Читать книгу The University of Michigan - Wilfred Byron Shaw - Страница 16

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Dr. Angell, fresh from his work in the East as Professor of Modern Languages at Brown University, war-time editor of the Providence Journal, and President of the University of Vermont, came to Michigan eight years after the departure of President Tappan. The Faculty of thirty-five which greeted him was a brilliant company, though small in comparison with a roll over ten times as long when he resigned his office. The catalogue of 1871 shows 1,110 students in the University at that time; at the end of his term of office there were 5,223. The thirty-eight years of his administration not only covered a significant period in the history of American education but it was as well a critical time in the life of the University. In the years between 1871 and 1909 the University showed, once for all, that the experiment involved in its establishment, the popularization of education and the maintenance of a school system and a university by the State, was not only justified but even more, it was extraordinarily successful.

While the University might have developed much as it has without the guidance of President Angell, it may be questioned whether it would have been as effective as a leader in the new movement. The principles which underlie the state university system were stated well by the founders, who incorporated the fundamental idea of popular education in the first constitution of the State, and Michigan's first great President, Chancellor Tappan, tried his best to make them practical. But he was ahead of his time, and it was not until President Angell took the helm that there was progress towards a true University. When he came Michigan was still in many respects little more than a collection of colleges. It was the work of Dr. Angell to build, and to build well, upon foundations already laid; to harmonize, with practical idealism and diplomacy, the advanced ideals of the University with the slower progress of the Commonwealth. While it has come to be no reproach upon the fame of Dr. Tappan that he failed in just this particular, it is the great achievement of Dr. Angell that he succeeded. He made Michigan the model for all succeeding state universities.

The new President was born in Scituate, R.I., January 7, 1829, of good New England stock. Throughout his youth he lived the simple life of a country boy, attending the village school, the academy of one Isaac Fiske, a Quaker pedagogue—until he was ready for more advanced studies at the academies of Seekonk, Mass., and North Scituate.

This early training, in his later estimation, furnished the best possible instruction, because it involved personal attention from special instructors, a good old-fashioned method which the rapid development of this country has made almost impossible, yet a practice for which he stood consistently as far as possible throughout his whole career as an educator. In speaking of his early schooling he said that "no plan had been marked out for me; being fond of study and almost equally fond of all branches, I took nearly everything that was taught, merely because it was taught."

His health as a boy, however, was delicate, giving small promise of his hale and hearty fourscore years, and he spent perforce two years, from fourteen to sixteen, on a farm. As to the value of this experience, far from uncommon in the lives of many men eminent in the history of this country, he said, "I prize very highly the education I received then. I learned how much backache a dollar earned in the field represents." He prepared for Brown University at a "grammar school" in Providence, where he studied under Henry S. Frieze, destined to become his immediate predecessor in the Presidency of Michigan. He was graduated from Brown, with highest honors, in 1849.

This early New England training was particularly fortunate for one who was to come into such close relationship with the pioneer settlers of Michigan—New Englanders to a very large extent. Equally fortunate was his later training. His first residence abroad, where he acquired the familiarity with modern languages which fitted him for his first professorship, had been preceded by a year as assistant in the library at Brown University; then he became tutor, and later a student of civil engineering in the office of the city engineer of Boston. In fact, he spent this period to such advantage that later, upon his return from Europe, he was given the choice of a professorship either in civil engineering or modern languages, an evidence of the wide range of his interests. He finally chose modern languages as his subject, and entered upon his career as a teacher, where he developed the highest qualifications. He remained at Brown for seven years.

Many articles and reviews published in the Providence Journal justified his selection in 1860 as the editor of that paper, a position which he held throughout the Civil War with singular distinction.

In 1866, Dr. Angell was offered the Presidency of the University of Vermont, and he accepted it. He took charge of the University when its fortunes were at a low ebb, and the future was not bright. It was due to the administrative ability of the new President as well as to his ripe experience and culture that the day was saved and Vermont prospered, intellectually and financially, during the five years of his administration.

Of his decision to come to Michigan, Dr. Angell said twenty-five years later: "While, with much embarrassment, I was debating the question in my own mind whether I should come here, I fell in with a friend who had very large business interests, and he made this very suggestive remark to me: 'Given the long lever, it is no harder to lift a big load than it is with a shorter one to lift a smaller load.' I decided to try the end of the longer lever."

James Burrill Angell was inaugurated President of the University of Michigan in June, 1871. From that time his life was the life of the University except for interludes of diplomatic service in China, Turkey, and upon various commissions. His diplomatic career, though only incidental to his life work as an educator, showed that he possessed the necessary qualifications for what might well have been a very distinguished career in other fields. At the time of his appointment to China as Minister Plenipotentiary, diplomatic relations in the East were decidedly indirect and characteristically Oriental. It had just taken Germany two years to conclude a rather unimportant commercial treaty, and upon his arrival at Peking his colleagues in the diplomatic service laughed at him for supposing that his one year's leave of absence would suffice for his far more important mission. Yet the revision of the Burlingame treaty, restricting the importation of cheap coolie labor into this country, which he sought, was accomplished within two months. Another important commercial treaty relative to the importation of opium was likewise completed at the same time. He was also successful in his mission to Turkey in 1898 and as a member of the Alaska Fisheries and other international commissions.

But his heart was in his work at Ann Arbor, and thither he always returned despite flattering temptations to enter diplomatic life. A great opportunity lay before him when he took up his new duties and he recognized it. It was his task to bring the State, exemplified in particular by a not always sympathetic Legislature, and by a Board of Regents of continually varying complexion, to a realization of the true function of a university supported by the State. He must arouse the enthusiasm for education and learning which he knew lay deep in the hearts of the people of Michigan. As Professor Charles Kendall Adams, later President of Cornell and Wisconsin, said: "What was called for first of all was the creation and dissemination of an appreciative public opinion that would produce, in some way or other, the means necessary for the adequate support of the University." So well did Dr. Angell accomplish this purpose that of late years he loved to dwell, in his speeches before the alumni, upon what he chose to call the "passion for education" on the part of the people of the State, forgetting utterly the yeoman service he performed all his life toward bringing about that same regard for popular education.

It is true that the foundation and declaration of the educational ideals of the West cannot be ascribed to him. Nevertheless he must be regarded, more than any other one man, as the successful pilot who avoided the difficulties which the very novelty of the situation presented. The comparative freedom from precedent offered an unrivaled opportunity to try new theories in education, and was a continual temptation to try policies which must have proved too advanced for the place and the time.