The Campus In '56

The University Calendar of 1866, published on the presses of the Argus, contained as its frontispiece a steel engraving of the campus of that year. The view was taken from the east side of the campus. In the foreground is a pasture field, and a straggling road where Washtenaw avenue now is but no houses are shown east of the campus. The cat-hole appears in oue corner of the pieture, but no buildings are seen betweenthat and Zion church in the distance. The campus contained five buildings. In the fore ground is tbe medical building, whicl looks exactly as it does now. Near i is the pillar which so long stood in the play-ground. The two dormitories are shown which at present constitute the two wings of the main building. Two professors' resid enees are also part of the campus. One of them is the present president's house. The other was afterwards altered into the dental college, and still later into the civil engineering building, The scope of the picture is large enough to take in a good part of the town. Woods and pasture fields then constituted what is now the best residence part of the city. The University at thistimeconsisted of but two departments, the literary and medcial. Of the twenty members of the f aculty only one, Dr. Corrydon L. Ford. is at present here. Such of the others whose ñames are familiar, have gone to their last resting place. Tappan, Williams, Sager, Brunnow, Douglass, Fasquelle, Dentón, Palmer, Haven, Winchell, and Frieze, all are gone. The steward and librarían at that time was Joseph H. Vanee, at present law librarían. It was emphatically a poor man's university in those days. The Calendar says: ïhe Oüly charges of the Institütion (from whatèverpart of the country the student may come) are an admission f èe of ten dollars, and for those who room in the buildings a sum ranging from five to seven dollars and nfty cents a year, for room rent and the services 'of a janitor. Fuel is also furnished to those rooming in the building, at the actual cost. Including board, washing and books, the necessary expense of a student for a year will not vary far from one huurt red dollars. Think of one hundred dollars paying a student's expenses for a whole year. If it had been for a month, it might have been more comprehensible to some of the students of today. At tbat time the students were required to atteDd prayers daily in the college chapel. The requirements for admission were much smaller then than now. Besides the four elementary branches, the requirements were Latin, Grammar, Arnold's First Latin Book, Csesar's Commentaries, Cicero's Oration, thirty lessons in Prose Composition, one book of Virgil's JEneid, Greek Grammar. the GreekEeaderand Ancient Geography. Tbat was all required for the classical course, but one could enter the scientific course by passing an examination in Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic and Algebra through equations of the first degree. The total number of students was 390, of whom 167 were in the medical department. Michigan sent 183; Xew York, 54; Indiana, 47; Ohio, 31; and so on down the list, the foreign countries represented being England, with 2 students; Sandwich Islands, 2, and Canada, 13.