The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

Andrew D. White, Yale, '53, came as Professor of History and English Literature in 1857. His influence was only less vital than that of Dr. Tappan and Dr. Frieze because his active service with the University was to last but six years. He was a very young professor, indeed—only twenty-four—but he had had the best of training in France and Germany and was inspired by a vision of a chair of history alone, unencumbered by any allied, or supposedly allied, subjects; something apparently unknown elsewhere, certainly at Yale, his Alma Mater.

He tells with relish in his "Autobiography" of the attentions paid him by the students. As soon as they caught sight of him at the station they asked him if he were going to enter the University. Of course he was. They immediately proceeded to "rush" him, not discovering that he was the new Professor of History until he signed the hotel register. His students were often older than he was and his experiences were many, particularly when he had it out with one student whom he had sized up as a ring-leader in class disturbances. This man was always elaborately innocent when trouble was brewing, but the young professor was sure he was right in his suspicions as to the seat of the trouble. Finally he delivered an ultimatum: "I see either you or I must leave the University." The student pleaded not guilty but Professor White insisted, suggesting that the Regents might feel the same as he in the matter. After some diplomatic passages, in which the student seemed not unimpressed by the importance given him, he acknowledged that perhaps he had been a little foolish and suggested that they try to live together a little longer. He afterwards became a strong friend of the young teacher and later fell at the head of his brigade at Gettysburg.

The success with which Professor White and his contemporaries labored among their students is shown by his later statement that from among them came senators, congressmen, judges, professors, lawyers, heads of great business enterprises, and diplomats. One became his successor in the Professorship of History and later in the Presidency of Cornell, and a well-known American historian of his time. Another became his predecessor in the Embassy to Germany. Professor White left Ann Arbor in 1863, partly because of business interests, partly because of his election to the New York State Senate and the Presidency of Cornell University.

With these men as leaders Michigan boldly embarked on a series of departures from educational precedents. Though the time was not ripe for graduate study, its desirability had been recognized emphatically in the annual catalogues. In their class rooms several of the Faculty endeavored to do more than follow the accepted textbooks, through lectures, assigned readings, and exercises designed to develop the individual powers of each student. Professor White was particularly fertile in these expedients. The claims of comparatively new subjects, foreign to the traditional curriculum, were recognized in chairs of history, English literature, the modern languages, and above all the sciences, where true laboratory work was gradually introduced until Michigan had under Professor Douglas what was probably in its early years the largest chemical laboratory in any American university. The new scientific course, which was established within the Literary Department and not as a separate school, was particularly significant of the progressive spirit of this early Faculty. This came to be so well recognized that Dr. Angell remarked in his inaugural address that the drift of intelligent opinion had been for twenty years towards some of the positions early adopted by the University, such as elective studies and larger opportunities for the study of history, modern languages, and the natural sciences. He also took occasion to suggest that the University would always have to be in a measure dependent upon the alumni, since the Legislature would never become so generous in its appropriations as to make private gifts undesirable or unnecessary.

While the liberal policy which laid the foundation for this expansion of the University's field may properly be said to have been formed during President Tappan's administration, it was continued and wisely expanded under his successors. President Haven's first years were difficult, but he had the support of his colleagues and was fortunate in the appointment of the new members of the Faculty necessitated by the reorganization which ushered in his administration. One of the first of his appointments was that of Dr. Brünnow's favorite pupil, James C. Watson, '57, to succeed him as Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory. Professor Watson's brilliant work had already attracted wide attention, he "was bagging asteroids as though he lured them with a decoy" though he was at that time still a very young man, and his methods as a teacher somewhat peculiar. He paid scant attention to those not vitally interested in his subject, and, as one chronicler observed, showed the folly of a set course of studies and contributed in this way not a little to the eventual adoption of the elective system in the University. His lectures were sometimes brilliant and always lucid, though he was not exacting in recitations or in examinations. The story is told of his passing one student in an examination who had died earlier in the year; he had merely taken the name from the roll prepared the first day of the semester. Whatever were Professor Watson's personal qualifications, however, the long list of eminent astronomers who were his pupils during the years from 1863 to 1879 are ample evidence of his genius, for they include such names as those of his successor Professor Harrington, '68, Otto J. Klotz, '72e, of the Observatory of the Dominion of Canada, Monroe B. Snyder, '72, Director of the Philadelphia Observatory, Robert Simpson Woodward, '72e, President of the Carnegie Institution, John M. Schaeberle, '76e, Astronomer in the Lick Observatory from 1888 to 1897, and George Cary Comstock, '77, Director of the Observatory of the University of Wisconsin.

Edward Olney, whose spirit still lives in the memory of older graduates, also came at this time. He was, unlike most other members of the Faculty, for the most part a self-made scholar of whose ability as a teacher one former student rather ruefully remarked that the "students knew something about mathematics when they got through with him." He was always a prominent figure in the shaping of University policies and to him no small measure of credit is given for the diploma system of admission from the high schools in '71 and the elective system of '78.

The year 1867 brought the appointment to professorships of two men, already mentioned, whose reputation eventually became nationwide. The first was Charles Kendall Adams, who afterward became President of Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin. He was graduated from the University with the class of '61, and after some years as instructor and Assistant Professor followed Andrew D. White in the chair of history. The other was Moses Coit Tyler, Yale, '57, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, whose "History of American Literature," published before he left Michigan in 1881, to go to Cornell, as well as many later works, gave him an established place as an authority in this field.

Professor Boise resigned the chair of Greek in 1868 to accept a similar place at the University of Chicago. It is said that his reason for the change was, in part at least, his desire to give his daughter, Alice Boise, an opportunity to matriculate in an institution where women were enrolled. While living in Ann Arbor she had already attended unofficially at least two classes, and was probably the first woman to recite in the University. Professor Boise was succeeded by Professor Martin L. D'Ooge, '62, whose fine enthusiasm for the best in classical culture and his genius for friendship were long with the University. For several years before his death in 1915, Professor D'Ooge was, with Dr. Angell, one of the few links which tied the present Faculty to the era of those earlier leaders.

But the names of all the hundreds of members of the Faculties, who came in ever-increasing numbers after this period, cannot all be mentioned, though many have played important rôles in the growth and development of the University. No record of the Faculty, however, can be left without mention of the Rev. Benjamin F. Cocker, M.A., Wesleyan, '64, who succeeded Dr. Haven in the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy in 1869, a strong and vital figure, of English birth but a citizen of the world, who at one time nearly lost his life at the hands of cannibals in the South Seas. He and his family arrived in America penniless, but his ability as a thinker and preacher soon made him a place and eventually a professorship in the University, where he was long remembered. He was succeeded by Professor George S. Morris, Dartmouth, '61, who had come to the University in 1870 as Professor of Modern Languages, a man of totally different caliber, not so rugged and picturesque but more sensitive and profound, the first real scholar in the modern sense in the Department of Philosophy. Upon his death in 1889 he was succeeded by the eminent philosopher John Dewey, Vermont, '79, who was followed in turn in 1896 by Robert Mark Wenley, who came to Michigan bearing the highest honors of the University of Glasgow. Within the Department of Philosophy has also developed the special chair of Psychology, held by Professor Walter B. Pillsbury, Nebraska, '92, who came to the University in 1897 as instructor in the subject. Of these men it may be said that they have all contributed their share to the singularly high place the study of philosophy and metaphysics has continued to hold, even in this utilitarian age, among the students of the University.

Elisha Jones, '59, who became Assistant Professor of Latin in 1875 and Associate Professor in 1881, was also a teacher to whose memory long generations of students pay tribute, not only for their introduction to Latin through his textbooks, but for his fine simplicity and enthusiasm for his work. At his death in 1888 his widow established a fellowship which for many years aided many embryo classical scholars. Professor Frieze, the head of the department, outlived him and was succeeded by Francis W. Kelsey, Rochester, '80, whose labors in behalf of the classics, and as president of the American School of Classical Studies at Rome, and the Archeological Institute of America, have been widely recognized. Associated for long years with Professor D'Ooge in the Department of Greek was Albert H. Pattengill, '68, who died in 1906. He was another extraordinary teacher, whose strong personality will long be remembered, while his love of outdoor sports will be honored by generations of athletes whose interests he served unselfishly throughout his lifetime.