It was a happy stroke of fortune that fixed Ann Arbor as the location of the University of Michigan. A literal interpretation of history may suggest that politics and speculation had their share in the selection of the site, but these factors might have operated quite as easily in favor of some other Michigan village. The fact remains that Ann Arbor was chosen. This assured to the University an individuality and an opportunity for self-realization that might have been lost if a town destined to a more rapid expansion had been selected. It has given Michigan a special character among most of the larger American universities and has had a vital influence on the development of the institution, which has grown proportionately far more than the town. The result has been that Ann Arbor has become one of the most attractive academic centers in the country, with a distinctive charm in her homes and shady streets, that strikes the visitor no less than the beauty of its location and the dignity of many of its public buildings.

Ann Arbor lies in the rolling country of Southern Michigan, thirty-eight miles west of Detroit, in the quietly picturesque valley of the Huron River. The University and a good part of the present town lie upon the top and slopes of a gentle hill which falls away to the valley levels on all sides except toward the northeast. From this situation arises one of the characteristic features of Ann Arbor; the ever-present glimpses of distant hills covered with rolling farm lands and woodlots, toward which almost any of the longer streets lead the eye.

At the time the University was established the flow of immigration from the East was at high tide. Ann Arbor had already become one of the progressive and settled communities of the new State; but farther to the West other districts were constantly being opened and towards them a steady stream of settlers pressed on. One of the early inhabitants of Ann Arbor has given us a picture from his boyhood memories, of the long line of wagons filled with household goods and drawn by horses and oxen, which sometimes stretched along the pike as far as the eye could reach. The men who drove these wagons and the women who rode above with the youngest of their little families were not adventurers; they were essentially home-seekers. Their strong fiber was shown by their energy and courage in seeking thus to better their condition in this new country, which at last had in prospect means of communication with the seaboard states through the Erie Canal and the railroads soon to be built. It was settlers with this stuff in them who gave to the University of Michigan the support that spelled success instead of the failure which had attended many similar efforts.

The very name, Ann Arbor, recalls an idyll of pioneer life. It sketches in a picture that is no doubt more charming than the bitter mid-winter reality faced by the first two families, whose tents were pitched in a burr-oak grove beside a little stream flowing toward the nearby Huron. John Allen of this party, a vigorous young Virginian, was the driving force which first turned the tide of settlement toward Ann Arbor. By chance, on his way West, he met E.W. Rumsey and his wife in Cleveland and induced them to come with him to Michigan. They drove overland and arrived at the site of their future home some time in February, 1824. A tent and sled box set over poles with blankets for sides formed the first dwelling, and here some months later Allen welcomed his wife, whose name was Ann. Mrs. Rumsey’s name also happened to be the same, and when in the spring the grape vines spread their leaves over the neighboring trees, these first settlers found a little natural arbor, which they called, doubtless at first in jest, “Ann’s Arbor.” The name persisted, however, and it was formally adopted by general acclamation at a celebration held on the fourth of July, 1825, when some three hundred persons sat down to a dinner at Rumsey’s coffee-house. So far had civilization progressed in a little over a year. By that time there were nine log houses in the little settlement, which had already begun to take its place as one of the way-stations in the general tide of westward travel. For some time, however, communication with Detroit was difficult, and it was not until two years before the University was opened that the long-awaited railroad actually reached Ann Arbor. Therefore, for many years the little settlement had to be largely self-supporting. Such water power as the Huron could furnish was quickly developed; sawmills, gristmills, and a little later, woolen mills arose at favorable sites, the ruins of which are still to be seen where the relics of the dams now serve as hazards for the venturesome paddler.

The first tendency of the inhabitants was to settle on the rise above the little stream; known as Allen’s Creek, which furnished the water supply for the earliest pioneers. This rivulet, practically hidden nowadays, runs through the city on a course roughly parallel with the Ann Arbor Railroad tracks. The site of the burr-oak grove and the original encampment was almost certainly on the hillside on the south side of Huron Street, a block or so west of Main Street. This was reported to be an old dancing ground of the Pottawatomies, and an Indian trail used to run to the Huron along the stream. Rumsey built a log cabin on this spot immediately and established in it a resting-place for travelers, known far and wide as the Washtenaw Coffee House. The second building was erected by Allen on higher ground at what is now the corner of Huron and Main streets. It was painted a bright red and the place for some time went by the name of “Bloody Corners.” At one time the two apartments of the little log house held fourteen men and twenty-one women and children, divided into family groups by the simple expedient of hanging blankets. In what seems now an incredibly short time life was moving in organized channels. A store was opened in September, and others soon followed; more buildings were erected; a physician or two swelled the population; in a little over two years a county court was established; and finally, in 1833, the village was incorporated.

For many years the little town was divided into two separate districts by the Huron River, and a determined effort arose to make the section on the north side the main business and residential quarter. This was not to be; though the old business blocks still stand across the Broadway bridge, and many of the finer homes of that period, now falling into decay, remain on the hills along the turnpikes to Plymouth and Pontiac.

It was probably not until the location of the University was fixed that the center of Ann Arbor’s population began, very slowly at first, to turn to the south and east, and mounted the slopes of the hill upon which the University stands. Certain it is that for years the Campus was practically in the country, and only gradually did the dwellings of the townspeople rise in the neighborhood. Aside from the University there was nothing east of State Street, except an old burying ground and one dwelling, occupied by the ubiquitous Pat Kelly, whose freedom of the agricultural privileges of the Campus made him quite as important a financial factor of the community as the members of the Faculty he served.

To the north was a district known as the “commons.” Professor Ten Brook tells how he was accustomed every Sunday morning on his way to church in lower town, to strike across this open place to the ravine just west of the present hospital buildings up which Glen Avenue now passes. Coming out on Fuller Street, the river road, he passed the old Kellogg farmhouse, the only home until within a few blocks of the church across the river. Lower town was but little smaller then than in these days; it had its own schools as well as churches and when Ann Arbor received a city charter in 1851 it held aloof for some time. The original settlement about the Court-House Square extended no further to the west than Allen’s Creek for many years, while there was little to the south of the present William Street save scattered farmhouses and a large brickyard.

In the beginning Ann Arbor was solely a farming community, a character it retained essentially until the increasing number of manufacturing plants in recent years has somewhat changed its aspect. The first inhabitants were almost entirely New Englanders, true Yankees in faith, resourcefulness, and business enterprise. But it was not long before immigrants of another type began to arrive; South Germans, who had left their native land to seek homes in the freer religious and political atmosphere of the new world. They speedily became an important factor in the growth of the town, as the business names on Main Street nowadays show; almost all borne by descendants of the early German settlers, who have for the most part identified themselves wholly with their new home. This was revealed by the recent war. While there were some who, through a sentimental attraction for the home of their fathers, stimulated by the unscrupulous efforts of Germany’s representatives, were actively pro-German in their sympathies or at least violently torn between their love for the old home and loyalty to the new land, there were many others, probably the majority, who were out and out loyalists on every occasion, and who by spoken word and action proved their unhyphenated Americanism. The brave record of the Ann Arbor men in the Civil War, and in France a half century later, where several of foreign parentage lost their lives, is ample proof of the solid qualities in this element among Ann Arbor’s first inhabitants.

Whatever their parentage or creed, the dwellers in the little double community saw to it from the first that, at least in some measure, the religious and intellectual needs of the people were satisfied. There is evidence that occasional religious services were held in 1825, but the first church, the Presbyterian, was not established until August, 1826. For some years it was migratory in its meeting places, passing from a log schoolhouse to a room in “Cook’s” hotel and finally in 1829 to the first church built in Ann Arbor, an unpainted log structure 25 by 35 feet on the site of the present church on Huron Street. The other denominations quickly followed this example and by 1844 there were six churches to serve the needs of the 3,000 inhabitants of the village, as well as the surrounding countryside, including the first Lutheran church for the German-speaking settlers in Michigan.

The journalist also appeared on the scene in this prologue to the drama of the University’s history. Less than six years after the arrival of the first settlers, the first number of the Western Emigrant appeared on October 18, 1829. Like all country journals of that period it was far more interested in national politics and even foreign affairs than local events; any one who searches for a chronicle of the daily life of those times finds scant reward in the columns of these papers. Even so important an event as the first meeting of the Regents is dismissed with a brief paragraph which throws no light on many interesting questions raised by the official report of that gathering. Yet such slender sheets as this, which eventually became the State Journal, and its Democratic contemporary, the Argus, established in 1835, furnish a picture of the life of those times in unexpected ways that would greatly surprise their editors, whose duty, as they saw it, was chiefly to guide the political opinions of their readers by strong and biting editorials, by long reports of legislative actions and by publishing the speeches of the political leaders of their party. The enterprise and industry of the community shows up well in advertisements, where every form of trade suitable for such a growing community found representation. One merchant advertised some 125 packages of fine dress goods from the East in a long and alluring list anticipating the great celebration over the arrival of the railroad; another firm, whose specialty was “drugs, paints, oils, dye-stuffs, groceries,” offered its wares “for cash or barter, as cheap if not cheaper than they can be procured west of Detroit.” Cook’s “Hotel” announced a few years later that it had been “greatly enlarged and fitted up in a style equal to any Public House in the place,” and that its location in the public square was “one of the most pleasant and healthy in Ann Arbor.” The editor of the Argus in 1844 revealed the secrets of his business office in the following double-column notice:

Wood! Wood!

Those of our subscribers who wish to pay their subscriptions in
wood will please favor us immediately.

Professional ethics was not quite so tender a subject in those days as it is at present, for John Allen announces in 1835 that he maintains a law office for the convenience of his clients where he may be sought in consultation, while “Doct. S. Denton,” whose subsequent standing as Regent and Professor was unquestioned, announces on April 2, 1835, that he

Has Removed his Office to the Court House in the South Room on the East side of the Hall. Those who call after bed-time will please knock at the window if the door is fastened.

It is noticeable also that even at this time, ten years after the village was founded, the spelling, “Ann Arbour,” is followed in numerous places while the Argus in its headline gives it, “Ann-Arbor,” with a hyphen.

As with religion and politics, as represented by the newspapers of the day, so with education. It is not improbable that one of that group of nine log cabins which was Ann Arbor in 1825 housed a primary school; certainly a school taught by Miss Monroe was under way that year at the corner of Main and Ann streets. This was at first a private venture and was housed in various places, but in 1829 it was finally moved into a brick building, on the jail lot, of all places! and became a public enterprise. The children in the community were all small in those days there were only 141 children between five and fifteen years in 1839 and it was not for some years that a need for secondary schools was felt.

The first academy was established in 1829 where Greek and Latin and the “higher branches of English education” were taught. This was soon discontinued, to be succeeded by an academy in the rude building which served the Presbyterian Church. Although this particular school was short-lived, its successor soon came to be known as the best in the territory and numbered the sons of many prominent Detroit families among its pupils. Several schools came in 1835, including an experiment some distance out what is now Packard Street, known as the Manual Labor School, in which the pupils paid a part or the whole of their expenses by daily farm work.

The Misses Page also maintained for many years a very “genteel” young ladies’ seminary, long reckoned a most substantial and worthy school, where not only the classics, moral philosophy, and literature were taught, but also heraldry, an eminently useful branch in a pioneer community! The lower town district as well was not without its schools and an academy. Provision was also made for pre-collegiate training during the first years of the University. So it would appear that on the whole Ann Arbor was well provided with schools from its earliest days.

The discontinuance of elementary work in the University, however, and a consolidation of the schools of the two districts finally led to the establishment of the Union High School in 1853. The first building was erected at a cost of $32,000 on the present site of the High School and was opened to students in 1856, while most of the ward buildings were built during the sixties. Close association with the University undoubtedly strengthened the Ann Arbor schools, and the High School soon became, in practice, a preparatory school for the University, particularly after the organic connection between University and schools through the diploma system became effective. This enabled the Ann Arbor High School to become one of the best secondary schools of the State with an attendance for many years far exceeding the normal enrolment in other cities of the same population.

While the townspeople have always shown their pride in the University and their interest in its welfare, Ann Arbor has not escaped entirely the traditional rivalries between town and gown. The village had a flourishing civic and commercial life before the first students came; even after it was established, the University for years was comparatively small and made no great place for itself in local affairs, as one may easily surmise by the rare references to it in the early newspapers. The members of the Faculty, however, were welcomed from the first as leaders in the community, though perhaps less can be said for the students, whose irrepressible spirits often led them to carry things with a high hand. Nor was the younger element in the town blameless. The result was an occasional crisis which was sometimes serious.

The indignation meeting of the citizens over the modification of the building program, as well as the similarly expressed support given the students in the fraternity struggle of 1850, were mentioned in the first chapter, and evidence a more cordial entente than is suggested by a serio-comic squabble in 1856 between the students and the Teutonic element in the town, long known as the “Dutch War.” The original trouble appears to have started in this case with the students, though it was probably the outgrowth of old animosities between them and the rougher and foreign elements in the town. For, despite vigorous efforts on the part of the President and Faculty to enforce the law against the sale of liquor to undergraduates, many student difficulties were to be traced to popular downtown resorts maintained largely by the German inhabitants. On this occasion the trouble started at “Hangsterfer’s,” in an altercation between two students, who were making themselves unpleasant, and the proprietor of the place. The next night the students returned in force and demanded free drinks, and, upon their being refused, precipitated a general melee in which clubs were used and even knives were drawn. In the end, the unfortunate owners were chased to the outskirts of town by the uproarious students.

Bad feeling followed this episode and one night six uninvited students broke into a ball at “Binders’s,” where they surreptitiously helped themselves to the refreshments presumably liquid. One of them was captured and only released after planks had been brought to batter down the brick walls of the building and a squad of medical students, armed with muskets, had arrived on the scene. Warrants were sworn out for the six the next day, but the officers were foiled by exchanges of clothing, by the culprits never eating in the same place twice, by their substituting for one another in recitations with the tacit approval, apparently, of their instructors, and by concealment in the Observatory, or, in the case of three of them, in a Regent’s house. Finally two students were sent down to the scene of the battle to buy liquor, and with this as evidence, a sufficient case against the proprietor was secured to induce him to withdraw his complaints. This ended the “war.”

Equally objectionable to the Ann Arbor citizens, though more excusable perhaps, was the standing protest of the students at the condition of the wooden sidewalks in the town, whose improvement apparently formed no part of the programme for civic betterment on the part of the good but conservative burghers. The students therefore constantly took matters in their own hands and about once in so often the offending rickety planks went up in flames. The class of ’73 thus celebrated after its examinations in the spring of 1870. Their raid on the sidewalks had been unusually comprehensive and the city fathers became thoroughly aroused. Arrests were threatened, and serious trouble was certain, when Acting President Frieze settled the matter by paying the $225 damages out of his own slenderly lined pocket. This the offending class eventually made up to him by laying a tax upon its members, doubtless to the great disgust of the innocent ones, “who thought bad form had been displayed somewhere.” This experience, however, by no means ended the practice, which continued down to the present day of flag and cement. The Chronicle once even took occasion to point out certain places where

If the freshmen insist upon celebrating their transition state by the customary hints to citizens in regard to side-walks, etc., we think we cannot do better than call their attention to a wretched collection of rotten planks which lie along the fence on Division Street, not far from William.

The local police force has always been fair game for the students, a position “he” (to use the long-standing quip) did not always appreciate. Gatherings of students in the streets were at one time looked upon with great disfavor, while the daily “rushes” at the old post-office, before the days of carrier delivery, were particularly prolific sources of trouble. The office before 1882 was especially inconvenient, and when the officers, warned by previous trouble, proposed to allow students to enter only one at a time, which meant that many would go without their mail, a disturbance threatened at once, and several were arrested. The next night matters proved even more serious; the fire-bell called out the state militia, who charged with fixed bayonets and wounded several persons. A dozen students were jailed indiscriminately but no one could be found to prefer charges the following morning. Suits for false imprisonment were brought against the city and mayor but were eventually discontinued on the advice of Judge Cooley.

In November, 1890, even more serious trouble arose following another series of arrests for post-office “rushing.” During the evening sounds of rifle shots were heard, and the students, already excited, scented more trouble. They gathered in a great crowd in front of the house where the firing had occurred but found that it was only a wedding celebration. Then, with characteristic good nature, they called for a speech, but their intentions were misinterpreted, and when the militia, who had attended the wedding in a body, marched out the students followed them with jokes and jeers. Finally the militiamen lost patience and charged with clubbed guns, and one quiet student who had been apparently only a spectator, was felled to the ground and afterward died of his injury. The sergeant in charge of the soldiers was also seriously injured. In this instance the students were guilty of nothing but noise, while the militia were acting entirely contrary to the law. Nevertheless, though eight men were arrested, the blame could not be fixed on any one man. The Governor of the State, however, disbanded the company for its unsoldierly conduct.

While the growth of the University of late years would suggest a corresponding increase in such troubles as have been described, the actual development has been quite otherwise, and serious clashes between students and townsfolk have been very rare in recent years. There have, it is true, been occasional raids on street-cars and signs; students have been arrested for playing ball on the streets; and sometimes political meetings have been disturbed. One of the most amusing incidents of this character was an address given by W.J. Bryan in 1900 from the portico of the Court House. Wild cheering greeted him as he rose to speak, which lasted for at least fifteen minutes. At first he was obviously greatly flattered; then he began to suspect something was not quite right and majestically raised his hand for silence. Instantly every student waved his hand in response, and the exchange was continued for some time. Meanwhile the police force was busy dragging off to jail any unlucky student on the outskirts of the crowd they could lay hands on. When the speaker was at length able to make himself heard his first words, somewhat unfortunate under the circumstances, were, “If I were an imperialist I would call out an army to suppress you. But I am not.”

It may be said, therefore, that in spite of these occasional troubles the relations between town and gown have been on the whole surprisingly normal and friendly when we consider that at present over one-fourth of the total population of Ann Arbor during term-time is composed of students. This cordial relationship is undoubtedly fostered by the fact that all the men and many of the women outside the fraternities, live in rooms rented from the townspeople. The extent to which this system has developed is probably unique in any American university of the same size. Only very recently has there been any modification of the tradition, in the erection of women’s dormitories and a promise of similar buildings for the men.

While this arrangement is not ideal in many ways, for the students do not always secure the clean and attractive quarters they are properly entitled to have, it has been undoubtedly a great advantage to the University in relieving it of the expense and trouble of maintaining dormitories, at a time when every dollar of resources, to say nothing of the energies of the officers, was necessary to maintain the University’s work. It is only natural, however, that many disputes between students and landladies should arise, particularly when the rooming and boarding houses are not supervised by the University: This is the case with the men. For some time the women in the University have been allowed to live only in approved rooming houses. The Health Service has also undertaken to inspect all the student boarding houses in an effort to ensure wholesome food and to maintain a definite standard of cleanliness.

Whatever the minor sources of friction that have arisen between the students and townsfolk of Ann Arbor, however, the substantial friendliness of the citizens and their pride in the University have always been one of its great assets through its years of development. The promoters of the hastily organized land company through whose efforts Ann Arbor was made the site of the future University builded better than they knew. Their venture was probably not a particularly profitable one, for the rapid growth they had expected did not materialize. But their prompt action and foresight assured the institution a normal and healthy environment comparatively free from political and commercial influences. There are, undoubtedly, certain advantages which come to the modern university in a larger city, which becomes in a way a laboratory for various forms of scientific investigation; but the disadvantages are no less obvious. The life of the students becomes more complicated; social distractions and amusements are apt to offer too great temptations; the simplicity of academic life is lost; while the personal relations between Faculty and student become more perfunctory. Thus by her very situation Michigan has been able to retain, in spite of her extraordinary growth in recent years, something of that fine flavor of college life which has always been the essence of our best academic traditions.

In the first days the Campus was only a backwoods clearing with lines of forest oaks on the east and south, the fence-rows of the Rumsey farm, and from it the stumps of the original forest trees had to be removed before the University was opened. For many years it was, to all intents, a farm lot upon which a few scattered buildings were to be seen. The early Regents and Faculty were necessarily occupied with pressing practical problems, and the first steps toward rendering the Campus more attractive were very casual and ineffective. The sum of $200 was given Dr. Houghton for the planting of trees in 1840 but action was delayed because of Pat Kelly’s wheat, and when eventually the trees were planted tradition has it they were locusts they were soon destroyed by insects. Andrew D. White describes the Campus when he came to the University in 1857 as “unkempt and wretched. Throughout its whole space there were not more than a score of trees outside the building sites allotted to professors; unsightly plank walks connected the buildings, and in every direction were meandering paths, which in dry weather were dusty and in wet weather muddy.”

Yet as early as 1847 the forlorn condition of the Campus began to be officially noticed; appropriations of small sums were made from time to time for trees and shrubs and a scheme for the laying out of avenues and walks and the planting of groups of trees was adopted. Unfortunately, the trees came before the walks, and as they were all of quick-growing varieties the effort did not go far. Nevertheless a vision of the traditional academic grove appeared in the report of the visiting Committee of that year, which recommended that “regard should be had, in making the selection, to the cleanliness, desirability, symmetry, and beauty of foliage of the trees to be planted” and observed that “the highway of thought, and intellectual development and progress, much of which is parched and rugged, should, as far as may be, be refreshed with fountains and strewn with flowers.” Truly, an alluring picture! The Faculty, however, somewhat more practical, insisted on walks, protesting that they were “obliged before clear day to wend their way to their recitations through darkness and mud.” A similar plan was undertaken in 1854 when citizens, students, and Faculty all joined in the work, the citizens to set out a row of trees on the farther side of the streets outside the Campus, while the students and Faculty were to do the same on the Campus side. Five hundred trees were thus set out within the grounds while an equal number was added through an appropriation by the Regents. But apparently small success attended these efforts, for few of these trees have survived.

It was with the coming of the young Andrew D. White, as Professor of History, with his youthful enthusiasm and memories of the “glorious elms of Yale,” that the first effective effort for the improvement of the Campus began. He says, in his Autobiography:

Without permission from any one, I began planting trees within the university enclosure; established, on my own account, several avenues; and set out elms to overshadow them. Choosing my trees with care, carefully protecting and watering them during the first two years, and gradually adding to them a considerable number of evergreens, I preached practically the doctrine of adorning the Campus. Gradually some of my students joined me; one class after another aided in securing trees and planting them, others became interested, until, finally, the University authorities made me “superintendent of the grounds,” and appropriated to my work the munificent sum of seventy-five dollars a year. So began the splendid growth which now surrounds those buildings.

His example was doubtless infectious, for the Ann Arbor citizens continued their tree-planting efforts around the outside of the Campus in the spring of 1858, while a group of sixty trees presented to the University were set out inside. The seniors of ’58 left a memorial in the shape of concentric rings of maples about a native oak in the center of the Campus, one of the few survivals of the original forest growth, which has since become known as the Tappan Oak, and is now marked by a tablet on a boulder placed there in later years by ’58. Many of these maples still survive, though all traces of the circles are lost. The juniors also set out another group further to the east, while Professor Fasquelle planted a number of evergreens east of the north wing to balance a similar group of Professor White’s at the south. The maples outside the walk on State Street were also the gift of Professor White and were balanced by a similar row of elms on the inside, given by the Faculty of the Literary Department. This general interest in Campus improvement did not escape the Regents and successive appropriations, though comparatively small, continued the work until Michigan now has, in the words of the father of the movement, written forty-six years after his work was undertaken, “one of the most beautiful academic groves to be seen in any part of the world,” a monument to him and to the students of his time.

The development of the building program, if a thing so haphazard can go by that name, was less fortunate for the University. Only in very recent years has there been any appreciation of the need of some degree of uniformity and planning for the future. Many of the present buildings have been evolved, as the needs of the University grew, rather than planned, while others have been built to suit the tastes of certain officers, or the special needs of the departments concerned, with no reference to the larger unity which has come to be recognized as so necessary in any group of buildings. Some of the oldest buildings have gone; in particular the two residences on the north, which became the old Dental College and the Homeopathic School in their last incarnations, while the picturesque old Medical Building followed them a few years later. The two on the south still survive; the President’s House, though often remodeled, still retains its old lines, but the adjacent building, now known as the Old Engineering Building and used largely for instruction in modern languages in the Engineering College, has lost all semblance of its former character.

Similarly the Law Building has undergone many transformations, while the old Chemistry Building, now used by the Departments of Physiology, Materia Medica, and Economics as make-shift quarters, has lost through successive additions almost all trace of that first little laboratory which exemplified the progressive spirit of the University in her early days. The new Chemistry Building on the north side was completed in 1910 and cost with equipment about $300,000. It is four stories high, 230 feet long by 130 feet wide, and is built about two interior courts. The building contains two amphitheaters, laboratories for organic and qualitative chemistry, metallurgy, physical chemistry, and gas analysis, as well as the College of Pharmacy.

Just beside it to the west rises the largest building on the Campus, the Natural Science Building, which houses the Departments of Botany, Geology, Forestry, Mineralogy, Zooelogy, and Psychology. This building, which was something of a departure in laboratory construction when it was completed in 1916, is built upon the unit system, and consists essentially of concrete piers, whose uniform spacing divides the rooms and laboratories into equal units, or multiples, with practically the total width between piers opening into windows. This is, in effect, a modern adaptation of the old Gothic principle, though it emphasizes the horizontal and lacks entirely the buttresses and pinnacles which gave the medieval church builders their inspiration. It marks, however, a new era in laboratory construction, for not only are the laboratories flooded with light, but they are carefully designed for the purpose for which they are to be used. It is also to be noted that each department is installed in a complete section of four floors, from basement to top. The building, which cost $375,000, has about 155,000 square feet of floor space and like the neighboring Chemistry Building is built about an open court. The same principle of construction has also been followed as far as practicable in the new Library Building.

Other buildings on the Campus which have not been mentioned elsewhere are the Physics Laboratory, the Museum, and Tappan Hall. The Physics Laboratory was built in 1886-87. Within twenty years it proved inadequate and in 1905 an addition costing $45,000 became necessary, which contains among other features a well-equipped lecture room accommodating four hundred students. Until the completion of the larger lecture room in the Natural Science Building this was in great demand for many University lectures. Tappan Hall, a class-room building, in a portion of which the Department of Education now has its headquarters, was erected in 1894-95 and stands near the southwest corner of the Campus just at the rear of Alumni Memorial Hall.

The University Museum was erected in 1881 and stands between University Hall and Alumni Memorial Hall. It is far from being the most successful of the University Buildings architecturally, and as it has been for some time entirely inadequate for the collections it houses, it will not be many years before the need for a new museum will be presented to the Legislature. In addition to the offices of the Curator, Professor A.G. Ruthven, Morningside, ’03, and his staff, the building contains the University’s zooelogical and anthropological collections, very popular with casual visitors to the Campus. The former includes a fine exhibit of mounted mammals and some 1,600 birds, as well as reptiles, fishes, mollusks and insects, in all of which particular effort has been made to show forms native to the State. The Anthropological Collection includes the entire exhibit of the Chinese Government at the New Orleans Exposition in 1885, as well as many items from China and the Philippines, collected by the Beal-Steere Expedition. The collections in geology, mineralogy, botany, materia medica, chemistry, the industrial arts, and the fine arts are to be found in the Natural Science Building and other buildings devoted to these special subjects.

For many years the original forty acres of the Rumsey farm were more than ample for the needs of the University. The Observatory, the first building to find a place apart from the Campus, was set upon its hilltop some distance northeast, because of the need of clear air and quiet; advantages now almost lost in the proximity of the hospitals, heating plant, and railroads that portends an eventual change in location. The Observatory has grown rapidly since its establishment by Dr. Tappan in 1852. The building was last remodeled and enlarged in 1911 when a reflecting telescope, with a 37-5/8 inch parabolic mirror, largely made in the shops of the University, was installed. In light gathering power this instrument is in a class with the Lick and Yerkes refractors, and it is at least as effective in astronomical photography, the purpose for which it was designed. The new brick tower, with its copper-covered dome, rises sixty feet above the basement and is forty feet in diameter.

Just beyond the Observatory, on the crest of the hills defining the Huron valley, is the largest group of university buildings off the Campus, the old University Hospitals, which are to be replaced in 1922 by the new Hospital, ground for which was broken in September, 1919. Following the erection of the first building in 1891 an office building was added in 1896 to be followed rapidly by other sections, including a children’s pavilion erected in 1901, known as the Palmer Ward, the bequest of the widow of Dr. Alonzo B. Palmer, who also left $15,000 for the maintenance of free beds in it. The entire group of buildings numbers ten, including the State Psychopathic Hospital.

The new Hospital is to be one of the largest and most completely equipped in America. It is composed of a series of wings taking the general form of a double letter “Y” connected at the stems, with a smaller office building in front and a larger wing containing laboratories, operating and class rooms at the rear. The building is 420 feet long and six stories high with provision for an additional three stories at some future time. It is built of reinforced concrete upon regularly spaced piers, and is similar in construction to the Natural Science Building.

The work of the Homeopathic Department is centered in its fine Hospital building with an adjacent Children’s Ward and Nurses’ Home just off the northeast corner of the Campus. The Dental Building, erected in 1908, is situated to the west, just across the street from the Gymnasium. It contains many laboratories and lecture rooms, as well as an operating room fitted with eighty dental chairs.

Of the other buildings off the Campus, the new Union, Hill Auditorium and the three dormitories for women are the most conspicuous. The Union, with its magnificent tower and imposing yet withal beautifully proportioned masses, has been mentioned as the dominant architectural feature of State Street. Hill Auditorium, which was made possible by a bequest of $200,000 left by Regent Arthur Hill, ’65e, of Saginaw upon his death in 1909, forms one of the unique features of the University’s equipment. Despite its seating capacity, with the stage, of over 5,000, it has almost perfect acoustic properties, so that a whisper from the stage can be heard in any portion of this great hall. Its completion in 1913 enabled the University at last to bring the great part of the students together under one roof upon such occasions as the annual convocation, the official opening of the University in the fall. The problem connected with the admission of relatives and friends of the graduating classes to the Commencement exercises, which had proved exceedingly troublesome for many years, was also at last ended; while the musical interests of Ann Arbor, particularly the annual May Festival, immediately found an opportunity for further expansion in this hall, whose advantages as a concert hall were praised by every visiting musician. The building, which is finished in tapestry brick and terra cotta, stands opposite the Natural Science Building on North University Avenue. In addition to the great auditorium, it contains offices and class rooms, a dressing-room for choruses, and a great foyer across the front of the second floor, where the Stearns collection of musical instruments, one of the finest in America, is installed. The great organ from the Chicago World’s Fair is also placed in this building as a memorial to Professor Henry S. Frieze, the pioneer in Michigan’s development as a musical center.

The University now has four dormitories or halls of residence for women. Two of them were completed in 1916; the Martha Cook Building on South University Avenue, given by the Cook family of Hillsdale, in memory of their mother, and the Newberry Hall of Residence on State Street, a memorial to Helen Handy Newberry, the wife of John S. Newberry, ’47, given by her children. The Martha Cook Building is probably the most sumptuous and complete college dormitory in America and cost something over $500,000. It is an unusually beautiful example of Tudor Gothic, always a favorite style for college buildings. Simple in its main lines it reveals an extraordinary perfection in detail as well as comfort in its appointments and a richness in decoration which cannot but have its happy influence on the one hundred and seventeen fortunate women who live there. Less elaborate but equally attractive as a home for the seventy-five girls it is built to accommodate is the Newberry Building, which, though smaller and simpler in its architecture, embodies every essential found in the larger building. It is of hollow tile and stucco and cost about $100,000. Similar in general plan and appointments, though built of brick, is the adjacent Betsy Barbour Dormitory, which was completed in 1920, the gift of Ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, ’63, ’65l, of Detroit. It stands on the site of the old ward school building on State Street, used for many years by the University as a recitation building, and soon to be razed now the new dormitory, just to the rear, is completed. Alumnae House, the fourth girls’ residence hall, was, as the name implies, furnished by the alumnae of the University. It was made over from a quaint old dwelling on Washtenaw Avenue at a cost of about $18,000, and accommodates sixteen self-supporting students.

A final group of buildings, very necessary in an institution so large as the University, is composed of the heating and lighting plant, the nearby laundry in the one-time ravine at the east of the old “Cat-hole,” and the University shops and storehouse a little distance south. The old power house near the Engineering Building was abandoned in 1914 when the new plant, situated on a lower level than the Campus and reached by a spur from the railroad, was ready for service. It cost approximately a third of a million dollars, and furnishes heat, compressed air, electrical energy, and hot water to the Campus and adjacent buildings through a series of tunnels nearly ten feet high which extend as far as the Union, half a mile across the Campus.

Aside from the smaller and the more temporary buildings and the many dwelling houses on property recently acquired, the buildings of the University number about forty. This does not include the buildings occupied by the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., or the Psychopathic Hospital, the titles to which do not rest with the Board of Regents.

Though the buildings on the Campus have not, until very recently, been placed with any careful relationship to a general scheme, and exhibit a very unfortunate lack of architectural harmony, in certain features the Campus gives promise of better things in the future. Some of the buildings have real beauty, though it is too often lost in an unfavorable environment. Charming details are to be found here and there, while the green canopy of the elms and maples planted sixty years ago helps to give our academic field a real distinction. Fortunately the center of the Campus has been left comparatively free of buildings, save for the rambling old Chemistry Building, now used by the departments of Physiology and Economics, and the plain but imposing bulk of the new Library Building, a fitting center whence paths diverge in every direction to the halls and laboratories along the avenues that mark the outer confines of the Campus. Lack of funds and the imperative need of room, and yet more room, for the thousands of new students, has severely limited the Regents in the matter of adornment of the buildings erected in recent years, which have all tended to conform to one type, simple, dignified in their very rectangular bulk, and relieved only by patterns in tapestry brick and terra cotta trimmings.

Within recent years, too, the new buildings have been carefully placed, not only with reference to the present Campus, but also the inevitable northeastward growth of the University toward the hills lining the river. For some time the Regents have been acquiring scattered parcels of property as occasion presented, and now own a good share of the land in the triangle bounded roughly by Hill Auditorium, the University Hospitals and Palmer Field, an area twice as large as the present Campus. In addition there is the University Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, a large area south and east of Forest Hill Cemetery, which is now linked up by boulevards with the rapidly growing system of city parks.

A formal entrance to the Campus in the form of a double driveway, laid out in accordance with a plan prepared in 1906 by Professor Emil Lorch of the Department of Architecture, and known as the Mall, passes between the Chemistry and Natural Science Buildings. This forms practically a continuation of Ingalls Street between Hill Auditorium and a future companion, possibly a new Museum, which will eventually be built to the east on the other corner. The impressive vista thus formed leads the eye to the massive façade of the new Library, though the Campus flagstaff, some distance in front, now marks the actual end of the new driveway. The architectural emphasis of the Campus is thus being turned to the north, but the western, or State Street side still remains the accepted front, dominated by the old-fashioned but nevertheless stately bulk of old University Hall. Within a short time State Street has become, through the fortunate removal of several unsightly old survivals of earlier days, one of the most beautiful of academic avenues, flanked on one side by the Campus, with its trees, broad spaces and dignified buildings, and by a row of public buildings on the western side, which, though sadly lacking in uniformity, are yet for the most part impressive and substantial. These include the Congregational Church, the two halls of residence for women, the older Newberry Hall, a number of fraternity houses, and particularly the commanding beauty of the Michigan Union.

It is fortunate for the University and the community that the problem of the future development of the institution in relation to the city is being carefully considered. The expansion of the Campus to the north and northeast is now established, and it is probable that at some future period the Mall, lined with monumental buildings, and laid out in co-operation with the city, will extend to the river. Ann Arbor has already taken far-sighted measures in establishing a series of boulevards and parks along the river with connecting links which will eventually encircle the town. The extensive University properties in the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, which cover the hills defining the ravine extending from the river to Geddes Avenue, and join the present enlarged University grounds at the Observatory, form part of this system. Plans are now under consideration for a rearrangement of streets, which will afford easier access from the Campus to the Hospitals and the boulevards and river drives. These will give to this portion of the future University grounds an irregularity and picturesqueness wholly lacking on the flat hilltop occupied by the present Campus. One of the difficulties in this plan is the old “Cat-hole,” the end of a ravine, whose steep hillsides extend from the river practically to the northeast corner of the Campus. Though this unsightly boghole has been gradually filled in, it still forms a blot on the landscape which might, nevertheless, with a little effort and comparatively small expense, be transformed into a charming open air theater. This in fact has been recommended by Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect, who has made an extensive study of the whole problem for the city and the University.

It is fortunate for the University that this plan for the future, tentative though it may be at present, is actually a part of a large scheme for the improvement of the city, suggested by Mr. Olmstead. Ann Arbor is fast becoming one of the most beautiful little cities in the country, with winding streets, shaded by noble maples and elms and many of the original forest oaks, and lined by substantial homes, charming in their simple architecture and setting. This development came at first, as was natural, largely from the Faculty, but an increasing number of families from Detroit and elsewhere have of late come to make Ann Arbor their permanent residence, attracted by the unusual beauty of the city and the advantages afforded by the University. The sightly range of hills along the Huron between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and about the new Barton Pond, two miles to the north and west of the city, recently developed as a water-power site, are soon to be dotted here and there with comfortable and attractive country homes, which promise to change the entire character of Ann Arbor’s environs. The little country town of the past is fast disappearing.

With these plans rapidly evolving there is every reason to hope that, at no distant period, the University may find an imposing physical setting more in keeping with her standing among American universities. The present is an era of transition; as yet she has hardly had time to adjust herself to the extraordinary growth of the last ten years; still less to realize all the problems it involves. But it requires no great vision to see the University of the future occupying at last the heights overlooking the Huron valley which that unfortunate decision at the first meeting of the Regents denied to her in 1837.