The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

The title 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 class 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," illustrating "not only the bitter feeling between the societies and the independents, but also the hostile attitude 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 attitude 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 sophomore 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 assuming 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 institution 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 passed 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 classes 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 illustrations 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 class 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.