song popular to this day, though its application has been long forgotten:

We are going to the Hamburg show To see the elephant and the wild kangaroo;-- And we'll all stick together, through rain or stormy weather, For we're going to see the whole show through.