The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

Resolved: That brutes reason.

Resolved: That woman has as much influence in the nation as man.

Resolved: That students should not form matrimonial engagements while in college.

These societies also maintained literary papers. Phi Phi Alpha had the "Castalia," Alpha Nu, the "Sybil," and Adelphi, "The Hesperian." In 1868 they established a series of prize contests, debates for sophomores and juniors, and orations for seniors. For these first and second prizes were awarded at public exhibitions, which never failed to arouse great interest. This traditional emphasis on public speaking has been maintained consistently down to the present time, and many distinguished alumni of the University have been numbered among the contestants.

For many years the two societies Alpha Nu and Adelphi have occupied two rooms on the fourth floor of University Hall, the only student organizations entirely independent of Faculty patronage thus recognized. Why they have not come to occupy the prominent place that two similar organizations hold at Princeton, the Clio and Whig societies, whose two marble temples are one of the distinguishing marks of Princeton's Campus, is a matter for speculation. Probably the fact that Princeton long remained a college while Michigan early became a university with a more inclusive curriculum, will best explain it. As it is, however, these societies have in the past done a great service for the University and deserve to survive. They are not, however, the only student organizations which have had exercise in public speaking as their reason for existence, for many such have come and gone, only to be remembered by their own student generation and by the heavy weight of their classical names. Such were a multitude of debating clubs which sprang up in the "60's" under such impressive titles as "Homotrapezoi," "Philozetian," "Panarmonian," or, in the Law Department, the less pretentious "Douglas," "Clay," and "Lincoln" Societies which were the forerunners of the present Jeffersonian and Webster Societies. A latter-day organization has been the long popular "Toastmaster's Club" which aims to perpetuate the doubtful joys of after-dinner oratory. Other means of self-expression for those oratorically bent, were those formal exhibitions of which the long-popular annual Junior Exhibition was the most prominent. Nowadays, the only vestige of student participation in programs of this character remains in the annual Class Day Exercises.

Another organization which stimulated interest in platform speaking was the Students' Lecture Association, which was until recently one of the most successful undergraduate enterprises. It was organized in September, 1854, and continued for nearly sixty years to bring distinguished and sometimes, judged by later-day standards, undistinguished speakers before student audiences. It ceased to exist in 1912, but only after the broadening interests of the University began to attract to Ann Arbor many prominent visitors whose addresses have been usually given free of charge, while at the same time the multiplication of other forms of entertainment lessened the attractions of the traditional lecture course. But an association which, in its day, brought to Ann Arbor such men as Emerson, Bayard Taylor, Horace Mann, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Henry Ward Beecher, Winston Spencer Churchill, Henry M. Stanley, Wu Ting Fang, and Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Cleveland, and Wilson, played no minor rôle in University life. That the privilege of hearing some of these speakers was not always properly appreciated is shown by the comments of the editor of one of the local papers on a lecture by Emerson.

The subject of the lecture was "Human Beauty," rather a singular subject, it strikes us, from so homely a man as Mr. Emerson. Mr. Emerson is not a pleasing speaker—in fact, is an awkward speaker, and yet he demands the utmost attention of every hearer.

With the gradual organization of the Department of Oratory, public speaking soon came to have a recognized place among student interests, and eventually inter-collegiate debates and contests were organized to stimulate student interest. These were first inaugurated by the Oratorical Association, which, soon after its establishment in 1889, issued an invitation to neighboring universities to form an Oratorical Union. This resulted in the Northern Oratorical League, which has long maintained an annual series of inter-collegiate contests and debates. The representatives of the University are selected only after several contests and preliminary debates in the various societies, with an average of at least fifty candidates participating. Michigan has always maintained a leading position in this form of undergraduate activity and of the twenty-nine inter-collegiate contests in which she has taken part she has won nine first honors and four second honors. The University has also participated in some sixty-four inter-collegiate debates, of which she has won forty-two; her nearest rival being Northwestern, with nine victories. Eleven of these debates were won in succession, and twenty-four by the unanimous decision of the judges.

This form of inter-collegiate rivalry has been greatly stimulated by a medal and testimonial of $85 given to the winner of the annual University Contest by the Chicago alumni and by similar prizes to the winners of the inter-collegiate contests and debates.

Interest in the drama on the part of the students was of comparatively slow development, though in recent years it has come to be one of the most conspicuous "student activities." While a "Shakespeare Club" existed as early as 1860, the stage did not hold a particularly high place in public regard in the University's earlier years, and good plays were seldom seen in Ann Arbor. The celebrated actress, Mrs. Scott Siddons, gave several recitals in the seventies, while a performance of Hamlet, given in 1879 by Lawrence Barrett, was received with the highest praise. His visit gave an impetus to dramatic affairs and led to the organization of a Barrett Club which gave a performance of Dollars and Cents in 1880—the first recorded amateur dramatic performance in the University. But it was not until two years later that the University's dramatic history may be said to have begun with the two Commencement plays, the Adelphi of Terence, given in Latin under the direction of Professor Charles M. Gayley, '74, and Racine's Les Plaideurs, in French, under Assistant Professor Paul R. de Pont of the Department of French.