Our Own Ann Arbor

Aun Arbor, May 31. - Otitside of New York, Washington, Chicago, and half a dozen other of the largest American centers of population, no other city on the American continent is better kuown throughout the civilized world than the quiet, pretty little burg of Ann Arbor with its grand university and ouly 11,000 inhabitants. lts purely liteary atmosphere does i;ot draw dollar-chasers to the scholastic town. ïhe majority of the inhabitauts support themselves by ministering to the mental and physical wants of the 8,000 students who annually assemble at tliis brilliant center of learning whose beams lighten every state in the Union and frequently break across the broad oceans. THE UNIVEESITY OF .MICHIGAN. It was 1817 when Governor Lewis Cass and the three United States judges, who tlien ruled the territory of Michigan, deeided tliat it was time toorganizeastate university with the two towns and three sections oí United States government huid wliicli liad been set apart for Michigan schools. Judge A. B. Woodward, a friend and neighbor oí Thomas Jefferson, who was appoiuted by liim as a judge for Michigan, drew the flrst uniiversity charter which was adopted by the territorial government. It was very broad and very grand in its huiguage and terms. It provided for the "Catholepistemiad, or the University of Michigan," with "thirteen didaxiiin, or fessorshipp," and was to control and manage all inferior schools in the state. It was to be suppovted by uiteen per cent, of the territorial taxes collected and four licensed lotteries. Tlie lotteries were to be fairly conducted witli an advantage of fifteen per cent. in favor of the university. Under this law the Rev. John Montieth, the Presbyterian pastor of Detroit, and the Rev. Gabriel Richard, the Roman Catholic apostolical vicar of Michigan, were ap!ointed professors and opened a "colege" school in Detroit. In 1821 the name of the institution was changed to the [Jniversity of Michigan. Tlie school was maintained by private subscriptions nainly, and the trustees did little but ook after the land grant. ïhere is no ecord that the lottery clause was ever used. MOVED TO ANN ARBOK. When Michigan was admitted as a state tlie Rev. John D. Pierce, a gradúate of Brown University and a man of broad ideas and great executive ability, vas made superintendent of public intruction. He commeuced the work of giving Michigan a university in fact as veil as in name. lu 1837 the legislature established it at Aun Albor and money was provided to erect buildings.etc. In 841 Profs. Whiting and Williams opened the institution with six students. Fifty years ago tlie flrst class of five was ■raduated. ïwo years later the attendnce had increased to eighty-nine stuents. In 18.51 the regents decided to irovide a president, and rere very foruna.te ín securing Dr. H. P. Tappan, au ble, broad, euergetic instructor, whose vork gave a great impulse to the young ollege. He introduced two important eforms. It was decided to abolish the ormitory system and devote all availble funds to hiring instructora instead f building boarding liouses, and to ap)oint professors on their merita as intructors rather than parcel them out niong the various religious denoininaions, as had been the rule. President Tappan increased the attendance to 662, pened the medical and law departments and establisbed partial courses before he left in 1863. Dr. Haven, a prudent and successful president, followed for six years, when he left 1,255 students in attendance. For two years Prof. Frieze acted as president, until the appointment of President Angelí in 1871. I caunot better describe the career of this modern, practical and progressive president than to quote the following editorial whidh appeared in The Democrat a few montbs ago : ANGELÍ.. AND ELI.IOT. When Harvard University was opened 250 years ago, the inscription on the gateway announced that the niain object was to edúcate ministers. For 200 years after that time the colleges of the country were managed almost solely by clergymen. Piety and profound scholarship were the rnain requisites of a college president. It is only within the last thirty-five years that the policy of putting men of executive ability, men of affairs, at the heads of our great educational institutions has become popular. The two most conspicuous examples of this radical change of policy in the United States were the appointments of President Angelí to the University of Michigan and President ElHot to Harvard in 1871 and 1869. Neither was a clergyman, but both were men of great learning and wide experience as public educators, although only forty-two and thirty-five years old. They owed their promotion, however, more to their practical, progressive ideas than to other qualifications. Harvard was tlien at the head of eastern colleges and Ann Arbor led in the great and growing west. The appointment of these two young inen to the prominent positions named was a uew departure in the conduct of American colleges. Elliot had a college nearly 250 ye.ars old, richly endowed and liberally supported ; but antiquity entailed traditions which in their rieidity hiudered his work in the line of progressive reformation. AXGEI.L CAME WEST. Angelí, witli his finished eastern training, was transplaoted to the vigorous and virile west, where he found a comparatively young but Stal wart institution, where his broad advanced educational methods were adopted readily. A promising gradúate of Brown university, ripened by two years of European study and trained by eight years experience as a professor in Brown, he resigned in 18C0 to take the editorship of a leading Xew England daily newspaper for six years during the mind-stretching war period. Five years more as a Vermont college president admirably fltted him for liis newpost in the west where, witli limited financial support, he lias put Ana Arbor neck-and-neck witli old and powerful Harvard. But tliat is not liis groatest achievement. He has made Afin Arbor the distinctively American, democratie college of the United States, where neither wealth nor family count, but where student life is simple and inexpensive. In educational methods, Tearning of purpose goes hand in hand with Iearning of classics. AVornen sit in the recitation rooms on terms of perfect equality and the noise of the liammer and forge are heard on the grounds once sacred to the classic lecturer. President Angelí is, to-day unquestionably the most successful educator in America. His selection as president of the educational congress at the Columbian Exposition was a graceful recognition of that fact by the world's fair officials. REAL LEABNING. Dr. Angelí belongs to that tyjTr of univorsity exeeutives wlio believe that a modern college education should consist of two tliings - book learning and real learning. I give the former first place purely on the merit of seniority, for in this practical generation the latter is of at least equal importance. Fifty years ago college life was religiously divided between book study and sleep with i perponderance of study and gradantes entered the struggle of life very full of learning and generally very full of dyspepsia. Yet they got along very well in those quiet days of Puritanism when fanning teaching and preacmng, by the oldfashioned melancholy tuethods, veré about the only vocations open to graduates. But to-day four-fifths of our college men plunge into a business career, eitlier directly or through the legal profession, attracted by the vast and profitable material interests developed in this wonderful age, and the up to date uate to succeed must enter the ccmtest with a knowledge oL liuman nature and material affairs, which the old fasliioned college course failed to furnish. He must have a sound body and be prepared to acquit himself with credit in any place and under any circurastances, from making a supreme court argument to couducting a horse trade. You can no more build such aman inentally with books alone than you can build him physically with bones alone. FEWEB STL'DY IIOURS. The tendency of modern educational methods under our Angells, Elliots, Lows and Harpers is toward lewer honrs for study and more for football and other invigoratina; physical and mental accomplishments that go to inake up a complete man. At old Oxford the student working simply for his diploma is reqnired to devote bat tliree moiiths out of twelve to books and is given the other nine to fit himself for the practical affairs of life in this very practical age. In the University of London there are nojstudy hours or recitations. Students study under private tutors when and where they like and simply appear for exatnination for their diplomas. Outside of the profession of teaching, those graduates who are only average in classes and give much time to mixing with the world's people and the study of human nature succeed better in life than those who devote themselves exclusively to the study of books. With all the progress which has been made in college methods during the past half century there is yet room for great improvement and the present tendency is toward yet shorter hours, fewer days each weeks and fewer month seach year for routine study. The present college courses require too much seclusion from the world for too long a period at that important time of life when the character and habits of life are forming.