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The history of the University of Michigan might properly be said to begin in 1817. It is true that the University seal proclaims 1837 as the year of its birth, but the present institution is only a successor of two previous incarnations in Detroit, which were its direct predecessors. The State Supreme Court, in fact, held in 1856 that the corporate existence of the University began with the Act of the 26th of August, 1817, and has been continuous throughout all the subsequent changes of the organic law.

It would be difficult, however, to recognize the present University in that curiosity of educational history established by the Act of 1817 under the sonorous title of the "Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania." This institution, in effect designed to be a university, was to be composed of thirteen didaxiim, or professorships, of such branches as Catholepistemia or Universal Science, Anthropoglossica or Literature, Physiosophica or Natural Philosophy, Polemitactica or Military Science, and Ennœica or Intellectual Sciences, which embraced all the Epistimiim or "Sciences relative to the minds of animals, to the human mind, to spiritual existences, to the Deity, and to religion." It is worthy of note also that Chemistry, Medicine, and Political Economy were provided for under the names of Chymia, Iatrica, and Œconomica. This scheme, which was prepared by Augustus B. Woodward, Presiding Judge of the territorial Supreme Court, went further than this provision for the University, however, for it contemplated as well a complete state educational system, with subordinate colleges, academies, schools, libraries, museums, athenæums, botanical gardens, laboratories and "other useful literary and scientific Institutions consonant with the laws of the United States and of Michigan." These the President and the Didactors were to provide for, as well as for Directors, Visitors, Curators, Librarians, Instructors and "Instructrixes" throughout the various counties, cities, towns, townships, or other geographical divisions of Michigan.

To support this grand scheme, the public taxes were to be increased fifteen percent, and a provision, which seems strangely unacademic to the college community of a century later, was made for four successive lotteries from which the Catholepistemiad might retain fifteen percent of the prizes for its own use. Two of these lotteries apparently were drawn.

The institution which arose in the shade of this immense growth of pseudo-classical verbiage was a very modest undertaking indeed and developed little beyond the primary school and classical academy first established. These were housed in a little building in Detroit, twenty-four by fifty feet, on the west side of Bates Street near Congress, afterward occupied by one of the branches of the University. Scarcely more ambitious was the faculty of two men, the Rev. John Monteith, a Presbyterian clergyman who was President and seven-fold didactor, and Father Gabriel Richard, a Catholic priest who was Vice-President and incumbent of the other six didaxiim.

The Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania A photograph of the original outline in Judge Woodward's handwriting; now in the University Library

Absurd as was the terminology and ridiculous as were its vast pretensions in view of the little French-Canadian community it served, nevertheless, the educational scheme which the act outlined was of great significance in the future development of education in the State. It was one of the first plans in America for a complete educational program to be supported by the people of a state.[1] Its sources were to be found, undoubtedly, in the strong influence of French thought on contemporary American life, for this scheme was but a copy of the highly centralized organization of state instruction which Napoleon gave to France in the Imperial University of 1806–08. As Professor Hinsdale says, "the ponderous name belonged to organized public education." Four years later, another act established in Detroit "an University for the purpose of educating youth" as the successor of the Catholepistemiad, with little change in the broad and liberal outline of the plan save in two particulars—a change from classical to English nomenclature and the substitution of a Board of Trustees for the self-governing President and Didactors of the earlier scheme.

Michigan at this time was on the far edge of civilization; it was not even organized as a territory until the year 1805. In 1800 the total population was only 3,757, while in 1817 it could not have been more than 7,000. The inhabitants of Detroit only numbered 1,442 in 1820. Aside from the Indians, who for many years were to be a not inconsiderable portion of the population, the early inhabitants were all French settlers whose main business was fur trading. With the first years of the nineteenth century, however, there came a constantly increasing stream of "Bostonians," as the men from the East were called. They were not welcomed at first, although their enterprise and education were to transform Michigan within a surprisingly short period into one of the most progressive of the new states. Nevertheless this growth was at first slow and it was not until Michigan became a state in 1837 that the rapid increase in settlers from New York and New England changed so completely the character of the people that it became in a few years a predominantly agricultural, instead of a primitive fur-trading community. The rapidity of this movement towards the West, once begun, was most fortunate, as the settlers from the older states in the East were enabled to put into effect immediately their own training in the schools of New York and New England for the benefit of their children. This is one of the underlying causes of Michigan's success; whereas other states, whose settlement began earlier, failed through the lowering of the standards of education inevitable in the hard life of the generation succeeding the first pioneers.

The initial public support of education in Michigan, as in all of the new states west of the Alleghenies, came from the important provision made by the Federal Government in 1785 for a system of surveys of the public lands. These had eventually been deeded to the Government by the different states as the only practicable settlement of conflicting claims which at one time promised to disrupt the new confederation. Their acquisition by the nation and their eventual division and admission to the Union as states contributed not a little to the strengthening of the central authority at a time when it was a vital necessity. The first survey of these lands provided, as is well known, for division into townships six miles square, to be again sub-divided into thirty-six lots one mile square called sections. The provision of this ordinance of particular interest in this connection is the following: "There shall be reserved the lot Number 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within the said township."

In the Ordinance of 1787, providing for the administration of the Northwest Territory, we have only the familiar general declaration that: "Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," but an ordinance adopted ten days later provided that in addition to the school lot in every township: "Not more than two complete townships are to be given perpetually for the purposes of a University, to be laid off by the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the same shall be of good land to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State." This was the fundamental action which made possible the foundation of the University of Michigan almost at the same time that the State was admitted to the Union.

For the most part the story of the land grants under this provision is an unfortunate one of speculation, misappropriations, and sale by venal Legislatures, whose only excuse was probably their inexperience and lack of vision; and the natural desire of the people to benefit at once from the endowment these lands represented. Michigan had her troubles in common with the other new states, but she did manage to acquire enough from these lands eventually to give the University needed support in her very lean early years. Their history, therefore, is not without interest. When Indiana territory was divided by Congress in 1804 into the three districts corresponding to the present states of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, one township was reserved in each for a seminary of learning. This, in Michigan, was increased in 1826 to two townships, which might be located by sections in any of the districts surveyed. Even more important was a measure approved by Congress in 1836 which permitted the State to control the selection, administration, and even eventual sale of these sections with no reference to the limits of the Congressional townships, thus permitting their consolidation into one state fund. This precedent has been followed by all the states entering the Union since 1837.

The plan of making a state trust of the public lands was a good one—on paper. But with the rapidly growing population, envious eyes were soon cast on these tracts by immigrants, many of whom settled on these sections as squatters, to make endless trouble in the future with their conflicting claims. The first lands definitely set aside were selected by the Trustees of the old University of Detroit in 1827 within the limits of what is now the city of Toledo. The selection could not have been better, consisting in all of some 960 acres, but most unfortunately the best part was exchanged in 1830, on the representation of land-sharks, for poorer land and the land thus received was sold four years later for $5,000. The remainder was disposed of fifteen years later for about $19 an acre, bringing to the University a total of some $17,000 for land which eventually came to be worth, literally, millions. Meanwhile other tracts were being located in all the counties of the State then organized. Soon after Michigan became a state, the Superintendent of Public Instruction made an inventory of these which showed that at $15 an acre they would bring a fund of $691,200 and an annual income to the University of $48,384. At $20, which he thought might easily represent their value, they would bring an annual income of $64,912. The first sale justified his optimism, as the price averaged $22.85 an acre, though only one-fourth of the purchase money was paid in cash. But the people of the State soon began to murmur; they were not interested in continuing these big reservations of choice land for an object so remote as a university. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, moreover, found himself involved in all kinds of trouble with the purchasers. The matter finally came up to the Legislature under the guise of a bill for the relief of certain settlers on university and other state lands, which would have thrown these sections on the market at a nominal price and insured the squatters permanent tenure. The bill was a short-sighted and vicious one and was promptly vetoed by the young Governor, Stevens T. Mason, because he felt these lands were given to the State as a sacred trust. In this courageous action he performed one of the greatest of his many services to the University.

But the Legislature had a different idea as to the sacredness of the trust. Various measures were passed, lengthening the time of deferred payment, successively lowering the minimum price at which the lands were to be sold and eventually in 1841 making the minimum price of $12 retroactive. Under this measure, $35,651 were actually returned or credited to purchasers. When the lands were all sold the average price realized was not quite $12 an acre, resulting in a fund of some $547,000 from which the University now derives an annual income of $38,433.44. While this amount is by no means as large as was hoped for in those early days, this income, if it had been available in the first years, would have helped the struggling institution materially.

To most of us this dissipation of what might have been, with more careful and conservative management, a magnificent endowment seems almost a tragedy. But there is another side. Michigan was far more fortunate in her disposal of these public lands than any of her contemporaries and obtained more than twice the amount realized from any other state lands in the Northwest. For example, Wisconsin only realized $150,000 from her 72 sections, while others fared worse instead of better. Michigan is regarded in this respect as a model, instead of a horrible example. Then, too, the early sale of the land was imperative if the University was to live. The income from this source was almost its sole support except the exceedingly slender student fees. We must conclude, therefore, that the Government grants performed their function; thanks to them we still have a University and still receive a respectable income from the fund which represents their sale.

The Constitution prepared for the prospective State by the Convention of 1835 provided for a University and authorized its immediate establishment upon the adoption of the Constitution. This provision was the result of the joint labors of two men whose memory will always be held in honor by the University;—John D. Pierce, a graduate of Brown University and a missionary in the service of the Presbyterian Church, who was then about forty years old, and General Isaac Edwin Crary, a graduate of Trinity College, Connecticut (1827), who, with his bride, made his home with Pierce in the tiny backwoods settlement of Marshall. They were both men of unusual caliber and were interested vitally in the affairs of the territory, particularly educational questions. Many are the discussions these two must have held, to which a stray copy of a translation of M. Victor Cousin's report on "The State of Public Instruction in Prussia," made to the French ministry of Public Instruction, which fell into the hands of Pierce, certainly contributed not a little. Here was the account of a state system of public instruction which was under successful operation. These men were familiar with the previous experiments in the Michigan of territorial days and with the efforts in other states in this direction, but nowhere could they find the practical help they needed. The few colleges in the country were practically all privately endowed institutions, having no organic connection with the secondary schools, to say nothing of the rare public high schools. Thus the orderly and consistent development of a state school system in Prussia had a peculiar appeal to these pioneers who were already considering the outline of the educational system in the State of Michigan to be.

Stevens T. Mason (1812–1843)	John D. Pierce (1797–1882)
Zina Pitcher (1797–1872)	Samuel Denton (1803–1860)