276 AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR- II 



of Michigan from the leading institutions of the East 

 were that it was utterly unsectarian, that various courses 

 of instruction were established, and that options were al 

 lowed between them. On these accounts that university 

 holds a most important place in the history of American 

 higher education ; for it stands practically at the beginning 

 of the transition from the old sectarian college to the 

 modern university, and from the simple, single, cast-iron 

 course to the form which we now know, in which various 

 courses are presented, with free choice between them. The 

 number of students was about five hundred, and the fac 

 ulty corresponded to these in numbers. Now that the 

 university includes over four thousand students, with a 

 faculty in proportion, those seem the days of small 

 things ; but to me at that period it was all very grand. It 

 seemed marvelous that there were then very nearly as 

 many students at the University of Michigan as at Yale ; 

 and, as a rule, they were students worth teaching hardy, 

 vigorous, shrewd, broad, with faith in the greatness of 

 the country and enthusiasm regarding the nation J s future. 

 It may be granted that there was, in many of them, a 

 lack of elegance, but there was neither languor nor cyni 

 cism. One seemed, among them, to breathe a purer, 

 stronger air. Over the whole institution Dr. Tappan pre 

 sided, and his influence, both upon faculty and students, 

 was, in the main, excellent. He sympathized heartily with 

 the work of every professor, allowed to each great liberty, 

 yet conducted the whole toward the one great end of de 

 veloping a university more and more worthy of our 

 country. His main qualities were of the best. Nothing 

 could be better than his discussions of great questions of 

 public policy and of education. One of the noblest ora 

 tions I have ever heard was an offhand speech of his on 

 receiving for the university museum a cast of the Laocoon 

 from the senior class; yet this speech was made without 

 preparation, and in the midst of engrossing labor. He 

 often showed, not only the higher qualities required in a 

 position like his, but a remarkable shrewdness and tact in 



