The Reminiscences Of James Burrill Angell/ChapterX
X
THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
N 1869, to my surprise I was invited to visit the University of Michigan and decide whether I would accept the presidency of the institution which Dr. Haven had resigned. My wife accompanied me, and we spent two or three days at Ann Arbor. We were much impressed with the vigour and the promise of the University. But on returning to Burlington, I found that the men who had rallied generously to the support of the college would be sorely disappointed if I left them then. I decided that it was my duty to decline the invitation to Michigan. So I devoted myself with all my energy to the continuance of my work in Vermont. In 1871, the invitation, to Michigan was renewed with much earnestness. I felt that I had discharged my duty to my Vermont friends and that the college could move on fairly without me. I had some hesitation about undertaking so large a responsibility as that at Michigan. One day when I mentioned this to a friend who had very large business interests, he said, "I have found if you have a long lever it is as easy to raise a large load as to lift a small weight with a short lever."
After careful consideration I decided to accept the invitation to Michigan. In compliance with the request of the Regents of the University, I attended the Commencement at Ann Arbor on June 28, 1871, and delivered my Inaugural. I then returned to Burlington and finished the academic year which terminated on August 3. I removed to Ann Arbor with my family early in September.
I found that largely under the influence of John D. Pierce, Superintendent of Public Instruction at the time of its organization, of Isaac E. Crary, and of Henry P. Tappan, its first President, the University had been inspired to a considerable extent by German ideals of education and was shaped under broader and more generous views of university life than most of the eastern colleges. Mr. Pierce, a graduate of Brown University in the class of 1822, was settled as a Presbyterian Home Missionary in Marshall. Mr. Isaac E. Crary, a graduate of Trinity College, Hartford, was a lawyer in the same town. Both were much interested in public education. Mr. Pierce was appointed the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the first officer with that title in the United States. Mr. Crary was a member of the Convention that framed the State Constitution of 1835, and as Chairman of the Committee on Education drafted the Article on Education in the Constitution. Cousin's famous Report on Public Instruction in Prussia had fallen into the hands of Mr. Pierce and formed the subject of much discussion between him and his neighbour, Mr. Crary. Mr. Pierce told me that he could take me in a grove in Marshall to the very log on which they often sat and conferred together on this remarkable book, which gave them the idea of a state system of schools with a university at its head. That idea gave shape to the constitutional Article on Education and to the legislation afterwards enacted in accordance with it. When Dr. Tappan was made President in 1852, he brought from Germany, where he had studied, ideals quite in harmony with those which Pierce and Crary had cherished at the outset, and with his vigorous mind he left a deep impression on the life and spirit of the University. The Institution had in its Faculties at the time of my arrival men of marked ability. I will name some of the more prominent of the professors who are no longer living.
Dr. Henry S. Frieze, Professor of Latin, for the two years prior to my coming Acting President, was a man of rare qualities, a passionate lover of art and of music, a scholar of large and varied attainments and of the finest literary taste, an inspiring teacher and a most winsome spirit. His influence on students and on his colleagues, in fostering the love of classical learning and in the diffusion of high and broad university ideals through all the West, causes his memory to be cherished with peculiar respect and affection.
Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Cocker, Professor of Philosophy, had had a romantic life. A Methodist circuit preacher in Yorkshire in early life, he lived for years among the miners in Australia. On his voyage from that country he was wrecked on an island in the Pacific, inhabited partly by savages. After a narrow escape with his family he arrived in this State in utter destitution. Assigned to the care of a small country church, his talent soon made him known and secured his call to important churches, and finally to the chair in the University. His opportunities for gaining an education had been slender, but by his marked ability and his great industry he had overcome in large degree the limitations of his earlier years, though he never ceased to lament them. Both as a preacher and a teacher he had a singular charm of voice and manner which, added to his clearness and simplicity in discussions of the problems of philosophy, made his instructions a delight to his pupils. He is remembered by them with abiding affection and gratitude.
Edward Olney, Professor of Mathematics, also had a unique history. He was never in school but a few weeks. Of mathematics he seemed to have from childhood an intuitive comprehension. His geometry he learned while following the plough. He drew the figures with chalk on the plough beam and mastered the demonstrations while travelling in the furrow. Though probably his attainments did not at last reach much beyond the range of the higher instruction in the undergraduate course, he had a most unusual gift as a teacher. He not only made his instruction simple and clear, but what is not common in colleges, he made the study of mathematics a favourite study of the great body of students. He had a manly frankness and honesty of character which often gave to his expressions the air of bluntness, but commanded the highest respect of his pupils and cultivated in them a spirit of manliness and honesty kindred to his own. He was a man of most earnest religious nature and was a power for righteousness both in college and in the community.
Charles Kendall Adams was Professor of History. He had acquired his enthusiasm for historical study under Andrew D. White, when he filled the Chair of History in this University. Mr. Adams had recently returned from study in Germany where he had become familiar with the Seminar method, in introducing which he afterwards was the pioneer in American universities. Mr. Adams was even then greatly interested in university problems and was carefully studying all experiments in university administration, both in America and Europe. He subsequently made good use of his knowledge of universities as President of Cornell University and of the University of Wisconsin.
Moses Coit Tyler was Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature. He was already master of that attractive style which lent such a charm to everything that he wrote and inspired his classes with a love for the best in literature and for purity and vivacity in their essays and speeches. In his private study he was already showing that deep interest in American History and the early American authors which gave shape and colour to his later works. He had a fine sense of humour which enlivened his instruction and made him a most agreeable companion.
Alexander Winchell, like Professors of Science in most American colleges at that time, was giving elementary instruction in Geology, Zoology, and Botany, but by his powerful imagination and brilliant eloquence was widely known as one of the most successful popular lecturers on science. He was afterwards President of the Syracuse University.
James C. Watson, Professor of Astronomy, was a man whose mathematical intuitions were near to genius. The son of an Irish carpenter, he was one of the finest products of the Michigan System of Public Education, for he received his entire training in the public schools of Ann Arbor and in the University. While he was yet a student he made a telescope and with it discovered a comet. While still a young man he discovered asteroids and wrote a text book on Astronomy, which gave him an enviable reputation among astronomers here and in Europe. His college teachers said that as a student he was almost as apt in languages as in mathematics, and if he had cultivated them as a profession, might have won distinction in that field. He had unlimited capacity for work. It seemed as though he could observe all night and then study all day. In teaching he had none of the methods of the drill master. But his lecture or his talk was so stimulating that one could not but learn and love to learn by listening. I have heard his pupils say that sometimes while discussing an intricate problem he would have an entirely new demonstration suddenly flash upon his mind as by inspiration and then and there he would write it out upon the blackboard.
George S. Morris, a man of the widest reading, was the Professor of Modern Languages. He had already translated Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. He afterwards welcomed the opportunity to give his whole time to teaching philosophy here and in the Johns Hopkins University, leaving in both institutions a profound impression upon his classes.
Edward L. Walter was then giving instruction in Latin. Later he had charge of the work in German and in the Romance Languages. He was a master alike of ancient and modern literatures. Gifted with remarkable powers of acquisition, he was one of the most successful of teachers. We were robbed of him while in the prime of his strength by the sinking of the steamship Bourgogne.
M. L. D'Ooge, Professor of Greek, was absent in Europe, but the department was in the hands of Elisha Jones and Albert H. Pattengill, than whom better classroom teachers of the classics were to be found in no American college.
In the Medical Department, which was crowded with over five hundred students, were Professor Corydon L. Ford, doubtless the best lecturer in the country on anatomy, as it was then taught; Dr. Sager, a man of large scientific attainments for his time; Dr. Palmer, so long the efficient Dean; Dr. Prescott, the distinguished chemist, and a group of brilliant younger men.
In the Law Department were the three great teachers, who had guided its fortunes from its foundation, Thomas M. Cooley, James V. Campbell, and Charles I. Walker. Never was a law school so fortunate as this was in beginning its work and continuing it for so many years under such gifted instructors. Charles A. Kent, a worthy coadjutor, had recently joined them. It was not strange that the school attracted students from all parts of the land.
Professors Cooley and Campbell were on the Supreme Bench of the State. The Court, by the wisdom of its decisions, had already won the highest respect of the legal profession throughout the country. Judge Cooley had also won renown by his great work on Constitutional Limitations. He seemed to have an intuitive perception of legal relations. He was a man of indefatigable industry. Beyond all men I have known, he possessed the power of writing rapidly and with such accuracy that no reader could misunderstand his meaning.
Judge Campbell was a scholarly man of wide reading, and of a graceful style in writing or speaking. He was most familiar with the early history of the State and especially with the customs and traditions of the French population of Detroit and the vicinity. His narrations of the details of their life were as fascinating as those of the best French raconteurs. His lectures on law were diffuse, but so charming in manner, like his conversation, that they held the undivided attention of his students.
Professor Walker was so lucid and methodical in his instruction that his classes always testified to the great benefit they received from him.
It will be seen that it was rather remarkable that a University so young as this should have gathered such a company of teachers. It was indeed a stimulating body for me to be associated with in my arduous and responsible duties.
On my arrival I was sadly disappointed to find that my former teacher and old friend, Dr. Frieze, at whose suggestion I had been chosen President, had gone to Europe for a prolonged visit. I had relied on him to give me full information about the details of the Institution and to assist me with his wise counsels. But I received a warm welcome from the Faculties and the students. During the first few weeks, I attended classes to observe the methods and the quality of the teaching. I found the instruction was for the most part excel-lent. In both the colleges with which I had been connected, we had a marking system for recording the quality of the students' recitations. Here I found none. I was naturally interested to observe whether without such a system students could be held to a proper standard of work. When, after six weeks' attendance on classes, I heard only two students say "not prepared," I was forced to the conclusion that as good results were secured without as with a marking system. Prolonged observation in later years has confirmed that belief, although probably higher technical excellence in recitation is attained by a few who are studying for class rank. But the appeal to a college student to work for the sake of learning is an appeal of a noble sort, and if heartily responded to, yields a result of a higher order than an appeal to ambition for class rank.
I was early impressed with the great advantages both to teachers and students of having the three departments: the Collegiate, known here as the Literary, and the Medical and the Law Departments all upon the same ground. It gave a certain breadth and catholicity to the views of all. The professors, organized as a Senate, met socially at stated intervals to listen to papers and discuss them, and so to consider subjects from their different angles. As there were no dormitories, the students of the different departments were thrown together in their temporary homes and were led to see that there were things worth knowing outside of their own special lines of work.
I was also soon struck with the good results of the plan adopted the year before my arrival of bringing the High Schools into closer relations with the University, by receiving on diploma the graduates of schools which had been approved by the Literary Faculty after inspection of them. This innovation on the practice of American colleges was due to the fertile mind of Dr. Frieze, who took the idea from the usage of the German Universities in receiving the graduates of the Gymnasia without examination of the students. In adapting the plan to our needs, the Faculty wisely made provision for a visit to the schools by some University Professors. I made many of these visits. The advantages both to the schools and the University were soon obvious. The methods of the school visited and the fitness of the teachers for their work were made known to the visitors. The opportunity for suggesting improvements was furnished. Interviews with scholars were held. Frequently the visit was made the occasion for a public address on education to the citizens. Conferences were had with the school board. An opinion could be formed concerning the willingness or unwillingness of the town to give the needed support to the school, for the maintenance of the proper standard of school work. An impulse was given to the public to take a new interest in the school which the University thought worthy of a visit. Above all, an intimate and friendly relation between the school and the town on the one hand and the University on the other was established. The University was also enabled to see what was possible to the High School and was guarded against the danger of asking too much of the students as the condition of admission.
It was thought by some that the officers of the school would not be courageous or careful in maintaining high requirements for the graduation of students who were to go to the University. It proved that with few exceptions they were both courageous and careful and that sometimes they declined to recommend students to us who might have entered on examination by us. They had a better opportunity to know the qualifications of students by observing their whole school course than we had in a single examination, in which the pupil by diffidence or accident, might not do himself justice. After a few years of experimentation, we found that judging by the first year of college work the students received on certificate made a better showing than those received on examination. Perhaps in nothing has the University been more useful to the educational system of the State than in the cultivation of the friendly relation with the schools by the introduction of the diploma system of admission of students. Our example in establishing it has been generally followed in the West, and to some extent in the East, though not always with our precautions in making visits.
The year before I came, the doors of every department of the University had, under the pressure of public opinion in the State, been thrown open to women. Most of the professors and of the students would have preferred that they should not be admitted. On my arrival the subject of their admission was still under discussion. The objections raised were, first, that women could not master the difficult studies of college, and,. secondly, that the health of women would suffer under the strenuousness of college life. Experience soon showed that neither objection was well founded. As it required some courage for women to come at first, fortunately those who did present themselves were generally earnest, self-reliant, scholarly persons. By their discretion and their scholarship, they won the respect of teachers and fellow students and made the path easy for those who came after them. A good number of them, after graduation, obtained commanding positions in the Faculties of Women's Colleges, which were springing up in the East, and won honour for themselves and the University.
By way of illustration I may speak of our relation to Wellesley College. When Mr. Durant, the founder of that Institution, was making up his first Faculty, he encountered difficulty in finding women with suitable training for filling professorships, because there were so few colleges where women could receive the proper training. Naturally, he wrote to me to inquire whether we had been graduating such women as he needed. I recommended a graduate of the Class of 1874 for his Chair of History. She proved so satisfactory that he then wrote asking me to recommend thereafter any woman whom I should deem competent. That greatly delighted me, and I sent him one after another whom he promptly appointed. Among them finally was Alice Freeman who subsequently was appointed President and made so distinguished a career.
The collegiate education of women has proved of great value to the schools. Formerly they could not easily find opportunities for training which fitted them for the best work in the high schools. If by any means they had obtained it, they did not feel sure of it. They lacked the confidence which is essential to the success of a teacher. But when they had graduated in the same classes with the most scholarly men who were teaching, both they and the school boards had confidence in their training. The schools, in which a majority of the teachers have always been women, took on new vigour and life.
The fear that the joint education of the sexes would lead to serious embarrassments proved so unfounded that it is found almost without exception in the Colleges and Universities of the West. It cannot be doubted that the example of this University conduced largely to this result, and, judging by our correspondence, was helpful in opening the doors of some European Universities to women.
Our friends in the East have always expressed surprise that most of the colleges and the universities in the West have for the last thirty years educated the sexes together. They fail to see that co-education in those institutions was the natural development of the plan followed in the high schools of the West. Whereas in the high schools of the East the sexes were educated separately, in the West they were, as a rule, educated together. Having thus been instructed together up to the very door of the college, it was no violent or unnatural transition for them to enter the college together. As in fact no serious objections to their joint education have presented themselves, the usage bids fair to be continued at least in the West.
As I have always been fond of teaching and have thought it was well for the President of a College or University to teach, I soon availed myself of the opportunity which presented itself to give some instruction in International Law and in Political Economy. I continued to do so until I went to China in 1880. On my return I resumed the work in International Law and continued it till I resigned the Presidency.
In order to keep in close touch with students, especially those of the Literary (Collegiate) Department, for several years I discharged the duties now assigned to a Dean. I registered all new comers; I granted (or refused) excuses for absence. I took the initiative in examining all cases for discipline. The result was that I knew every student and could call him by name up to the time of my departure for China in 1880. Of course it was easy for me to do this in Vermont. But it was more difficult when I had to do with eight hundred students. The influence and the pleasure it gave me was a great reward for the effort required. I wonder that the President even of a great University willingly foregoes the satisfaction which comes from such an intimate relation with even a portion of his students as comes from giving instruction in some subject.
In 1873, largely through the influence of Mr. Claudius B. Grant, at that time a Regent of the University and a Member of the Legislature, we persuaded the Legislature to give us the proceeds of a twentieth-mill tax. This established a m most useful precedent. In later years our twentieth-mill tax was raised first to one-eighth, then to one-quarter, and then to three-eighths of a mill. This proved to be a far better plan than the voting of special appropriations for a number of objects. It spared the legislative committees and the whole Legislature the trouble of scrutinizing a large number of specific requests. It also enabled the University authorities to use the funds granted them more effectively and more economically. For frequently it happened that before the term of two years for which the appropriations were made had elapsed, it became apparent that the money granted for some particular object could be more wisely devoted to some other purpose. Furthermore it is quite essential to wise administration that the authorities of a University should be able to lay plans for some years ahead; and resting on a tax bill which experience shows is not likely to be repealed, they can adopt wise policies for the future, when they might not be able to do so if they had to depend on specific appropriations to be renewed at every session of the Legislature.
I had occasion to visit the Legislature at several sessions to make known to our Committees, and sometimes to the whole body, our needs, and several times the whole Legislature visited the University. I wish to bear witness to the courtesy with which I was always received at Lansing, and the hearty interest in the Institution which the members of the Legislature always evinced on their visits to us.
Eastern critics of the system of State support of universities have often assumed that the institutions would become embarrassed by being entangled in the controversies of party politics. It can be affirmed that such has never been the case in the support or control of this University. Different parties have been in control in this State during the life of the Institution. But we have fared equally well, whichever party was in power, and no political controversy in the Legislature or in the State at large has ever embarrassed us.
The example of our Legislature in passing a tax bill, providing in a lump for the needs of the University, has been followed by several states to the great benefit of their Universities.
In 1875, the Legislature made appropriations for the establishment of the Homeopathic Medical School, the College of Dental Surgery, the School of Mines and a Professorship of Architecture. These new departments of work were at once organized. Unhappily in 1877 the Legislature did not continue the appropriations for the School of Mines and the teaching of Architecture and we were obliged to drop the work. This illustrates the difficulty of ad-ministering a University which depends on biennial appropriations.
In 1879, under the pressure of urgent requests which I had made for some years, the Regents established the Chair of the Art and Science of Teaching, to aid in preparing our graduates to teach in our schools or to superintend schools. Our action was severely criticized for a time by some college men who maintained that teaching could not be taught through formal instruction. But only a few years elapsed before nearly every university of standing, including those which had criticized us most severely, appointed Professors of Education or Pedagogy. As a consequence, so-called Schools of Education with large equipment have grown up in some of these institutions.
In the late seventies a large freedom in the election of studies in the Literary Department was granted; the course of study in the Medical Department was extended from two years of six months to two years of nine months, and the School of Pharmacy was organized. During the decade from 1870 to 1880, the progress of the University in all departments had been most satisfactory.
This was especially gratifying because from 1875 to 1879 an unpleasant controversy was raging which threatened havoc to the Institution. The accounts of the Chemical Laboratory showed a deficit for which the Director of the Laboratory or an Assistant Professor was apparently responsible. If the decision of the question of responsibility had been left to the Regents alone, it would probably have been soon settled. But for reasons which need not be discussed here, persons outside of the University became interested and a bitter contest ensued, involving the Legislature, the Courts and the Public. It is obvious now that the difficulty was largely due at the outset to the defects in the system of bookkeeping in the Laboratory. It was adequate in the days when the number of students was small, but was not well suited to meet our wants when the classes had become very large. After the controversy was ended, it gave way to a better system. It is a good proof of the strong hold the University has on the respect and affections of the people that the fierce and prolonged contest left it unharmed.
During the last thirty years there has been a constant and steady movement for-ward in the enlargement and enrichment of the work in all the departments. The Engineering which was carried on as a part of the Literary Department has been developed into a separate Department, comprising Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, and Marine Engineering, in close relation with Architecture and having nearly three hundred more students than were found in the entire University when I came here. The introduction of the elective system into the Literary Department added greatly to the variety of its work. Meantime a large graduate school and a summer school of more than a thousand students have grown up. The course required for graduating has been extended in the Law School and the Dental School to three years and in the Medical School to four years of nine months each. The requirements for admission to the professional schools have been materially raised. Excellent hospitals for the use of the medical schools have been constructed and upon the highly advantageous plan of being entirely under the direction of the Medical Faculties. This allows students access to the patients with a freedom quite impossible in hospitals otherwise conducted. The idea of establishing hospitals on this basis originated here, and is now being adopted wherever practicable by medical schools.
It is not intended to give here a history of the University. But a few statistics may properly be given. There were three Departments in 1871; there are now seven. The members of the Faculties then numbered 35; now they are about 400. The students then numbered 1110; the last Calendar (1910-11) registered 5383. The libraries then contained 25,000 volumes; now they have 260,000. The income was then $104,000; now it is $1,170,000. The number of graduates from 1871 to 1909 is about 20,000, and the number of non-graduates approximately 17,000. They are found in every state and territory of the Union and on every continent of the globe.
My wife and I have received great pleasure in our home from the visits of distinguished men and women who have come to address the University. It seems proper to give reminiscences of some of these visits.
Matthew Arnold, in his last visit to America, accompanied by his wife and daughter, was our guest. It may be remembered that, when lecturing in the Eastern cities, he was criticized and even ridiculed for his manner of delivery. Being near-sighted, he had a reading-stand as tall as he was, and to his annoyance his manner in darting his head close to it at each sentence was compared to a bird pecking at his food. This fact led him, it was said, to take some lessons in elocution from a competent teacher. His appearance on our stage was one of the first after this instruction. He was received by our audience with great favour, and his success was so marked that he spoke to me with much satisfaction of his reception.
A business manager accompanied him on this Western tour. It was the custom of the railways in those days to give special rates to theatrical companies. Mr. Arnold told me with great glee that when the conductor of the train took the tickets from the manager, he exclaimed, "Oh! This is the Arnold troupe, is it?" He continued during his visit to address his wife and daughter as the Arnold troupe.
Having passed by Seneca Lake on his journey, he was apparently much interested in the fact that the lake bore the name of the great Roman philosopher. He was rather disappointed when I informed him that the lake took its name from the Seneca tribe of Indians and that the word Seneca is in that case of Indian origin.
Miss Edith Arnold, Mr. Arnold's niece, was my guest when she came to deliver a lecture on the Religious Novel. It was an address of high literary merit. She told me that a short time before his death Mr. Gladstone had a prolonged interview with her sister, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, in which he discussed at length with the author the religious doctrines set forth in the novel "Robert Elsmere." As Miss Arnold is a pronounced advocate of woman suffrage and Mrs. Ward is a leader on the other side, I asked her how they got on together in their consideration of that subject. "Oh," she said, "our difference does not in the least disturb our relations. For of course my sister does not under-stand the subject at all."
Dr. J. M. L. Curry, who was prominent on the Southern side in our Civil War and subsequently our Minister to Spain and Agent of the Peabody Education Fund for the aid of schools in the South, gave a very valuable Commencement Address for us. He and I sat up till midnight conversing on the race problems in the South. He manifested the most generous spirit towards the blacks. At last, after pacing the floor, he exclaimed with great fervour, striking the table with his hand, "We cannot see the whole of the future. But one thing we can know. It must be eternally right to educate the negro and to Christianize the negro." It is fortunate that so many Southerners have come to agree with him.
Among the many interesting stories he told of his experiences in travelling through the South, especially among the "poor whites," as they are called, of the mountain region between Virginia and Kentucky,
I venture to repeat this. In a very humble dwelling he noticed that the mother called her daughter who was waiting on the table "Ralgy." The name was so new to him that before he left he asked the mother where she found that name. In reply the woman brought an empty bottle which had contained patent medicine. She pointed to the label which announced that the medicine would cure neuralgia and other ailments. She thought neuralgia was a new and striking word, and so she had named the child "neuralgia," which in familiar address they had shortened to "Ralgy."
Henry M. Stanley, the African traveller, and his wife were most entertaining guests on the occasion of his visit here to lecture.
Our Law students have for many years celebrated Washington's birthday by securing an address from some eminent man. The February before Mr. Cleveland's second election to the Presidency, he was the orator of the day. I invited a number of the prominent citizens of both political parties to meet him at my house at luncheon. An immense throng from various parts of the State came to hear his address, which was very felicitous. In the evening a public reception was held by him in the city, and on the next evening another was held in Detroit. The result was that the Democratic party in Michigan raised with much spirit the cry for his nomination to the Presidency. And they have always boasted that the impulse thus given led to his nomination and election.
However that may be, his visit to Ann Arbor certainly had one result of some con-sequence. Years after I asked him how it happened that he chose for his permanent residence Princeton rather than New York. He replied, "When I visited Ann Arbor, you remember that you drove with me through several of the streets of your city. And when I saw so many modest and pleasant homes, I said to myself it is in a college town with its simple life that I will try to find a home when I am through with public life. I never lost sight of that thought. Hence my decision to live in Princeton rather than in New York."
One of my more recent visitors was the British Ambassador James Bryce, whose versatility was admirably displayed. In the evening he gave a most scholarly address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society on Culture. The next noon he addressed the Detroit Chamber of Commerce on Municipal Government, in which his great familiarity with municipal experiments and discussions, both European and American, appeared; in the evening he addressed the University Club in Detroit on the changes in American college and university life since his first visit to our country. In this address he showed a knowledge of our academic life that could not be surpassed by any of our college presidents. All these addresses were given without a scrap of paper before him. One was reminded of the offer ascribed to Mr. Carnegie to bet a million dollars that Mr. Bryce knows more than any other man in the world.
Many other eminent visitors might be named, among them Chinese and Japanese ambassadors, foreign missionaries, University Presidents, Mr. Justice Miller and Mr. Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme Court, Secretary Bayard, Mr. Roosevelt, when Governor of New York, Sir Frederick Pollock, and Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun. These names may suffice to illustrate how stimulating the life of a University and especially the life in the President's home are made by the guests who come to lend inspiration to the Institution.
In considering the relation of the University to the State, I have always had two great ends in view.
First: I have endeavoured to induce every citizen to regard himself as a stockholder in the Institution, who had a real interest in helping make it of the greatest service to his children and those of his neighbours.
Secondly : I have sought to make all the schools and teachers in the State understand that they and the University are parts of one united system and that therefore the young pupil in the most secluded school house in the State should be encouraged to see that the path was open from his home up to and through the University.
The prosperity and usefulness of the University are due to the fact that these objects have been in a fair degree accomplished.
Although some State Universities were founded before ours, owing to the fact that the University of Michigan at an earlier date than any of the others secured a very large attendance in all three of its departments, its influence in the development of all the rest has been very great. No small portion of my correspondence has been devoted to explaining to other universities our methods and the reasons of our comparative success. I have been called to expound the principles on which Michigan has proceeded in building up its University to most of the States which have established their Universities.
Far be it from me to claim undue credit for the success of the Institution. Rather do I desire to speak of it with gratitude that I have been permitted to be so long associated with it in its days of prosperity. It has been a singular good fortune to be allowed to work with so many excellent men in the Board of Regents and in the Faculties and to come in touch with so many students who have gone forth to careers of usefulness in all parts of the world.
The life of the President of a college or university is often spoken of as a hard and trying life. A laborious life with its anxieties it is. But I have found it a happy life. The satisfactions it has brought to me are quite beyond my deserts. The recognition of the value of my services which has come to me in these recent days from regents, colleagues, graduates, and undergraduates. humbles me while it gratifies me.
And one acknowledgment I desire above all to make. If I have had any success in my career, especially in the administration of the two universities, it has been largely due to the social tact and wise and untiring cooperation of my dear wife.
In January, 1905, though not conscious that I had lost my physical or mental ability to discharge satisfactorily the duties of my office I tendered to the Regents my resignation, because I had observed that some men on reaching my age were not aware of infirmities which in the opinion of others disqualified them for continuing to hold responsible positions. The Board in very courteous terms declined to accept it.
But in February, 1909, having reached the age of fourscore, I renewed my request to be released under the conviction that notwithstanding the good health which had been granted to me, it was better for the University to call some younger man to my place. They kindly acceded to my request, asking me to accept the title of President Emeritus, to receive a generous salary, and to retain my residence in the President's house. I cannot be too grateful for what they have done to cheer my pathway through the remaining years of my life. I can thus hope to spend the days allotted to me near to them, to my beloved colleagues in the Faculties, and to the great company of students whose presence has long been, and still is, one of my great delights.