CHAPTER VI.

PRESIDENT TAPPAN'S ADMINISTRATION.

The new board of regents entered upon the duties of office on the first of January, 1852. The task to which they first gave their attention was to determine upon a suitable person for the presidency. The university had been without such an officer from the beginning of its career, for the former board had quickly decided that a chancellor, whom they were permitted to appoint by an amendment to the original act establishing the university, would prove only a useless incumbent of an unnecessary office, and there was, perhaps, a general feeling that the title was "totally unsuited to democratic simplicity."

Correspondence was at once begun, and the corresponding secretary of the board, Mr. Palmer, visited the East for the purpose of discovering the person suited to the needs of the new office. On his return to Ann Arbor he recommended the election of Dr. Henry P. Tappan, but the board preferred to offer the position to Henry Barnard, whose efforts in the direction of systematic education in Connecticut and Rhode Island had already given him a national reputation as an educator. The opposition to Dr. Tappan's election was not overcome until the 12th of August, his election coming at the end of a long contest, which had not been carried on at all times with complete serenity and good feeling. But the choice of the board finally fell on a man whose strength of character and personal worth looked down opposition and petty jealousies, and and those who had come to object and cavil remained to admire and praise.1

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1 Henry Philip Tappan was born at Rhinebeck, on the Hudson, the 18th of April, 1805. At an early age he was cast on his own resources, but by his own efforts succeeded in making his way, and at the age of sixteen entered Union College, where he took his degree in 1825. He there came under the influence of Dr. Nott, whose personality left such an ennobling impression on many young men who were students under him, and to whose inspiring example may doubtless be attributed the generous enthusiasm and broad comprehension in educational matters which characterized his three eminent pupils, Francis Wayland, Alonzo Potter, and Henry Philip Tappan, who have Seen happily compared to the triple brood of heroic sons of wise old Nestor. On leaving Union Dr. Tappan entered the theological seminary at Auburn, completed the course there, and at the age of twenty-three was settled as a pastor of the Congregational church in Pittsfield, Mass. Obliged, because of physical disabilities, to give up pastoral work, he accepted, at the age of twenty-seven, the chair of moral and intellectual philosophy in the University of the City of New York. The accept

Almost immediately things began to assume a brighter hue. President Tappan brought to his task not only ability, but enthusiasm and inspiring vigor. His early predilections for Prussian methods of edu cation he had now the opportunity of testing, and a sense of the difficulty of the undertaking served only to sharpen his zeal and whet the edge of his resolve. For, although Mr. Pierce had been filled with the same ideas of a broad education and a generous culture, in 1852 there was little to suggest European methods or to distinguish the university from a New England college with its cast-iron classical course. But still little or nothing had been done by private corporations toward preempting any portion of the broad field of educational work in the State. The idea of the Prussian system had been at least planted by the continuous assertions of its excellency by the superintendents of public instruction. The whole system of the State was at least mildly prophetic of living relationship between school and college, of the existence in fact of a single vital organism. He found encouragement therefore at the outset. It is to his especial credit that he discovered what had been done, appreciated the successes as well as the failures and the incompleteness of the past.

A young, vigorous, free, enlightened, and magnanimous people had laid the foundation of a State university; they were aiming to open to themselves one of the great fountains of civilization, of culture, of refinement, of true national grandeur and prosperity.

These were his words. He at once came into sympathetic relationship with things as they were, feeling the possibilities they contained and seeing the potentialities that were hidden. It is to his credit that ideas lying dormant or but feebly expressed were awakened to full, vigorous life at his command.

I propose then, generally, [sail he] to follow out the principles you have adopted, and perfect manfully your system of education according to those principles.

ance of this chair seems to have been a turning point in his career. Already inclined to believe that American colleges were not doing the work of higher education which it was their province to do, his experience in actual pedagogical work strengthened his belief. He now contemplated the possibility of organizing in America an institution which should be a true university, affording all the advantages of European universities. Leaving his professorship in 1838, he devoted himself for some years to literary work. In quick succession appeared Review of Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, The Doctrine of the Will Determined by an Appeal to Consciousness, and The Doctrine of the Will Applied to Moral Agency and Responsibility, and in 1844 the Elements of Logic. His mind, eminently philosophical, found congenial occupation in this work, and he was hailed in Europe by competent judges as one of the greatest of speculative philosophers. Victor Cousin said of his Logic: "It is equal to any work on this subject that has appeared in Europe." In 1851 he published a work on university education, and in 1852 a book entitled A Step from the New World to the Old. He returned from a visit to Europe in 1852 and was offered the presidency of the University of Michigan, which he accepted. He retained this office until 1863. He died at Vevay, Switzerland, November 15, 1881.

The foregoing sketch of Dr. Tappan's life was obtained from a memorial discourse by Prof, Henry S. Frieze, delivered June 28, 1882,

He called attention of the people incessantly to the fact that the State system of education already adopted must needs be made complete by the development and complete equipment of a university which would become the mainspring of the whole. So generous and comprehensive were his ideas, so complete in their scope, that the statement of Dr. Frieze, though eulogistic, is not exaggeration.

This university, whatever may be its progress towards the highest development, whatever amplitude it may attain in the variety of its departments or the diversity of its learning, will always represent, and can never go beyond the ideal held out before it by the first president.

His policy may, perhaps, be succinctly given under six heads:1 (1) He desired to develop the infant institution with its two departments, into a genuine university, such as he was familiar with in Germany; “a university worthy of the name, with a capacity adequate to our wants, receiving a development commensurate with the growth of all things. around us." (2) As a great means for the accomplishment of desired success, every chair ought to be filled by a man of exceptional ability and of thorough training; the best man in his specialty that could be obtained. (3) The requirements for admission to the various departments of the university should be the same, thus giving to all departments the culture and broad basis for technical learning which are necessary in the life of an ideal university. (4) Recommended changes must be made slowly, lest sudden transformation destroy rather than add and amend. As soon as possible, however, (5) the present schoolmaster methods and strict disciplinary tactics must be discontinued, and such work and methods be relegated to the high schools and academies of the State. A university should be the home of real university work, conducted on real university methods. The fixed four-year course of the literary department and its frigid rigidity must give place to a more liberal and inspiring system. (6) But while every effort must be made to elevate the university and extend its curriculum, constant care must be taken not to separate the university from the preparatory schools, but carefully and considerately to raise the schools and keep that union which is absolutely essential to the best interests of both. He urged continually upon the legislature and the public that in a State whose school system was one the legislature, while dealing generously with other schools of the State, should not forget that the university was an essential member of the educational body.

The new president entered upon his duties almost entirely untrammeled by the difficulties of the preceding board and faculty. Dr. Williams was reëlected to the chair of mathematics and natural philosopay; James R. Boise became professor of the Latin and Greek languages. In December of 1852, Rev. Erastus O. Haven was made profes

See "The University of Michigan," by Charles Mills Gayley, in Descriptive America, August, 1884; also Memorial address by Dr. Henry S. Frieze, pp. 31 et seq.

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sor of Latin, and Mr. Boise's title was changed to that of Professor of the Greek language and literature. Drs. Douglas and Sager were also members of the faculty, as well as Mr. Fasquelle, who had retained his position amid the turmoils of the succeeding year.

Almost immediately upon the arrival of the president steps were taken, at his solicitation, for the increase of the library. A sum subscribed by the citizens of Ann Arbor purchased 1,200 new volumes. The citizens of Detroit gave evidence of newly awakened interest by giving $10,000 for an observatory, the chief subscriber to the fund being Hon. Henry N. Walker. The observatory was built and equipped at an expense of about $22,000, the regents making appropriations to cover the expenses not met by the gift of the Detroit citizens, who, as the work progressed, increased the sum given to $15,000. Professor Brunnow, an assistant of Professor Encke, of Berlin, was called to the directorship of the observatory. His most eminent pupil was James C. Watson, who afterwards became known wherever astronomy was studied as a science, and whose brilliant discoveries added so much to the sum of astronomical knowledge, as well as to the fame of the university with which he was connected for so many years in the capacity of professor of astronomy and director of the observatory.

Steadily, during President Tappan's time, the faculty was increased as the increased needs of the growing university demanded. In the autumn of 1854 Henry S. Frieze, of Providence, R. I., was elected to the chair of Latin, a position he continued to fill until his death in December, 1889. The influence of Dr. Frieze in popularizing classical learning in the West, and in bringing the common schools of the Western States to a proper appreciation and recognition of sound literary and classical education, has been gracefully stated in a recent article by one who in his younger days was Dr. Frieze's familiar friend and colleague. Andrew D. White, since president of Cornell University, became professor of history and English literature in the autumn of 1857. Under the enthusiastic direction of the first professor of history that department of the university took abiding form. At a time, therefore, when scarcely a university or collge in the country was graced with such a professorship, precedents of sound learning and enthusiastic research were established. These were carried out in the spirit of their founder, and widely and generously developed by Charles K. Adams, who in 1867 succeeded Mr. White in the chair of history, and has more rece.itly succeeded him in the work of managing the affairs of the young and vigorous university in western New York.

In 1854, Alexander Winchell was made professor of engineering and Corydon L. Ford became professor of anatomy. Such a list of additions to the faculty as were made during President Tappan's adminis tration gives the ring of truth to the saying that not stones and mortar but teachers and students make the great university. In all these