The first steps toward the establishment
of a Faculty of Medicine and Surgery were taken in
1847. The Medical Building was not completed,
however, until two years later, and the formal opening
of the new Department did not take place until October
1, 1850. On this occasion Abram Sager, the first
President, or Dean of the Faculty, as we should now
call him, delivered an address to ninety matriculates,
at a time when there were only sixty-four students
all told in the Literary Department. The period
was propitious for the installation of a strong school,
for although there were a few struggling medical institutions
in the West, the vigorous growth of the new Department
showed how inadequately this part of the country was
served in medical education. The entrance requirements
were simple; a fair high school education, with Latin
and Greek sufficient for the understanding of medical
terms. For graduation, at least three years’
study with a reputable physician was required; but
this might include the two six-month courses of lectures
which comprised the work of the Department. Even
this very slender medical preparation was not required
of college graduates, or of students who had already
practised medicine four years, for whom one course
was deemed sufficient. A thesis was also necessary
for graduation, and tradition has it that in a few
cases during the earlier days of the Department, they
were actually written and delivered in Latin.
Special attention was given to laboratory work in chemistry
and anatomy, though for the most part the training
was given through lectures and quizzes. The conservatism
of the Literary Department in educational methods
here also found its parallel, even in the comparatively
new sciences.
The introduction of clinical methods
came slowly, though the growing city of Ann Arbor
furnished many opportunities for actual diagnosis and
treatment. The lack of practical facilities for
study was early recognized, however, and within a
few years some of the members of the Medical Faculty
established a school for clinical instruction in Detroit,
which eventually led to the first effort for the removal
of the school mentioned in the last chapter.
In spite of this difficulty the Department grew so
rapidly that within ten years it had an enrolment of
242 matriculates and 43 graduates; more students than
were enrolled at Yale, Harvard, or Virginia, the leading
medical schools of that day. The growth came
so rapidly, in fact, that it proved embarrassing and
the Regents experienced great difficulty in finding
accommodations for the students. In 1864 an addition
was made to the original Medical Building which more
than doubled its capacity and in 1868 one of the professors’
houses on the north side of the Campus was fitted up
as the first University Hospital. By 1874 Latin
and Greek had been dropped from the requirements for
admission; a possible backward step which was more
than counterbalanced three years later by the extension
of the annual course of lectures to nine months.
Finally in 1880 an extra year was added to the course.
The long roster of the Medical Faculty
has included many distinguished names, of which but
a few can be mentioned, and none with the detail their
services to their profession and to science deserve.
The first Faculty consisted of the two recruits from
the Literary Department, Dr. Sager, who became Professor
of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children,
and Dr. Douglas, who assumed the chair of Chemistry,
Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence in the new school;
as well as four other members, Moses Gunn, who was
a graduate of Geneva Medical College, 1846, Professor
of Anatomy and Surgery; Samuel Denton, Castleton Medical
College (Vermont), ’25, a former Regent, who
became Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine
and Pathology; J. Adams Allen, Middlebury, ’45,
Professor of Therapeutics, Materia Medica,
and Physiology; and R.C. Kedzie, ’51m,
demonstrator of anatomy, who later was for nearly
forty years Professor of Chemistry at the Michigan
Agricultural College.
Dr. Sager, the first Dean of the Department,
was one of its most learned and versatile members;
so thoroughly possessed of the scientific spirit that
his abilities were not always appreciated by his students,
or, it must be confessed, by his colleagues.
Of his ability as a practitioner “a few of the
older residents of Ann Arbor speak reverently and
lovingly.” Dr. Gunn, who had charge of the
Anatomical Laboratory, the first laboratory to be
established in the University, deserves, in the opinion
of Dr. Vaughan, the present Dean of the School, to
be called the founder of the Department. This
honor, however, might properly be divided with Dr.
Zina Pitcher of Detroit, who, as a member of the first
Board of Regents, was responsible for the early introduction
of the teaching of medicine in the University.
But Dr. Gunn was on the ground as early as 1849, and
from the first he labored earnestly and effectively
in the organization of the new Department, which was
beset by many difficulties, particularly in his own
field, where the problem of finding adequate material
for the study of anatomy was almost insuperable for
many years. Many are the hints given in the reminiscences
of the older men of the practical ways this difficulty
was met, but for the most part the matter is shrouded
in a discreet silence. Dr. Gunn was of a commanding
character and presence and his “trained hand
dared to do many operations, the landmarks of which
were not then described in the works on surgery.”
He soon gave up his work in Anatomy and was succeeded
in 1854 by Dr. Corydon La Ford, Geneva, ’42,
a sensitive and earnest teacher, who had a way of
“making dry bones and anatomical tissues of
absorbing interest.” It is said of him that
in his day he probably taught more students than any
other teacher of anatomy. Occupying hardly a
lesser place than Dr. Ford in the memories of the
older medical graduates was his factotum, Gregor Nagele,
better known as “Doc” Nagele. As
an immigrant just landed, he helped in the construction
of the old Medical Building and remained to become
for years the presiding genius of the Department,
and, through his long association with Dr. Ford, an
unofficial demonstrator of anatomy to the “boys.”
Dr. Denton, another member of that
first Faculty, was long remembered by his students
because of his high hat and his buck-board wagon, as
well as by his belief in the medical efficiency of
alcohol; in which he came into violent conflict with
one of his confreres and eventual successor in the
Professorship of Pathology and Theory and Practice.
This was Dr. A.B. Palmer, a graduate of the College
of Physicians and Surgeons in 1839, who in 1854 succeeded
Dr. Allen, the first of the original Faculty to go.
Dr. Palmer was a conspicuous personage in Ann Arbor
for many years, energetic in public welfare and a
lover not only of his profession but of his professorship
and its duties. One of his students remarks:
“He would have been willing to get up in the
night and lecture if asked, so enthusiastic was he
in his efforts to help the student.” He
was the first member of the Medical Faculty to apply
for leave of absence that he might study abroad.
That was in 1858.
Other appointments of particular importance
in the earlier years of the Medical Department were
those of Samuel G. Armor, Missouri Medical College,
’44, who became Professor of the Institutes of
Medicine and Materia Medica in 1861, and
of Albert Benjamin Prescott, ’64m, who entered
the same year upon his long term of distinguished service
in the Chemical Laboratory and later the Department
of Pharmacy, loved and honored by many generations
of students. Changes in the personnel of the
Faculty were frequent, however, and few men remained
long enough to identify their lives wholly with that
of the University. When Dr. Sager retired as
Emeritus Professor and Dean in 1874, Dr. Edward S.
Dunster, New York College of Medicine and Surgery,
’59, was appointed to his chair, and held it
until his death in 1888. Dr. Palmer succeeded
Dr. Sager as Dean, but in 1887, the position passed
to Dr. Ford, and then, in 1891, to Dr. Victor C. Vaughan,
Mt. Pleasant (Mo.) College, ’72; M.D.
(Michigan), ’78, the first graduate of the School
to become its Dean. He has been a member of the
Faculty since 1879, serving as Professor of Physiology
and Pathological Chemistry and Assistant Professor
of Therapeutics and Materia Medica.
As the growth of the School continued
and as the field of medical knowledge widened, new
laboratories and professorships were continually becoming
necessary. The early history of the Anatomical
Laboratory has been touched upon. Dr. Ford remained
in charge until 1894, when he was succeeded by Dr.
J. Playfair McMurrich, Toronto, ’79, who did
much for the advancement of the scientific study of
anatomy until his return to Toronto in 1907, when
George Linius Streeter, Union, ’95, assumed the
chair. He resigned in 1914, and Dr. G. Carl Huber,
’87m, Professor of Histology then became Director
of the Anatomical Laboratories. Mention should
also be made in this place of the services of Dr. George
E. Fothingham, ’64m, Professor of Ophthalmology
from 1870 to 1889, who for some years was connected
with the Department of Anatomy and drafted the first
good anatomical law.
Courses in histology were given as
far back as 1856 but the emphasis on scientific methods
did not come for many years, and the courses in both
histology and physiology were long taught solely by
lectures. In 1877, however, the Legislature appropriated
$3,500 for a laboratory in those subjects and Dr.
C.H. Stowell, ’72m, was appointed instructor,
becoming Assistant Professor in 1880. About the
same time a separate chair in physiology was created
with Dr. Henry Sewall, Wesleyan, ’76, as the
first Professor. Under Dr. Sewall the Physiological
Laboratory grew rapidly; new apparatus was purchased
and many valuable researches were conducted, not the
least of these being the proof, published in 1887,
that pigeons might be immunized against rattle-snake
poison, one of the first cases of the production
of an artificial immunity. The two departments
were again united in 1889 under Dr. William H. Howell,
Johns Hopkins, ’81. He was succeeded in
1892 by Dr. Warren P. Lombard, Harvard, ’78,
who held both Professorships until 1898, when Dr. Huber,
at that time Assistant Professor of Anatomy, was made
Director of the Histological Laboratory, becoming
Junior Professor in 1899 and Professor of Histology
and Embryology four years later.
A Laboratory in Electro-Therapeutics
was opened in 1878, the first of its kind in America,
largely through the efforts of Dr. John W. Langley,
Harvard, ’61, M.D. Michigan, (hon.) ’77,
Professor of General Chemistry at that time; but the
subject did not become a compulsory part of the course
until the appointment in 1890 of Dr. William J. Herdman,
’72, who had been a member of the Medical Faculty
since 1875, as Professor of Nervous Diseases and Electro-Therapeutics.
Practical instruction in pathology was inaugurated
in 1879 under Dr. Herdman and Dr. Victor C. Vaughan,
but the beginnings were modest and laboratory work
only became incorporated in the course in 1888 under
Dr. Heneage Gibbes, Aberdeen, ’79, called from
London as Professor of Pathology. Even then the
quarters were extremely limited and the laboratory
was moved several times before its final establishment
in the present Medical Building in 1903. In 1895
Dr. George Dock, Pennsylvania, ’84, Professor
of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical
Medicine since 1891, succeeded Dr. Gibbes in the chair
of Pathology but resigned it in 1903 to Dr. Aldred
Scott Warthin, ’91m, (Indiana, ’88),
who became also Director of the Pathological Laboratory.
A request from the State Board of
Health led to the opening of a Hygienic Laboratory
in 1888, with the threefold object of instruction,
research, and the examination of suspected food and
water, with Dr. V.C. Vaughan, who had come to
the University in 1875 as an assistant in the Chemical
Laboratory, as its first Director.
The first officially recognized Laboratory
of Clinical Medicine was established by Dr. Dock,
when he came to the University in 1891, with the purpose
of carrying out the instrumental investigation of disease,
and teaching the technique of diagnosis. This
was followed the next year by demonstration courses
in the different branches of medicine and surgery.
Dr. Dock was succeeded, upon his resignation in 1908,
by Dr. A. Walter Hewlett, California, ’95, who
returned to Leland Stanford, Jr. University after
six years’ service.
A Surgical Laboratory, established
soon after Dr. Charles de Nancrede, Pennsylvania (M.D.),
’69, came as Professor of Surgery, speedily proved
its educational value, and increasing facilities were
offered students for the demonstration of surgery
on bodies and on animals, with the same care taken
as to antiseptics, asepsis, and dressings as in actual
operations. Dr. de Nancrede retired in 1917, and
in 1919 Dr. Hugh Cabot, Harvard, ’94, succeeded
to the chair. A Laboratory in Experimental Pharmacology,
still another instance of a brand new venture on the
University’s part, was established in 1891 under
Dr. John Jacob Abel, ’83. He only remained
two years, however, and was succeeded by Dr. Arthur
R. Cushny, Aberdeen, ’86, of London, under whom
the new laboratory assumed its present important place.
Dr. Cushny returned to the University College in London
in 1905 and the Professorship of Pharmacology eventually
passed to Dr. Charles W. Edmunds, ’01m, at
present Secretary of the Medical School. As the
result of long effort on the part of Dr. Herdman,
who held the chair of Nervous Diseases, a State Psychopathic
Hospital, the first of its kind in the country, was
established at the University in 1903 under the joint
supervision of the Regents and a State Board, affording
a practical laboratory and clinic for students specializing
in nervous diseases. It has been under the direction
of Dr. Albert M. Barrett, Iowa, ’93, Professor
of Psychiatry since 1906.
The old make-shift hospital on the
Campus was enlarged in 1876, but it was never able
to overtake the ever-increasing demand, and a new
building eventually became imperative. This came
in 1891, when the present Hospital, soon fated to
go the way of the first, was erected northeast of
the Campus on the hills above the Huron River.
Designed to accommodate about eighty patients, it
has been enlarged again and again, until finally in
1919 the State appropriated over a million dollars
for an entirely new building, which will cost eventually
three times that sum, to be completed in 1922.
Not only will this new Hospital accommodate nearly
six hundred patients under the far more exacting requirements
of modern hospital practice, but it will also be by
far the largest hospital controlled entirely by a
medical school and maintained for the sole benefit
of the people of a state.
The medical course was finally increased
in 1890 to four years of nine months, while the entrance
requirements were placed on the same basis as the
admission to the classical or scientific courses in
the Literary Department. At the same time a “combination”
course enabled the student to graduate from both the
Literary Department and the Medical School in six
years. The final evolution of the curriculum up
to the present time came in 1914 when this combination
was made compulsory. This meant that at least
two years’ preliminary work in the Literary College
was required before the student was permitted to enter
the Medical School. In 1903 a new Medical Building
was completed at a cost of about $200,000, to provide
the class rooms and laboratories for the work of the
first two years. It contains two amphitheaters,
two lecture rooms, and the laboratories of hygiene,
bacteriology, physiological chemistry, anatomy, histology
and embryology and pathology, as well as the pathological
museum. To the great regret of many medical alumni,
and in fact all who loved the relics of the University’s
first days, the picturesque old Medical Building with
its simple Greek portico was razed in 1914. It
had been considered unsafe for some time, and stood
abandoned and unused at one side of the new building.
Although the original University Act
called for a Law Department, and even gave it first
place in their scheme for organization after the Literary
College, the favorable time for its establishment did
not appear for nearly twenty years. There were
already a number of law schools in operation elsewhere,
one of them at the University of Pennsylvania dated
as far back as 1790; but for the most part legal education
was haphazard and primitive. Candidates for the
bar ordinarily prepared for practice by reading in
a lawyer’s office, a good old method that perhaps
has some merits, but one which did not, save in the
case of a teacher of exceptional qualifications, give
a uniform preparation or an insight into the principles
of legal philosophy. As the general level of
education advanced, however, the advantages of some
systematic instruction in law became more and more
apparent, and it was not long after the establishment
of the University before demands for a Law School
began to be heard. This sentiment grew, in spite
of the conservatism, and even active opposition, of
the lawyers of the old school who believed the established
office method of education the only practical one.
Finally, in spite of the financial
problem involved, the new Department was formally
opened in October, 1859, with an entering class of
ninety-two students. It had long been assumed
that only one Professorship would be required; but
when the Board really faced the problem it had a wider
vision, and the first Faculty consisted of three men.
These have sometimes been called “the great triumvirate,”
Judge James V. Campbell, St. Paul’s College,
’41, of the State Supreme Court, who became
Marshall Professor of Law, with Common and Statute
Law as his field; Charles I. Walker, a practising
lawyer of Detroit, Kent Professor of Pleading, Practice
and Evidence; and Thomas McIntyre Cooley of Adrian,
who came as Jay Professor of Equity Jurisprudence,
Pleading, and Practice. These men had all been
trained through the usual course of “reading”
in a lawyer’s office all the higher
education they received, with the exception of Judge
Campbell.
Never has a law school started under
more favorable auspices, certainly never with such
a Faculty. To the learning and personal character,
as well as to the ability as teachers, of these three
men thousands of graduates of the School ascribe their
remarkable success in later life. Judge Campbell,
the first Dean, was characterized by his wide, accurate,
and scholarly knowledge; while the refinement of his
literary style and his stimulating personality made
him one of the most delightful of lecturers.
Professor Walker was the type of man who was willing
to sacrifice one day a week out of a large and remunerative
practice for the education of young men in his profession.
His interests extended beyond his legal labors, for
he was well known through his scholarly investigations
in the early history of the State. His courses,
which might so easily have been perfunctory, were
on a par with those of his distinguished confreres,
stimulating and profound and sometimes punctuated
with a dry wit, well illustrated by his epigram that
“some men live by their practice and some by
their practices.”
Thomas M. Cooley, the youngest one
of this group and the only one to make his home in
Ann Arbor, probably, in his later years, gave more
distinction to the University than any other teacher
upon its long rolls. He became known, not only
nationally but internationally, for his great work
on “Constitutional Limitations” which will
probably always be the standard work on the American
Constitution. This appeared in 1868. He
was also the author of many other books, including
a “History of Michigan.” During his
service of twenty-one years on the State Supreme Bench,
the Court acquired a national reputation. At the
time of his death he was a member of the first Interstate
Commerce Commission. His home, which stood on
the site the Union now occupies, and which for nine
years was used as the Union Club House, was long a
center of the intellectual and social life of Ann
Arbor. One of his pupils, William R. Day, ’70,
now of the United States Supreme Court, says of him:
“Here was a man of world-wide fame as a jurist the
author of a book which is at once the greatest authority
upon the subject of constitutional limitations upon
our government, and a classic in legal literature whose
recreations seemed to consist in change of occupation,
and whose energies seemed never to tire.”
The enrolment in the new school grew
with even greater rapidity than had that of the Medical
School during its first years. By 1911 the Law
School, as it came to be known after 1910, had given
9,041 degrees, almost equaling the 9,225 granted up
to that time by the Literary College and more than
double the 4,260 degrees granted by the Medical School.
The balance of attendance, however, has been with the
Literary College since 1897, when the requirement
in the Law School was increased to three years.
It must be understood, too, that any comparison of
this character between the Law and the Literary Departments
can only be on a quantitative basis, for the traditional
four years’ work had always been demanded in
the Literary College; whereas in early days, the law
course consisted only of two terms of lectures of
six months each, with only one requisite for admission;
that the candidates should be eighteen years of age
and of good moral character. Nevertheless these
early students stood well in respect to ability, some
“were already practising lawyers, and others
were on the verge of being admitted to the bar”;
men who came to take advantage of the lectures before
entering definitely upon practice. Only seniors
were quizzed, but they were quizzed on junior as well
as senior subjects, while at the end an oral examination
was given. If this ordeal was passed satisfactorily
and an acceptable thesis presented, the candidate
received his LL.B.
Professor Hinsdale in his “History,”
in speaking of these earlier years, said: “A
feebler organization and a looser administration could
hardly have held the School together. Indeed,
if the mark of a school is to be found in organization
and administration, then this was hardly a school
at all; but if such mark is to be found in the ability
of teachers, the value of the instruction given, and
the enthusiasm of students, it was a school of high
order. In a word, it was the Professors and the
conditions, not organization, administration, and discipline,
that made the School what it was.”
Since 1877, when it was announced
that students henceforth were expected to be well
grounded in at least a good English education, the
requirements in the Law School have been gradually
raised; in fact one may almost trace the reflection
of the increasing requirements in the fluctuating
attendance. Following a requirement that an examination
in ordinary high school branches must be passed by
all students except those who had completed a high
school course, the standard of admission was made
in 1898 the same as for the admission to the old B.L.
course in the Literary Department. In 1884 the
two annual terms which had heretofore made up the
course were lengthened from six to nine months; and
in 1886 a graduated course of instruction was introduced,
resulting in the separation of the two classes which,
up to that time, had always recited together.
In 1895, after due notice, a third year was added.
The last and perhaps most far-reaching
steps in the history of the Law School were taken
in 1912, when one year in the Literary College was
required, and in 1915, when another year was added,
making the law course one of five years. Other
significant advances have also been made of late years;
the establishment of the special degree of J.D. (Juris
Doctor) for exceptional students, and particularly
the addition of an optional sixth year of special
studies for those who wished to carry their work further,
leading to the degree of Master of Laws.
With these changes in the requirements
has come also a revolution in methods of teaching
and even in the fundamental policies of the School.
There are three methods ordinarily applied in teaching
law; the lecture, the textbook, and the study of selected
cases. The early courses were almost entirely
lectures, textbooks not appearing until 1879, while
the study of cases, used somewhat even at the very
first, has now become the principal method of establishing
legal principles. The question is largely one
of the aim of a school, whether to make the student
familiar with the actual rules and practice in the
different parts of the country so that he will be
able to take up his profession, if only in a limited
way, at once; or whether to emphasize fundamental
principles and the evolutionary character of the law,
which can best be discovered from the study of decisions
and cases, in order to prepare for the far more significant
and useful career open to one who has the background,
as well as the ordinary rules of law, upon which to
base his actions. President Hutchins, when Dean
of the Law School, emphasized this when he said:
“The Law School of today should teach and should
encourage the study of law in its larger sense.”
This policy has been consistently developed by the
present Dean, Henry M. Bates, ’90, who not only
insists on the higher mission of the Law School in
this regard but also believes it “must not only
train men to be effective lawyers adhering steadfastly
to high ethical standards, but it must also instil
into them a strong sense of responsibility to the community,
and those ideals of service which are among the oldest
and finest but, perhaps, sometimes forgotten traditions
of the bar.”
The Faculty of the Law School has
always remained relatively small in proportion to
the numbers of students largely because
of the methods of teaching, and the absence, inherent
in the subject, of any laboratory save the practice
court. A fourth professorship was created in 1866
and named after the Hon. Richard Fletcher of Boston,
who had given his legal library to the University.
This was occupied in 1868 by Charles A. Kent, Vermont,
’52, who was Dean of the Department at the time
of his resignation in 1886. The Fletcher Professorship
has been held since 1897 by Judge Victor H. Lane,
’74e, ’78l. A Tappan Professorship
was established in 1879, an honor acknowledged with
great pleasure by the first President, then living
in Switzerland, and was held for four years by the
Hon. Alpheus Felch, Bowdoin, ’27, one of the
most distinguished citizens of the State, who had
served as United States Senator, Governor, and Regent.
The Professorship passed eventually to Henry Wade
Rogers, ’74, afterward Dean of the Yale Law School,
and in 1903 to Henry M. Bates, ’90. Mr.
Walker resigned in 1876 and Judge Cooley in 1884,
though the latter continued to give lectures on special
subjects and remained on the Faculty as Professor
of American History and Constitutional Law. Judge
Campbell became the first Dean of the Department but
resigned in 1871, when he was succeeded by Judge Cooley.
After the latter gave up his active duties Charles
A. Kent became Dean, to be followed by Henry Wade
Rogers, ’74, in 1885; Jerome C. Knowlton, ’75,
in 1890; and Harry Burns Hutchins, ’71, in 1895.
The present Dean, Henry M. Bates, ’90, succeeded
Dr. Hutchins when he was elected to the Presidency
of the University in 1910.
The Law Library, which contains over
40,000 volumes, is the largest of the departmental
collections. In addition to Judge Fletcher’s
early gift of eight hundred volumes, two other considerable
gifts have added to its resources, the Buhl Collection,
presented by Mr. C.H. Buhl of Detroit in 1885,
with a fund of $10,000 for additions to it, and the
library presented by Judge S.T. Douglas of Detroit
in 1898. The Library now occupies a large room
at the south end of the second floor of the present
Law Building.
The first courses of the Law School
were given in the old chapel in the North Wing, or
Mason Hall, where the Law Library was installed with
the General Library above. This proved a most
unsatisfactory arrangement for the growing school
and in 1863 a new Law Building was dedicated on the
northwest corner of the Campus. This building
in turn quickly became inadequate for the needs of
the still rapidly expanding department. Some
relief was given in 1872 by using the Chapel in the
new University Hall, and again in 1882, when the University
Library which had been housed up to this time in the
Law Building was moved to its new quarters. The
Law Building was remodeled and enlarged in 1893 and
a second time in 1898, when it was almost completely
made over into its present form.
The College of Engineering, the fourth
of the larger divisions of the University, was in
fact the last to be established, as it was not until
1895 that the Regents authorized its organization as
an independent department with Professor Charles E.
Greene, Harvard, ’62, as its first Dean.
The history of the course in engineering,
however, is almost as old as the University, and really
begins with the designation of a chair in Civil Engineering
and Drawing in the article authorizing the University.
That was as far as the matter went, however, for the
first fifteen years, or until the appointment of Alexander
Winchell in 1853 as Professor of Physics and Civil
Engineering. Physics is the science upon which
the profession of the civil engineer rests and the
two subjects were closely associated in those days
of small beginnings. There is little to indicate
that Professor Winchell or his successor to the chair
in 1855, William G. Peck, West Point, ’44, did
much to advance the engineering half of their charge.
But with the coming of DeVolson Wood as Assistant
Professor, immediately upon his graduation in 1857
from Rensselaer Polytechnic, the cause of engineering
was properly presented to the students. Though
the fourth institution in this country to offer courses
in engineering, the first two students were not graduated
until 1860, so that actually Michigan became the sixth
institution in America to grant degrees in that branch
of scientific training.
Professor Charles S. Denison, whose
long service in the University began as an instructor
just before Professor Wood’s resignation, pays
a tribute to his sturdy and at the same time genial
character, his powerful intellect, and singularly
virile influence on his students. He showed remarkable
energy and administrative ability, in spite of many
difficulties and a general lack of understanding of
his aims in technical education, characteristic of
those days. It is told of him that he even recommended
an adaptation of one of the professors’ houses
on the Campus to the needs of the work in engineering,
exactly thirty years before it was actually done.
While he was here a course in military engineering
was organized in 1862 and he delivered a course of
lectures on that subject, but after the war it was
abandoned. A similar fate overtook the School
of Mines established in 1864-65, owing to the desire
of the residents of the Northern Peninsula to have
a state institution in that section, although a number
of degrees in mining engineering were granted.
A course in mechanical engineering was also authorized
by the Regents in 1868, one of the very first to be
organized in this country, but the degree was abolished
two years later and the course was merged with civil
engineering. One of the last acts of Professor
Wood, before his resignation to accept a similar chair
at Stevens Institute of Technology, was to present
to the Regents a detailed plan for a School of Engineering
and Technology as a fourth department of the University foreshadowing
the action taken twenty-three years later when engineering
was made a separate department in the University.
The appointment of Charles Ezra Greene,
Harvard, ’62, Mass. Inst. Technology,
’68, in 1872 marks a definite period in the history
of this department. He found himself associated
with two other men who had been instructors for a
short period under Professor Wood, J.B. Davis,
’68e, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering,
who became Professor of Geodesy and Surveying in 1891,
and Charles S. Denison, Vermont, ’70, who was
to be in later years Professor of Stereotomy, Mechanism,
and Drawing. These men saw the Department grow
almost to its present proportions, and, as the first
Faculty, formed a most harmonious combination of unusually
varied elements. Professor Greene was a scholar
and scientist who had a wide reputation as an engineer
and an author; Professor Davis, on the contrary, was
a practical man, a genius, whose love of the outdoors
and fatherly care of his “boys” even extended
to their “rubbers” on wet days, while
his homely and wise sayings endeared him to every
student. Professor Denison was a bachelor, small
and very particular in personal appearance, who was
long known by the students as “Little Lord Chesterfield,”
but an able teacher who was loved for his big heart
and his very mannerisms. A course in mechanical
engineering was again inaugurated in 1881 when Mortimer
E. Cooley, Annapolis, ’78, Assistant Engineer,
U.S.N., was detailed to the University by the Navy
Department and became the first Professor of Mechanical
Engineering. In 1885 he resigned from the Navy
and definitely cast his lot with the University, becoming
Dean of the College of Engineering in February, 1904,
after the death of Professor Greene in October, 1903.
At the same time Professor Davis became Associate
Dean and maintained an intimate and paternal care
over the students until his retirement in 1910.
The Department of Electrical Engineering
was organized in 1889, under the charge of Henry S.
Carhart, Wesleyan, ’69, Professor of Physics,
and one instructor, George W. Patterson, Yale, ’84,
who became the first Professor of Electrical Engineering
in May, 1905. In 1899 a course in Naval Architecture
and Marine Engineering was created with Herbert C.
Sadler, Glasgow, ’93, as the first Professor.
The following year the first degree was conferred
in a new Department of Chemical Engineering, and in
1902 Edward DeMille Campbell, ’86, became head
of the new division as Professor of Chemical Engineering
and Analytical Chemistry.
The first plan for the University
called for a Professorship of Engineering and Architecture,
but no attention was paid to the latter subject until
the appointment of W.L.B. Jenney, to the Professorship
of Architecture in 1876. Appropriations failed,
however, and the chair was discontinued in 1880, not
to be revived until 1906, when a Department of Architecture
was organized under the charge of Emil Lorch, A.M.,
Harvard, ’03, with the two departments associated
under the title of the Department (later Colleges)
of Engineering and Architecture. Within recent
years special courses have been organized leading to
degrees in Architectural Engineering, Chemical Engineering,
and Aeronautical Engineering, as well as special groups
of courses in such branches as sanitary, transportation,
automobile, hydro-mechanical, industrial, and gas
engineering and paper manufacturing. A reorganization
of the numerous degrees given at one time in the Engineering
College has now reduced the degrees to two, B.S. in
Engineering and B.S. in Architecture.
Originally the work in engineering
was centered in what is now the old south wing of
University Hall. The first building on the Campus
used exclusively for the engineering courses was the
first section of the Engineering Laboratories built
in 1881-82, as the result of the insistence of Dr.
Frieze, then Acting President, that an unexpended
appropriation of $2,500 be used immediately. At
short intervals further additions were made and in
1900 the building, now known as the Engineering Shops,
assumed its present form. In 1895 a further extension
of the work in engineering was required, and the adjacent
campus residence was remodeled for the purpose.
This proved inadequate almost before completion and
in 1902 the construction of the present Engineering
Building was authorized. Standing across the southeast
corner of the Campus and with the diagonal walk carried
through it under a picturesque archway, this is one
of the University’s largest buildings and forms,
with its two wings, and the Engineering Shops and the
old Heating Plant, a square known as the Engineering
Quadrangle. It was completed in 1904, but a further
addition was necessitated in 1909, so that it now
has a floor space of about 136,000 square feet, and
cost with equipment about $400,000. In the basement
of the long wing which extends down East University
Avenue is the naval experimental tank, 300 feet long
and 22 feet wide, in which models of various types
of ships are tested by the Department of Marine Engineering.
The only other tank of this character in the United
States is at the Washington Navy Yard, and the facilities
of the University’s tank, therefore, were used
extensively by the Government during the late war.
The development of the College of
Pharmacy, actually the fourth separate department
in the University, is closely interwoven with that
of the Department of Chemistry. Its history has
already been in part suggested in the references to
the growth of the Chemical Laboratory and the appointment
of Dr. Prescott as the first Dean of the Department,
or later, College, of Pharmacy. At first the
study of chemistry was presented only in lectures
and a few simple demonstrations. Dr. Douglas,
however, was among the pioneers in this country in
realizing that the way to teach the subject was to
help the students perform their own experiments, and
accordingly he established a small laboratory for
special students in the Medical Building. From
this grew the idea of a laboratory building which
was finally completed in October, 1857, at a cost
of $3,450, the first building erected in America for
this purpose, with facilities which were, in President
Tappan’s words, “unsurpassed by anything
of the kind in the country.” Even then it
proved almost at once too small, and a long series
of enlargements came at intervals of about five years,
until finally the new Chemistry Building was completed
in 1910.
All the work in chemistry in the different
Departments was, from the first, provided for in this
building, with no distinction between academic and
professional students except such as the special courses
require. The work in pharmacy grew naturally with
the Department of Chemistry. Following its establishment
in 1868, the course eventually grew into a separate
Department, which became independent in 1876.
The school prospered under the wise and scholarly
administration of its first Dean, Dr. Albert B. Prescott,
and it was soon recognized as one of the best in the
country. The early entrance requirements were
only a good knowledge of the English language, but
soon a high school course became requisite. The
curriculum, which at first consisted of two years’
work, was eventually lengthened to three years in 1917-18,
leading to the degree of Ph.C; while for a regular
four years’ course a B.S. in Pharmacy is granted.
Upon the death of Dr. Prescott in
1905, Dr. Julius O. Schlotterbeck, ’91, succeeded
him as Dean of the College. Dr. Schlotterbeck
died in 1917, and Professor Alviso B. Stevens, ’75p,
became Dean until his retirement in 1919.
The inauguration of a Department of
Homeopathy in the University, which, as has been noted,
did not come without a struggle, was finally effected
in 1875; though only after long opposition from the
Medical Faculty and the regular medical profession
throughout the State. The first Faculty, which
was appointed soon after the Legislature finally authorized
the establishment of the School, was composed of Dr.
Samuel A. Jones, Pennsylvania Homeopathic Medical
College, ’61, of Englewood, N.J., who was Dean
and Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics,
and Dr. John C. Morgan, Pennsylvania Medical College,
’52, who took the chair of Theory and Practice.
Dr. Jones soon became one of the most interesting
and stimulating figures in the life of the University.
Small and spare in physique, he possessed an extraordinarily
keen mind and an interest in literature and learning
far beyond the limits of his profession. His
library, which was particularly rich in material on
Thoreau and Carlyle, became upon his death in 1912
one of the valuable acquisitions of the University
Library.
The Faculty grew slowly as new students
came, though the Department never became as large
as the older school, the record enrolment being 79
in 1892. The Department eventually found that
the original quarters in one of the two professorial
residences on the north side of the Campus, to which
a long wing had been added at the rear, were inadequate,
and in 1900 the present Homeopathic Hospital was erected
opposite the northeast corner of the Campus.
To this a nurses’ home was added later, and in
1918 an adequate children’s ward. An effort
made in 1893 by Dr. H.L. Obetz, Cleveland Homeopathic
Hospital College, ’74, at that time Dean, to
amalgamate the two schools proved unsuccessful, and
eventually led to his resignation and a reorganization
that necessitated the resignation of the remainder
of the Faculty. A law passed in the same year
by the Legislature reversing its previous position
and directing that the School be removed to Detroit,
was successfully resisted by the Regents on the same
ground that had already been urged in the case of the
regular school. Dr. E.C. Franklin, M.D.,
University of New York, ’46, followed Dr. Jones
as Dean in 1878. Dr. T.P. Wilson, Western
Homeopathic College, ’57, succeeded him in 1881
and Dr. H.L. Obetz in 1885. After the reorganization
in 1895 mentioned above, Dr. Wilbert B. Hinsdale,
Hiram College, ’75, the present Dean, was appointed,
and the later and more untroubled history of the School
may be said to date from that time.
Though the incorporation of a Dental
College in the University was suggested as far back
as 1865, the first steps were not taken until 1873
when the Michigan State Dental Association requested
the establishment of a dental course as soon as possible.
This was supplemented two years later by a similar
petition to the Legislature on the part of a large
number of citizens of the State, which led to the appropriation
of the sum of $3,000 for each of the next two years
for the establishment of a Department of Dentistry
in the University. The Regents thereupon took
action in 1875, establishing the College, and in addition
to the facilities offered by the Medical Department
and Chemical Laboratory, created two Professorships
in Dentistry. A little later Dr. Jonathan Taft,
Ohio College of Dental Surgery, ’50, of Cincinnati,
was appointed Professor of Principles and Practice
of Operative Dentistry and Dr. John A. Watling, Ohio
College of Dental Surgery, ’60, Professor of
Clinical and Mechanical Dentistry. The precedent
of long standing in the other professional departments
was followed, both in the matter of entrance requirements
and the course, which consisted for many years of two
terms of six months. This was lengthened, however,
in 1884 to nine months and in 1899 a third year was
added.
The Dental College first occupied
a portion of the Homeopathic Building on the north
side of the Campus; later it was removed to one of
the old professors’ houses on the south side
which had been enlarged and fitted up for its reception.
Upon the removal of the University Hospital from the
Campus in 1891, the building it had occupied, which
it may be remembered was an adaptation and extension
of one of the residences on the north, became the
home of the school. Never well adapted for this
purpose and becoming entirely too small with the rapid
growth of the College, a new building eventually became
necessary. This led to the construction of the
present Dental Building, one of the most completely
equipped structures for the purpose in the United States.
It was dedicated in May, 1909, and cost, with equipment,
over $150,000. The department has grown consistently
from the first year, when the attendance was twenty
students, the lowest in its history, to 353 in 1915-16.
Dr. Taft was Dean of the College from 1875 to the time
of his death in 1903. Dr. Cyrenus Darling, ’81m,
of the Medical School then became Acting Dean, resigning
active work four years later to be succeeded by Dr.
Nelville S. Hoff, Ohio College of Dental Surgery, ’76,
Professor of Prosthetic Dentistry since 1903, who received
the full title in 1911. Upon his resignation
in 1918, Dr. Marcus L. Ward, ’02d, succeeded
to the position.
The Summer Session was first established
by the Regents in 1900 as a separate division of the
University. Courses in the summer had been given
since 1894 under the direction of a committee from
the Faculty of Literature, Science, and the Arts,
but the Regents had assumed no real responsibility
for this work and the fact that the chairman and all
the members of the committee, save one, were of the
rank of instructor indicates the minor place it assumed
in university affairs. With a reorganization
in 1900 under the chairmanship of Professor John O.
Reed, ’85, of the Department of Physics, a new
life was given to the School. From that time
it grew rapidly, until in the summer of 1919 it had
an enrolment of almost 2,000, including students in
the Law School, Medical School, Engineering College,
and a summer library course, though the majority,
of course, were enrolled in the Literary College.
When Professor Reed became Dean of the Literary Department
in 1907, Professor John R. Effinger, ’91, became
Dean of the Summer Session. After the death of
his predecessor, he in turn became Dean of the Literary
College, and Edward H. Kraus, Syracuse, ’96,
Professor of Mineralogy, who had been Secretary, took
his place as administrative head of the Summer Session.