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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 378 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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UNIVERSITY OF

MICHIGAN  , one of the
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principal educational institutions of the
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United States, situated at
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Ann Arbor, Michigan . It embraces a department of literature, science and the arts (including industry and commerce), opened in 1841, and including a graduate school, organized in 1892; a department of
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medicine and surgery, opened in 185o; a department of law, opened in 1859; a school of
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pharmacy, opened as a
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separate department in 1876; a 'homoeopathic medical college, opened in 1875; a college of dental surgery, opened in 1875; and a department of
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engineering, separately organized in 1895, which includes courses in marine engineering, architecture, and architectural engineering . The university was one of the first to admit
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women, having opened its doors to them in 1870 as a natural consequence of its receiving aid from the state (since 1867), and since 1900 they have constituted nearly one-
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half of the student
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body in the department of literature, science and the arts . In 1907-1908 there were in all departments 350 instructors and 5013 students (1796 in the department of literature, science and the arts; 1354 in the department of engineering; 391 in the department of medicine and surgery; 791 in the department of law; Tor in the school of pharmacy; 82 in the homoeopathic medical college; 168 in the college of dental surgery; and 1070 in the summer sessions) . Besides the several main department buildings there is a library
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building, a museum building, several laboratories, a gymnasium for men, and a gymnasium for women . The general library in 1908 contained 172,940 volumes, 3800
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pamphlets, and 3370 maps, and the several department
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libraries brought the
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total up to 222,600 volumes and 5000 pamphlets . The general museum contains large zoological collections,
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geological and anthropological collections, including the exhibit of the Chinese government at the New Orleans Exposition, which was given by the government to the university in 1885; there are besides several
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special collections in some of the laboratories . The astronomical
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observatory is surmounted by a movable dome in which is mounted a refracting
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telescope having a thirteen-inch
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object glass . The several laboratories are equipped for use in instruction in physics, chemistry,
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mineralogy, geology, zoology, psychology, botany, forestry, actuarial
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work, engineering, histology, physiology, hygiene, electrotherapeutics, pathology, anatomy and dentistry . The university is governed from without by a board of eight regents elected by popular suffrage, two biennially, at the same time as the election of judges of the supreme court; fromwithin .the government is to a large extent in the hands of a university senate, in which the faculty of each department is represented . The university is maintained by a permanent annuity of $30,000, derived from the
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land set apart for it by the Ordinance of 1787, by the proceeds of a three-eighths mill tax, and by small fees paid by the students . Its organic relation to the other public
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schools of the state was well established in 1870, when it was provided that graduates from such high schools as had been examined and approved by a committee of the university should be admitted without examination; one of the most important functions of the university is to prepare students for teaching in the high schools .

The first

charter for a university within what is now the state was granted by the governor and judges of the Territory of Michigan in 1817, for a " Catholepistemiad," or University of Michigania, with a remarkable " Greek "
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system of nomenclature for its courses and faculties; this institution did practically no teaching . A second charter was granted in 1821, for a University of Michigan in
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Detroit; but little was accomplished until the
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admission of Michigan into the Union as a state in 1837, when by the third charter the aim was to model the institution after the German university minus the theological department, and the university was entrusted to a board of regents and a chancellor appointed by the governor . Branches to correspond to the German gymnasia were established in the principal towns before any
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money was spent on the University proper, but the question of the constitutionality of ,their establishment and maintenance arose, and they were soon discontinued . Plans for building at Ann Arbor were begun in 1838 . The first class graduated in 1845 . The department of literature, science and the arts was at first much like a New England college . For some time the prospects did not seem promising; but in 1851 a new state constitution provided that the regents should be elected, and directed them to choose a president; and it was under the administration (1852-1863) of the first incumbent of that office, Henry Philip Tappan (18o5-1881), that the
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present broad and liberal basis was established . Although he was a Presbyterian clergyman, he. endeavoured at the outset to substitute the tests of scholarship for those of religion; at the same time a scientific course was introduced, courses in pedagogy followed, and in 1878 the elective system, which has since rapidly
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expanded, was established . President Tappan was succeeded in 1863 by Erastus Otis Haven (1820-1881), who resigned in 1869, and was succeeded temporarily (1869-1871) by Professor Henry S .
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Frieze (1817-1889), and in 1871 by James Burrill Angell (b . 1829),1 who resigned in 1909 . In 1871-1872 the German seminar method was introduced in graduate work in
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history, by Prof .

Charles Kendall Adams (1835-1902), afterwards president of Cornell University (1885-1892) and of the University of Wisconsin (1892-1902) . See B . A . Hinsdale and I . N . Demmon, History of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1906) ; Elizabeth M . Farrand, History of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1885) ; and The Quarter Centennial of the
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Presidency of James Burrill Angell (Ann Arbor, 1896) .

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