The Study of History at the University of Michigan.

"The University of Michigan," says President Haven in his inaugural address, "is the oldest, largest and most flourishing of the class of institutions that may rightly be regarded as State universities." This statement was true for America in 1863, and is true to-day. In its origin, the University of Michigan is at once a national and State institution. It owes its existence primarily to the far-sighted national policy, first declared in the ordinance of 1787, whereby it was provided for the great Northwestern Territory that "schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged." This principle was reasserted upon the organization of the Territory of Michigan in 1804-05, and took a practical form in the reservation by act of Congress of a township of land for the support of a university. Its first foundations, therefore, were national. No steps were taken by the government towards university organization until the year 1817, when an act was passed establishing the "University of Michigan," and providing for thirteen professorships, including one for the historical sciences, or "diegetica," as they were called in the pedantic scheme of Judge Woodward, the framer of the act. The method of supplying the faculty was unique. A Scotch Presbyterian minister, John Monteith, was given six professors, in addition to the presidency; while Gabriel Richard, the Roman Catholic bishop of the Territory, took the six remaining chairs. In 1821 this preliminary organization was repealed and a board of twenty-one trustees, including the Scotch parson and a Catholic bishop, was appointed by the Territorial legislature with full powers to organize the University. But the Territory had no ready money to give to the cause of higher education. The choice of a township was so restricted that good lands could not be found in one block. Again Congress came to the aid of the educational cause, and in 1826 granted two townships instead of one, with the privilege of selecting the entire amount of land in detached portions from any part of the public domain not previously granted. Upon this wise and generous provision, and upon the good choice made of land rests the national endowment of the University of Michigan. The institution of a department of history and English literature, in 1855, at the University of Michigan was one of the first academic recognition's of history in this country. At this time Harvard stood alone in the honor of a distinctly endowed historical professorship. Yale bad no historical professorship until 1865. Columbia College called Dr. Francis Lieber to its new professorship of Historical and Political Science in 1857, the year after Dr. Haven's first retirement from academic life. During the first of his two years at the University of Michigan, Dr. Haven appears to have taught history to scientific students throughout their freshman course, devoting the first of the three terms to chronology and general history; the second to special history, embracing the leading epochs with particular attention to modern times; the third term was given to the philosophy of history. It was early recognized at Ann Arbor that the college curriculum through the modifying influence of the elective system, actually represented two kinds of training, collegiate and university, or gymnastic and scientific. While the early part of the entire course was given up to a variety of required studies for the purpose of general culture, the latter part of the curriculum opened the way to specialization by offering elective courses in which the student might work out his natural bent. In point of age the average American student in a first-class college is further advanced at the end of his sophomore year than the average German student when he enters the University from the gymnasium. The actual facts in the American college situations were clearly seen at Columbia College and in the University of Michigan, and it was determined to mediate between the gymnastic period and the graduate period of study by making the latter part of the college course a natural transition to the University. At Columbia this process of specialization is allowed to begin at the end of the junior year; in Ann Arbor at the end of the sophomore year. Harvard has deliberately converted her entire curriculum into elective courses arranged in proper sequence for certain departments. Whatever may become of the old baccalaureate degree, it is perfectly plain that the older and better American colleges are evolving into universities. Whether the old-fashioned A. B. will give way to the masters and doctors degree, or be conferred at an earlier period in the University course or be given as a graduate certificate by first-class gymnasia, like Phillips Exeter Academy, is an interesting problem.