The University In 1859

A printing office ia a receptad for state secreta. It is also a storehouse of historical material. ín this office, the other day, from a dusty heap of the archives of the past, there carne to the Burface a small green-tinted pamphlet, purporting to be "A Catalogue of the Officers and Students for 1859- State University of Michigan." On the cover was the seal of the state. But sixtythree pages were required to give all necessary informationto the prospectivo student, whereas the calendar of the present year contains 255. There were two deoartinents, the literary and the medical, and their combined faculties numbered only twenty-six men. Among these, however, were several who have helped materially n bringing he U. of M. to its place in the front rank of American Univeraitiee; euch, for example, as Chancellor ïappan, Dr. Williams ("Old Pap" Williams, as he was called,) James R. Boite, Alonzo B. Palmer, Alexander Winchell, Corydon L. Ford, Henry S. Frieze, Andrew ). White, DeVolson Wood, Franz ïrunnow and the brilliant James C. Watson, who was then "assistant observer." Here, also, were Drs. Sager, Douglass, Gunn, and Zina Pitcher, and Prof. Louis Fasquelle. Joseph H. Vanee, now librarían of the law department, was then steward of the Univer ity. There were 430 students in the University, two-thirdsof whom were in the department of "Science, Literature and he Arts." The lamented Eliüha Jones was then a senior in the literary department as were alBO Robert E. Frazer and T. A. McGraw, both of Detroiti and Fayette Hurd, of this city. Henry B. Northrop, of Flint, was a junior. Among the sophomores were Charles Kendall Adams, now president of Cornell üniversity, Martin Luther D'Ooge, our honored dean and professor of Greek (who, by the way, was taking the cientific course,) and Edward H. Buter, Henry M. Duffleld, Hoyt Post, and Henry M. Utley, all of whom have attained distinction in Detroit. Edwin F. Uhl, of Ypsilanti, was a freshman. n the list of resident graduates is the name of Cleveland Abbe, now a regular contributor to the "American Meteorological Journal" published at this office. If a student was conditioned, he sufëred the disgrace of having it so stated n the catalogue. The larger part of he freshman claBS appears to have been n this unfortunate plight. The catalogue explains that "the sysem of Public Insturction adopted hy he State of Michigan and its Primary and Normal schools, and in the eneral organization of the University, conforms to the Prussian system in hose liberal and benign points whicb ïave made this system to be regarded as the most perfect in the world." The undergraduate department corresonded to the Germán gymnasia. In he classical course, forexamDle, Latin and Greek were required studie% in every one of the four years, elective studies being permitted, however, in toth the first and second semesters of he senior year. There were only two courses, the classical and the ecientific. n the latter, a more extended range of mathematics and the natural sciences, together with English literature, was substituted for the Greek and Latin lanuages. But plans for a higher educa,ion were being made; "for," the catáogue goes on to say, "an institution cannotdeservethenameof a Universiiy which does not aim, in all the materiel of learning.in the professorships which it establishes, and in the whole scope of its proviaions, to make it possible for every student to study what he pleaset.' and to any extent he pleasef." One anticipated development has not yet taken place - there hav&been no theological schools estabüshed about the University.