Has Removed his Office to the Court House in the South Room on the East side of the Hall. Those who call after bed-time will please knock at the window if the door is fastened.
It is noticeable also that even at this time, ten years after the village was founded, the spelling, "Ann Arbour," is followed in numerous places while the Argus in its headline gives it, "Ann-Arbor," with a hyphen.
As with religion and politics, as represented by the newspapers of the day, so with education. It is not improbable that one of that group of nine log cabins which was Ann Arbor in 1825 housed a primary school; certainly a school taught by Miss Monroe was under way that year at the corner of Main and Ann streets. This was at first a private venture and was housed in various places, but in 1829 it was finally moved into a brick building,—on the jail lot, of all places!—and became a public enterprise. The children in the community were all small in those days—there were only 141 children between five and fifteen years in 1839—and it was not for some years that a need for secondary schools was felt.
The first academy was established in 1829 where Greek and Latin and the "higher branches of English education" were taught. This was soon discontinued, to be succeeded by an academy in the rude building which served the Presbyterian Church. Although this particular school was short-lived, its successor soon came to be known as the best in the territory and numbered the sons of many prominent Detroit families among its pupils. Several schools came in 1835, including an experiment some distance out what is now Packard Street, known as the Manual Labor School, in which the pupils paid a part or the whole of their expenses by daily farm work.
The Misses Page also maintained for many years a very "genteel" young ladies' seminary, long reckoned a most substantial and worthy school, where not only the classics, moral philosophy, and literature were taught, but also heraldry,—an eminently useful branch in a pioneer community! The lower town district as well was not without its schools and an academy. Provision was also made for pre-collegiate training during the first years of the University. So it would appear that on the whole Ann Arbor was well provided with schools from its earliest days.
The discontinuance of elementary work in the University, however, and a consolidation of the schools of the two districts finally led to the establishment of the Union High School in 1853. The first building was erected at a cost of $32,000 on the present site of the High School and was opened to students in 1856, while most of the ward buildings were built during the sixties. Close association with the University undoubtedly strengthened the Ann Arbor schools, and the High School soon became, in practice, a preparatory school for the University, particularly after the organic connection between University and schools through the diploma system became effective. This enabled the Ann Arbor High School to become one of the best secondary schools of the State with an attendance for many years far exceeding the normal enrolment in other cities of the same population.
While the townspeople have always shown their pride in the University and their interest in its welfare, Ann Arbor has not escaped entirely the traditional rivalries between town and gown. The village had a flourishing civic and commercial life before the first students came; even after it was established, the University for years was comparatively small and made no great place for itself in local affairs, as one may easily surmise by the rare references to it in the early newspapers. The members of the Faculty, however, were welcomed from the first as leaders in the community, though perhaps less can be said for the students, whose irrepressible spirits often led them to carry things with a high hand. Nor was the younger element in the town blameless. The result was an occasional crisis which was sometimes serious.
The indignation meeting of the citizens over the modification of the building program, as well as the similarly expressed support given the students in the fraternity struggle of 1850, were mentioned in the first chapter, and evidence a more cordial entente than is suggested by a serio-comic squabble in 1856 between the students and the Teutonic element in the town, long known as the "Dutch War." The original trouble appears to have started in this case with the students, though it was probably the outgrowth of old animosities between them and the rougher and foreign elements in the town. For, despite vigorous efforts on the part of the President and Faculty to enforce the law against the sale of liquor to undergraduates, many student difficulties were to be traced to popular downtown resorts maintained largely by the German inhabitants. On this occasion the trouble started at "Hangsterfer's," in an altercation between two students, who were making themselves unpleasant, and the proprietor of the place. The next night the students returned in force and demanded free drinks, and, upon their being refused, precipitated a general mêlée in which clubs were used and even knives were drawn. In the end, the unfortunate owners were chased to the outskirts of town by the uproarious students.
Bad feeling followed this episode and one night six uninvited students broke into a ball at "Binders's," where they surreptitiously helped themselves to the refreshments—presumably liquid. One of them was captured and only released after planks had been brought to batter down the brick walls of the building and a squad of medical students, armed with muskets, had arrived on the scene. Warrants were sworn out for the six the next day, but the officers were foiled by exchanges of clothing, by the culprits never eating in the same place twice, by their substituting for one another in recitations with the tacit approval, apparently, of their instructors, and by concealment in the Observatory, or, in the case of three of them, in a Regent's house. Finally two students were sent down to the scene of the battle to buy liquor, and with this as evidence, a sufficient case against the proprietor was secured to induce him to withdraw his complaints. This ended the "war."
Equally objectionable to the Ann Arbor citizens, though more excusable perhaps, was the standing protest of the students at the condition of the wooden sidewalks in the town, whose improvement apparently formed no part of the programme for civic betterment on the part of the good but conservative burghers. The students therefore constantly took matters in their own hands and about once in so often the offending rickety planks went up in flames. The class of '73 thus celebrated after its examinations in the spring of 1870. Their raid on the sidewalks had been unusually comprehensive and the city fathers became thoroughly aroused. Arrests were threatened, and serious trouble was certain, when Acting President Frieze settled the matter by paying the $225 damages out of his own slenderly lined pocket. This the offending class eventually made up to him by laying a tax upon its members, doubtless to the great disgust of the innocent ones, "who thought bad form had been displayed somewhere." This experience, however, by no means ended the practice, which continued down to the present day of flag and cement. The Chronicle once even took occasion to point out certain places where—