Michigan has always taken an especial pride in the fact that, although a state university, her student body has been recruited almost as much from the rest of the country as from Michigan; while there has always been a not inconsiderable proportion of students from foreign countries. This national enrolment has had a broadening and stimulating effect upon the student body and has given the University a powerful influence throughout the country. Her graduates are to be found in every state in the Union, though they are probably proportionately stronger in the states west of the Mississippi, whose development came just in time to attract the enterprising and vigorous youth who had his future to make and gladly seized the opportunity to grow up with the new country. Michigan, with her low tuition charges, even for non-residents, and her equally moderate cost of living, has been also pre-eminently a college for students of limited means. Thus, while there are many men of wealth among her alumni, they are almost all men who have made their own way, and have a position in their communities corresponding to their energy and proved ability.
For some years the attendance from Michigan, though it is somewhat greater now, has averaged 55 percent. This is unusually significant when the great extent of the State is considered, particularly since most of the students from the Northern Peninsula usually pass through three other states to reach Ann Arbor. Not less worthy of note is the fact that only about 39 percent of the graduates of the University live within the State, proof positive that Michigan, in sending her students abroad, is performing a great service for the country. The percentages of alumni in other states is also not without interest, for while the neighboring states of Illinois and Ohio claim about 8 percent and Indiana 3.7 percent, New York has 6 percent of Michigan's graduates, while Pennsylvania has 3.5 percent, and California 3.2 percent. About 2.5 percent of Michigan's former students, or 1,093, live in foreign countries. Of these 318 are in Canada, 126 in China, 62 in Great Britain, 61 in South America, 51 in Africa, and 46 in Japan. Of the United States dependencies, 66 are in Porto Rico, 54 in the Philippines, and 17 in Alaska. These figures might easily be increased were the addresses of all alumni found, as there are, no doubt, a large number of "unknowns" in foreign countries. Of the total number of graduates and foreign students for whom the University has addresses, 36,492 are men and 7,291 are women.
This great body of alumni is in itself a powerful asset for the University; but the active interest and spirit of co-operation of the individual alumnus ordinarily needs a certain stimulus. This is supplied through the organization of the graduates into a general Alumni Association, as well as into local associations in most of the larger cities, and also through the organization of the various classes. This general scheme is followed in almost every American university, and forms one of the most significant of present-day developments. For the most part it is a comparatively recent evolution. Though the graduates of the earlier American colleges had a certain influence on the policies and growth of their institutions, it is only within the last twenty-five years that these associations have become a factor of recognized importance in every university. In fact this development is so recent that its significance is not sufficiently realized, least of all perhaps by the alumni themselves; though the college president is apt to be very alive to the importance of the alumni in university affairs.
The desire to perpetuate college friendships and to revive memories of college days was undoubtedly the underlying motive which first brought the former students together in these organizations; and not a few associations have progressed no farther in their activities. This is as true among Michigan alumni clubs as elsewhere. But as university officers came to recognize other possibilities in these associations, efforts were made to secure their co-operation in many matters and especially financial assistance, in the establishment of funds for various purposes, the erection of new buildings and providing for certain types of equipment which might not properly come from the ordinary channels of college and university income. The Michigan Union, Hill Auditorium, the women's dormitories, and the Clements Library of Americana perhaps best illustrate this type of alumni support.
While in most cases the impetus toward this active co-operation and support on the part of the alumni came from the institution, in recent years the alumni have tended more and more to organize, not as an adjunct of the university administration, but as a body designed to formulate independent alumni opinion, and to make intelligent graduate sentiment really effective for the good of the institution. With this new phase of alumni activity came new elements—particularly the alumni secretary, maintained by the graduate body, the alumni journal, and the alumni council.
This organization of college graduates is distinctly an American institution. There is little to correspond in Continental universities, where they do not even have a real equivalent to our word "alumni." In Great Britain, the graduates of the larger institutions have some voice in the policies of their universities and, in the case of the Scottish universities, they elect representatives on the governing body, as well as the chancellor and a representative in Parliament. But the lists of alumni are kept up only for what are practically political purposes, and such developments as local alumni clubs, or class reunions, are unknown; while there is ordinarily small effort made to secure financial support.
Alumni co-operation has progressed so rapidly within the last quarter-century,—the period covering the life of the Association at Michigan under its present form,—that we are apt to forget how recent is this movement in American universities. To glance through the average college or university history one would imagine these associations sprang full-armed, with no preliminary throes of organization. Suddenly we find the alumni asserting their desires in some important matter and thenceforth their voice has a recognized place in university councils. It is quite obvious that the significance of this movement among college graduates was not recognized for a long time. Everywhere the graduates were slow in finding themselves; and it is safe to say that an efficient alumni sentiment was almost unknown until within the last fifty years. But the seeds had been sown. Though Yale began her remarkable organization by classes as far back as 1792, and others may have followed her example, records of any further efforts in this direction are difficult to find until many years later.
The first attempt at a general alumni organization seems to have been a meeting of the alumni at Williams College at Commencement time, in 1821, to organize a Society of Alumni. The purpose of the proposed association was set forth in the following words:
The meeting is notified at the request of a number of gentlemen, educated at this institution, who are desirous that the true state of the college be known to the alumni, and that the influence and patronage of those it has educated may be united for its support, protection, and improvement.
This does not seem an unsatisfactory definition of the fundamental object of an alumni body of the present day. Seventeen years later a Society of Alumni was organized at the University of Virginia, where, with perhaps a characteristic Southern emphasis on the social side of human relationships, the committee was instructed,—