The University of Michigan | Page 8

throughout the world, as is shown by the numerous foreign delegations which have visited the University in recent years for the purpose of studying our educational system. As for the plans outlined by Pierce, which were quickly approved by the Legislature in March, 1837, we can best quote President Angell when he said fifty years later: "Our means have not yet enabled us to execute in all particulars the comprehensive plan which was framed by Mr. Pierce."
There was no precedent in America for the task set him. Eight of the new states, it is true, had accepted federal grants of land but had failed in the trust thus imposed, and the feeble schools they supported offered no more guidance than Michigan's two experiments in Detroit. The field was practically virgin soil, actually as well as metaphorically; the problem was the effective organization of a university on the basis of the land given by the Government to the State for this purpose.
The answer was the Organic Act of the University of Michigan approved March 18, 1837. In essentials it provided for a Board of Regents with a Chancellor who should be ex-officio President. Of the Regents twelve were to be nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, while the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, the Judges of the Supreme Court, and the Chancellor of the State were to be members ex-officio. The University was to consist of a Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, a Department of Law, and a Department of Medicine. The professorships were specified and it is significant that, in addition to the usual branches taught in those days, such as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Theology, provision was also made for professorships in Chemistry, Geology, Botany, Fine Arts, and Civil Engineering and Architecture. A limiting clause, however, was incorporated in this ambitious scheme, which provided that only so many professorships should be filled at first as the needs of the institution warranted. While the immediate government of the University was to be entrusted to the respective Faculties, the Regents had final authority in the regulation of courses and the selection of textbooks, and were empowered to remove any professor, tutor, or other officer, when in their judgment the interests of the University required it. The fees were to be $10 for residents of the State. A Board of Visitors was also to be appointed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction to make a personal examination of the University and report to him their observations and recommendations. It was also provided that such branches of the University were to be established in different parts of the State as might from time to time be authorized by the Legislature. These branches, however, were not to confer degrees, though they were to have Departments of Agriculture in connection and also an "institution for the education of females in the higher branches of knowledge, whenever suitable buildings should be provided for them." The funds for these branches were to be appropriated from the University Fund in sums proportionate to the number of scholars.
Shortly after the first meeting of the Board of Regents in 1837, the Legislature, following some of their suggestions, modified the University Act in certain particulars; abolishing the Chancellorship of the Board of Regents and making the Governor the President of that body, at the same time directing the Regents to elect a Chancellor of the University who should not be a member of the Board. This act also gave the Regents power to assign the duties of vacant professorships to any professor already appointed and to establish branches in the different counties without further legislative authority. The Board was also authorized to purchase philosophical apparatus, a library, and a cabinet of natural history.
These were the essential provisions for the University. With so novel a scheme the Regents and the Legislature naturally had to proceed on a more or less cut and try method, but those at all familiar with the organization of the present institution will recognize familiar features in this first plan. One of the practical problems which faced those who held the fate of the University in their charge was the question as to where students, sufficiently trained in the higher branches, were to be found in a state which numbered, all told, not more than 100,000 souls, scattered for the most part in little frontier settlements. This explains the provisions for the branches, which were to be in effect the high schools from which the University was to draw its students. For a time this was the actual development; but after the branches were discontinued, high schools, supported by the various towns of the State, came into existence and were eventually bound to the University through the admission of their students