The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

President Angell's long administration of thirty-eight years came to an end October 1, 1909, when he resigned what had become a heavy burden to become President-Emeritus. Even now we cannot properly estimate how distinguished that service was. He was then eighty years old and had given the University the best that was in him. The death of his wife, Sarah Caswell Angell, in 1903, was a blow from which he never recovered. She was the daughter of President Alexis Caswell of Brown University, and her sympathetic co-operation and especial interest in the women of the University was no small factor in his success.

For seven years after his resignation he lived in the home on the Campus he had so long occupied, loved and honored alike by students, Faculty, and alumni; and watched with interest and appreciation the development of the University under the new leader. Here he died on April 4, 1916. No tribute to a great leader was ever more fitting than the long double file of students that lined the whole way to Forest Hill on the day he was laid to rest under the simple monument which marks his grave.

No effort was made immediately to find a successor. Dean Harry Burns Hutchins of the Law School, who had once before served as Acting President during Dr. Angell's absence in Turkey, was asked to act again in that capacity. This he did so successfully that on June 28, 1910, he was unanimously elected to the Presidency. He accepted, but upon the condition, expressed in his letter of acceptance, that he serve but five years. The new President assumed his duties when the tide of the University's progress was at the ebb. It is no disparagement of his predecessor to say that for some years the affairs of the University had been allowed to take their course with little aggressive action; his period for vigorous measures had passed. There was much therefore that needed to be set in order in the academic establishment and to this the new executive set himself immediately.

President Hutchins is the first graduate of the University to become its President, for he received his degree in 1871 at the same time Dr. Angell delivered his inaugural address. He was born at Lisbon, New Hampshire, April 8, 1847, and came to Michigan in 1867, the year he entered the University. After his graduation he was for one year Superintendent of the Schools of Owosso, Michigan, after which he returned to the University as instructor in history and rhetoric, becoming Assistant Professor in 1873, a position he held for three years. In the meantime, however, he had been preparing himself for the practice of the law and in 1876 resigned his academic duties to enter active practice in Mt. Clemens. He was recalled to the University in 1884 as Jay Professor of Law, a position which he held so ably that when the trustees of Cornell University were looking for a man to organize a law department four years later their choice fell upon him. This work he undertook and completed with great success, remaining Dean of the Cornell Law School for seven years. In 1895 he was once more recalled to his alma mater as Dean of the Department of Law, a position he resigned to become the fourth President of the University.

For this task he was peculiarly fitted, not only through his previous executive experience and his intimate knowledge of the University, but also by those qualifications which had made him so long a leader in the Faculties of the University. An unusually dignified presence and somewhat judicial manner only conceal a rare simplicity, directness, and kindliness revealed to every one with whom he comes into personal contact. He has the rare qualification of a real and sincere interest in the affairs of those with whom he is dealing, and the kindly sympathy, invariably shown toward every one with whom the wide range of his duties brings him into contact, inspires universal respect and affection, even from those who have on occasion disagreed with his policies. Moreover, he is always ready to listen with open mind on any subject, willing to be convinced, and what is more to act quickly upon conviction. Emphatic in stating and enforcing his conclusions once they are reached, he is always careful of others' opinions.

It is not yet the time nor have we the perspective to view adequately President Hutchins' administration. It has been a period in Michigan's history as distinct in most respects as those of his predecessors. While he followed the academic traditions established in former administrations he devoted himself particularly to the unification and co-ordination of the University as a whole, to the establishment of the necessary financial support on a firmer and more adequate basis, and to the cultivation of more intimate relations with the alumni. Though his influence in the academic life of the University has perhaps never been so personal and compelling as that of his predecessors, largely because the rapidly increasing numbers of students and Faculties alike make the close relationship of an earlier era impossible, the University has not only marched in the ways long established, but has grown and expanded under his sympathetic guidance and with the momentum of her past, until she has come at last to fill in, in great part, the slender lines of the sketch made by President Tappan and the early fathers. This is no small achievement.

The policy first inaugurated in President Angell's time of requiring a combined course in the Literary College and the Medical School for all medical students was extended during President Hutchins' time to the Law School and the Homeopathic Medical School, while the course in the College of Pharmacy was increased to three years and in the College of Dentistry to four years, with an ever-increasing emphasis on the desirability of preliminary work in the Literary College. These measures, though warmly advocated by the respective Faculties, did not come without opposition. The tendency of the time was unmistakable, however, and the University has been strengthened accordingly. Other significant actions taken during President Hutchins' administration were the establishment of many special courses leading to degrees such as Public Health, Aeronautical Engineering, and Municipal Administration, and special curricula in Sanitary, Automobile, and Highway Engineering, Fine Arts, and Business Administration. The special summer courses in Library Methods were introduced just before he took office, and have become an important part of the summer curriculum. It is also not amiss to note that the first three women to hold Professorships in the University were appointed in 1918.

It was also during President Hutchins' administration that the present effective University Health Service came into being. This resulted from a series of recommendations made by a committee of students which were presented to the Regents in November, 1912. These were immediately approved and by October, 1913, three University physicians, including one woman, undertook the systematic care of the health of the student body. At present the staff includes four doctors, besides two nurses and assistants, who give their whole time to this important work. The Service is maintained in its own building, a remodeled dwelling house at the rear of Hill Auditorium, where a free dispensary is open five hours daily. Prescriptions are filled at the Health Service Pharmacy in the Chemistry Building, while provision for the care of seriously sick students is made at the University Hospitals ordinarily at no expense to the student. The cost of the maintenance of this service is supported by a small charge included in the annual fees.

Not the least of the many effective measures taken during President Hutchins' administration was the establishment of the Graduate School as a separate department of the University. For many years it had been maintained as a part of the Literary College, or Department, as it was then, and was administered by a committee appointed from the Literary Faculty. This anomalous position of the graduate work in the University eventually gave rise to suggestions for a change from many different sources, particularly from the Research Club, an organization of many of the leading men in all the Faculties, which came to the attention of the President when he took up his new duties. He at once recognized the desirability of enlarging the scope of advanced study and it was with his active co-operation and hearty support that the new School was created with Professor K.E. Guthe as its first Dean.

The growing cordiality between the University and the other educational institutions of the State is a significant development of late years. This is evidenced by the establishment with several of them of combined courses, which enable their students to pursue a portion of their preliminary work in the smaller school. This spirit of co-operation has also been most effectively advanced through the creation by the University of a series of State College Fellowships with a stipend of $300 each, to be held each year by especially chosen graduates from each of ten colleges in Michigan.