The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

In September, 1841, the University first opened its doors with a Faculty of two. The first Professor appointed to assume active duties was the Rev. George Palmer Williams, formerly the head of the Pontiac branch, who was elected in July, 1841, as Professor of Languages. In August, the Rev. Joseph Whiting was elected Professor of Languages, and Professor Williams was transferred to the Professorship of Mathematics, and, later, of Natural Philosophy. Strictly speaking these two were not the first professors in the University, as Asa Gray had received his appointment as Professor of Botany in July, 1838, and Dr. Douglass Houghton had been elected Professor of Chemistry, Zoölogy, and Mineralogy in October, 1839. Though both of these distinguished men rendered services to the University, one in the selection of the library, and the other in contributions to the scientific collections, neither ever met any classes.

The President's House
The only one of the original four professors' houses

The Old Medical Building
Torn down in 1914
TWO OF THE UNIVERSITY'S OLDEST BUILDINGS

The grand total of the students who ventured to try the educational facilities offered when the University at last got down to business was exactly six: Judson D. Collins, Lyndon Township; Merchant H. Goodrich, Ann Arbor; Lyman D. Norris, Ypsilanti; George E. Parmalee, Ann Arbor; George W. Pray, Superior; and William B. Wesson, Detroit. By the time this class was graduated in 1845, the number had increased to twelve. The mental fare set before this little company consisted of the traditional classical curriculum, which differed not at all from the ordinary college course of those days in spite of the progressive spirit of the founders. For the Freshmen, Livy, Xenophon, and algebra occupied the first term. Horace, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Roman antiquities, more algebra, geometry and botany, the second term; while Horace, Homer, geometry, mensuration, and the application of algebra to geometry completed the year. More Greek and Latin and higher mathematics were scheduled for the second year, while science in the shape of lectures in zoölogy and chemistry and two courses in intellectual and moral science, represented by Abercrombie's "Intellectual Powers" and Paley's "Natural Theology," were added to their classical and mathematical studies during the third year. Geology and calculus were introduced the fourth year, as well as courses in philosophy, moral science, psychology, logic, economics, and political science. No modern languages, medieval or modern history, or laboratory courses in science, save what practical demonstrations could be made from the cabinet of minerals, were offered, to say nothing of engineering, architecture, law, or medicine. The traditions of centuries were still too strong and the institution too weak.

Upon this modest foundation the curriculum slowly grew; new professorships were added from time to time as they became imperatively necessary, so that little by little opportunities developed for the leaven of the new spirit in education to work. In 1843 the Rev. Edward Thomson, afterwards President of Ohio Wesleyan University, was appointed Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. He only stayed one year; and was succeeded by the Rev. Andrew Ten Brook, in after years Librarian and historian of the University. In 1842, Abram Sager, M.D., afterwards a member of the Medical Faculty, was made Professor of Zoölogy and Botany, while Silas H. Douglas, M.D., who was later to organize the Chemical Laboratory, came in 1844 as an assistant to the absent Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Houghton. The chair of Logic, Rhetoric, and History was filled the next year by the Rev. Daniel D. Whedon; while the chair of Greek and Latin, left vacant by the death of Dr. Whiting about this time, was filled by the Rev. John H. Agnew. In 1846, a Professor of Modern Languages, Louis Fasquelle, LL.D., was appointed and became one of the most distinguished members of that early group.

These were the men who cast their lot with the very precarious fortunes of the new University. The first two resident members of the Faculty, who came to the University from the branches, suffered a considerable diminution of their salary, as the scale outlined at the first Regents' Meeting was more than halved; they received annually but five hundred dollars and the rent of their houses. In fact it was not for many years that the $2,000 maximum salary first established was reached. Even these salaries were not certain in the dark days of 1842 and 1843, when the Regents felt it their duty to make known to the Faculty the University's financial difficulties. The University owes not a little, surely, to these men who signified their willingness to stick by the institution and to endure privations and hardships as long as there was hope.

Life for the students in those days was also no bed of academic ease, though it was perhaps no harder than the home life to which they were accustomed. One study with the two adjoining bedrooms was assigned to two students who were expected to care for their own rooms and sweep the dirt into the halls for Pat Kelly, the "Professor of Dust and Ashes," as well as to cut their own wood at the woodpile behind the building and carry it in, sometimes up three flights of stairs. Chapel exercises were held from 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning and at 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, according to the time of year, and were compulsory. Tradition has it that the efforts of the official monitors were supplemented by the janitor, whose duty it was to ring a bell, borrowed from the Michigan Central Railroad, and who aroused more than one delinquent by shouting, "Did yez hear the bell?", a commentary either on the bell or on Pat Kelly's voice. To a student of modern days the greatest hardship would appear in the first recitation of the day before breakfast following chapel exercises. Three classes were held daily except on Saturday, when there was only one recitation and an exercise in elocution.