Just at present Michigan probably
has the largest body of alumni of any university in
the country. The total number of graduates in
January, 1920, was 34,817, of whom 28,901 were living,
while the total of graduates and former students was
60,463. Of this number 11,420 were known to be
deceased. The number of addresses on the University
lists at that time was 43,783. There are several
reasons for this large alumni body. In the first
place few universities have many living graduates of
the classes which graduated before 1850; Michigan’s
oldest graduates at present are George W. Carter,
’53m, of Boulder, Colorado, and John E. Clark,
’56, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Yale.
After her first few years Michigan had as many students
enrolled as most of the other institutions of that
time, while the extraordinary growth of the Medical
and Law Schools in the period just after the Civil
War probably gave her the largest number of students
in any university.
This, with the great increase which
has come to all universities and particularly the
state institutions within the last twenty years or
so, has given Michigan an unusually large body of
alumni. There are, however, a number of universities,
notably Columbia, California, and Chicago, which have
had a very large enrolment of late years, and it is
not unlikely that within a few years their alumni catalogues
will contain more names than Michigan’s.
It may be remarked in connection with the relatively
large proportion of those who have not received degrees,
about 42 percent of the total, that this number has
been increased by war-time conditions, and that judging
from former records it is about ten percent higher
than in more normal times.
Michigan has always taken an especial
pride in the fact that, although a state university,
her student body has been recruited almost as much
from the rest of the country as from Michigan; while
there has always been a not inconsiderable proportion
of students from foreign countries. This national
enrolment has had a broadening and stimulating effect
upon the student body and has given the University
a powerful influence throughout the country.
Her graduates are to be found in every state in the
Union, though they are probably proportionately stronger
in the states west of the Mississippi, whose development
came just in time to attract the enterprising and
vigorous youth who had his future to make and gladly
seized the opportunity to grow up with the new country.
Michigan, with her low tuition charges, even for non-residents,
and her equally moderate cost of living, has been
also pre-eminently a college for students of limited
means. Thus, while there are many men of wealth
among her alumni, they are almost all men who have
made their own way, and have a position in their communities
corresponding to their energy and proved ability.
For some years the attendance from
Michigan, though it is somewhat greater now, has averaged
55 percent. This is unusually significant when
the great extent of the State is considered, particularly
since most of the students from the Northern Peninsula
usually pass through three other states to reach Ann
Arbor. Not less worthy of note is the fact that
only about 39 percent of the graduates of the University
live within the State, proof positive that Michigan,
in sending her students abroad, is performing a great
service for the country. The percentages of alumni
in other states is also not without interest, for while
the neighboring states of Illinois and Ohio claim
about 8 percent and Indiana 3.7 percent, New York
has 6 percent of Michigan’s graduates, while
Pennsylvania has 3.5 percent, and California 3.2 percent.
About 2.5 percent of Michigan’s former students,
or 1,093, live in foreign countries. Of these
318 are in Canada, 126 in China, 62 in Great Britain,
61 in South America, 51 in Africa, and 46 in Japan.
Of the United States dependencies, 66 are in Porto
Rico, 54 in the Philippines, and 17 in Alaska.
These figures might easily be increased were the addresses
of all alumni found, as there are, no doubt, a large
number of “unknowns” in foreign countries.
Of the total number of graduates and foreign students
for whom the University has addresses, 36,492 are men
and 7,291 are women.
This great body of alumni is in itself
a powerful asset for the University; but the active
interest and spirit of co-operation of the individual
alumnus ordinarily needs a certain stimulus. This
is supplied through the organization of the graduates
into a general Alumni Association, as well as into
local associations in most of the larger cities, and
also through the organization of the various classes.
This general scheme is followed in almost every American
university, and forms one of the most significant
of present-day developments. For the most part
it is a comparatively recent evolution. Though
the graduates of the earlier American colleges had
a certain influence on the policies and growth of
their institutions, it is only within the last twenty-five
years that these associations have become a factor
of recognized importance in every university.
In fact this development is so recent that its significance
is not sufficiently realized, least of all perhaps
by the alumni themselves; though the college president
is apt to be very alive to the importance of the alumni
in university affairs.
The desire to perpetuate college friendships
and to revive memories of college days was undoubtedly
the underlying motive which first brought the former
students together in these organizations; and not a
few associations have progressed no farther in their
activities. This is as true among Michigan alumni
clubs as elsewhere. But as university officers
came to recognize other possibilities in these associations,
efforts were made to secure their co-operation in many
matters and especially financial assistance, in the
establishment of funds for various purposes, the erection
of new buildings and providing for certain types of
equipment which might not properly come from the ordinary
channels of college and university income. The
Michigan Union, Hill Auditorium, the women’s
dormitories, and the Clements Library of Americana
perhaps best illustrate this type of alumni support.
While in most cases the impetus toward
this active co-operation and support on the part of
the alumni came from the institution, in recent years
the alumni have tended more and more to organize, not
as an adjunct of the university administration, but
as a body designed to formulate independent alumni
opinion, and to make intelligent graduate sentiment
really effective for the good of the institution.
With this new phase of alumni activity came new elements particularly
the alumni secretary, maintained by the graduate body,
the alumni journal, and the alumni council.
This organization of college graduates
is distinctly an American institution. There
is little to correspond in Continental universities,
where they do not even have a real equivalent to our
word “alumni.” In Great Britain,
the graduates of the larger institutions have some
voice in the policies of their universities and, in
the case of the Scottish universities, they elect
representatives on the governing body, as well as
the chancellor and a representative in Parliament.
But the lists of alumni are kept up only for what
are practically political purposes, and such developments
as local alumni clubs, or class reunions, are unknown;
while there is ordinarily small effort made to secure
financial support.
Alumni co-operation has progressed
so rapidly within the last quarter-century, the
period covering the life of the Association at Michigan
under its present form, that we are apt
to forget how recent is this movement in American
universities. To glance through the average college
or university history one would imagine these associations
sprang full-armed, with no preliminary throes of organization.
Suddenly we find the alumni asserting their desires
in some important matter and thenceforth their voice
has a recognized place in university councils.
It is quite obvious that the significance of this movement
among college graduates was not recognized for a long
time. Everywhere the graduates were slow in finding
themselves; and it is safe to say that an efficient
alumni sentiment was almost unknown until within the
last fifty years. But the seeds had been sown.
Though Yale began her remarkable organization by classes
as far back as 1792, and others may have followed
her example, records of any further efforts in this
direction are difficult to find until many years later.
The first attempt at a general alumni
organization seems to have been a meeting of the alumni
at Williams College at Commencement time, in 1821,
to organize a Society of Alumni. The purpose of
the proposed association was set forth in the following
words:
The meeting is notified at the request
of a number of gentlemen, educated at this institution,
who are desirous that the true state of the college
be known to the alumni, and that the influence and
patronage of those it has educated may be united
for its support, protection, and improvement.
This does not seem an unsatisfactory
definition of the fundamental object of an alumni
body of the present day. Seventeen years later
a Society of Alumni was organized at the University
of Virginia, where, with perhaps a characteristic
Southern emphasis on the social side of human relationships,
the committee was instructed,
to invite the alumni to form a permanent
society, to offer to graduates an inducement
to revisit the seat of their youthful studies
and to give new life to disinterested friendships found
in student days.
Other universities soon followed with
similar organizations. Harvard’s Alumni
Association was established in 1840; Bowdoin and Amhert
came at about the same time, while the first alumni
association at Columbia was founded in 1854.
In the West an alumni association was started at Miami
as early as 1832. The first years of these organizations
were apparently a period of struggle, but the spirit
that they represented grew, and eventually they made
alumni influence everywhere effective to a greater
or less degree, with the end not yet.
At Michigan, alumni organization has
had a history similar to that in many other institutions.
The University published a list of the first four
classes as far back as 1848, but the alumni did not
become a united body until 1860, fifteen years after
the first class was graduated. This first association
was characterized as “somewhat informal in its
nature,” but the usual statement of the object
was forthcoming. According to the preamble of
the constitution these were,
the improvement of its
members, the perpetuation of pleasant
associations, the promotion
of the interests of the University, and
through that of the
interests of higher education in general.
This Association was superseded in
June, 1875, by an incorporated organization, the “Society
of the Alumni of the University of Michigan,”
in which, notwithstanding its general name, membership
was restricted to graduates of the collegiate department.
A similar association of the Law School was formed
in 1871 and before many years all the departments had
similar bodies. But the interest taken was more
or less perfunctory, and in 1897 a consolidation of
all the departmental organizations was effected, resulting
in the present Alumni Association of the University
of Michigan, with ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, ’63,
’65l, as its first President.
He was succeeded in June, 1899, by
William E. Quinby, ’58, of Detroit, who was
followed in turn the next year by Regent W.J.
Cocker, ’69. Judge Victor H. Lane, ’74e,
’78l, Fletcher Professor of Law, was elected
President in 1901, and so effectively has he served
the interests of the alumni that he has been continued
in that office for the past twenty years.
Two important steps were taken by
the new Association immediately upon its consolidation
in 1897. The first was the appointment of a General
Secretary to devote his whole time to furthering the
interests of the alumni organization. Ralph H.
McAllister, a former member of the law class of ’89,
was first elected to this position, but was succeeded
in January, 1898, by James H. Prentiss, ’96,
who was followed three years later by Shirley W. Smith,
’97, at present Secretary of the University.
The present Alumni Secretary, Wilfred B. Shaw, ’04,
was appointed in October, 1904. The purchase
of the graduate journal, The Michigan Alumnus,
established in 1894 by Alvick A. Pearson, ’94,
was another significant step. The Alumnus
is one of the oldest graduate publications in the
country, with the Yale Alumni Weekly, established
in 1891, and the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine,
a quarterly, which appeared a year later, its only
predecessors. Both of these journals are published
by private corporations, as was the Alumnus
at first. In thus creating an officer whose sole
responsibility was to the alumni body and in maintaining
an official alumni publication, Michigan became a
pioneer among Western universities, and was only preceded
in the East by Pennsylvania, whose alumni organization
had established her Alumni Register and appointed
an alumni secretary in 1895.
The plan of organization of the Alumni
Association at Michigan is very simple. The entire
responsibility for the affairs of the Association
rests with a board of seven directors (originally but
five), who elect the officers of the Association from
among their own number. Two directors are ordinarily
elected every year at the annual alumni meeting, held
during the Commencement season, at which any alumnus
is entitled to a vote. The income of the Association,
except for a grant of $600 a year from the University
for advertising, arises entirely from the Alumnus,
which at present has a list of over 7,000 subscribers,
who are considered as constituting the official membership
of the Association. This membership is in two
forms, annual members and some 1,500 life members,
whose thirty-five dollar fees have resulted in an
endowment fund at present amounting to over $38,000,
the income from which is used for current expenses.
Since its establishment the Alumnus
has grown steadily in influence, and may now be regarded,
in some measure at least, as the official University
publication. Limited as it is by the necessity
of pleasing a constituency widely varied in age and
interests, it nevertheless makes it possible for a
large proportion of Michigan’s graduates to maintain
an effective and intelligent interest in the University.
But the work of the Association and
its officers has not stopped with the Alumnus.
The local alumni bodies and the class organizations
form important links between the graduate and his
alma mater, and the sentimental ties, as well as the
altruistic spirit engendered by these associations
have a vital significance for the individual graduate
and for the University. Practically every class
that leaves the University is organized for the purpose
of perpetuating its college associations and many
of the classes, particularly the earlier ones, have
published extensive class-books and directories.
Every effort is made to return to the University for
reunions at stated periods, especially on the twenty-five
and fifty year anniversaries. For some years also
many classes have followed a plan which brings four
classes that were in college together back for a reunion
at the same time. The value of these annual home-comings
has always been emphasized by the Alumni Association,
and so successful has it been in making the reunion
season interesting and stimulating that the graduates
return in great numbers, sometimes in a carnival spirit,
and sometimes, as during the recent war years, with
a sense of consecration and devotion. Thus it
was easy to pass from the gay fun of a burlesque commencement
in Hill Auditorium, which was the feature of one reunion
season, to the commemoration of Dr. Angell’s
life and services in 1916, and the great patriotic
meetings of 1918 and 1919, which struck the deepest
chords of alumni sentiment.
No less effective in their own field
are the many local alumni clubs in all the large cities
throughout the country. This movement toward
forming local bodies began in Detroit in 1869, and
quickly spread, so that by 1876 the Michigan graduates
as far west as San Francisco were organized.
While the primary reason for the existence of these
clubs is the maintenance of the social and sentimental
ties inspired by the common love of their members
for the University, stimulated usually by an annual
dinner and, in many cities, by weekly or monthly luncheons,
they have begun to discover means more positive and
useful to justify their existence. From a vague,
if none the less real, feeling of loyalty to the University
it is an easy step to more aggressive measures.
Thus we find the local bodies interesting themselves
actively in the University’s affairs, organizing
subscription campaigns for the Union, raising funds
for fellowships, and sending picked students to the
University, interesting themselves in the ever-present
athletic problems, and welcoming the President and
other representatives from the Faculties who come
to tell them what their alma mater is accomplishing.
More than this, some associations are perceiving broader
implications in their organization as representative
college men and women, for the alumnae,
too, have very active clubs, and are seeking
opportunities for civic and social service in their
communities. At present Michigan has nearly one
hundred of these local organizations of alumni which
may be considered active, while there are many more
who only need to have some task set before them to
bring them into an active and aggressive existence.
It is only natural that, with this
increasing participation of the alumni in university
affairs, there should be an effort to provide some
means for the effectual expression of their collective
opinion. Perhaps the earliest and most striking
example of this movement was the provision in 1865
for the election of Harvard’s Board of Overseers
“by such persons as have received the degree
of B.A. or M.A., or any honorary degree,” from
Harvard College. This effort, which came only
after a long struggle, was duplicated in Princeton,
Dartmouth, later Cornell, and many other institutions.
Even some of the state universities, whose regents
are either elected by the people, as at Michigan,
or appointed by the governor, as in other states, have
made provision for direct alumni representation on
their governing boards. Though this is not true
at Michigan it is significant that of the eight members
of the Board of Regents, six, Walter H. Sawyer, ’84h,
Hillsdale; Victor M. Gore, ’82l, Benton Harbor;
Junius E. Beal, ’82, Ann Arbor; Frank B. Leland,
’82, ’84l, Detroit; William L. Clements,
’82, Bay City, and James O. Murfin, ’95,
96l, Detroit, hold degrees from the University and
this proportion has held true for many years.
The other two members of the present Board are Benjamin
S. Hanchett, Grand Rapids, and L.L. Hubbard,
Harvard, ’72, Houghton. Shirley W. Smith,
’97, also is Secretary of the University.
Lacking the stimulus of direct representation
in the governing body, the alumni of the state universities
have directed their efforts toward strengthening the
general alumni organization as the best available
means of expressing the sentiment of an increasingly
important portion of the university body. To
further this desire alumni councils and other bodies
with advisory powers have been established, though
usually their status has been uncertain and their
powers negligible, except as they voice a body of
opinion which the university cannot afford to overlook.
Thus the Michigan Alumni Advisory Council, established
some years ago, composed of representatives from the
local alumni bodies, has been for various reasons
far from an effective body, though it contains the
germ of a force which may become active whenever a
proper occasion may arise. More competent, because
less unwieldy, is the Executive Committee composed
of five members of the Council and two chosen at large.
This body, though it has only met semi-occasionally,
has initiated several movements which have had a real
influence on the relations between the University
and the graduates. This has been particularly
true in matters relating to alumni support for the
Union, and the problems arising in connection with
its administration.
In its earlier years the Alumni Association
also undertook to keep up the alumni catalogue and
maintained for some time a card index of the alumni.
This task, however, eventually outgrew the resources
of the Association, and in 1910 the alumni catalogue
was transferred to addressograph plates by a special
appropriation, and its maintenance was made a part
of the regular administrative work of the University,
with a separate officer, closely associated with the
Alumni Association, appointed to maintain the lists
and edit the catalogues. The labor involved in
keeping this list of over 40,000 names even approximately
up to date may be judged from the fact that the catalogue
office now includes four assistants as well as the
Director, Mr. H.L. Sensemann, ’11, of the
Department of Rhetoric.
For some years the practice was continued
of including in the annual calendar an “Alumnorum
catalogus,” which began in 1848 with the
names of the fifty-six graduates of the first four
classes. The list eventually became too long,
however, and in 1864 the first General Catalogue was
issued as a forty-page pamphlet which included 999
names. Four subsequent editions have appeared,
in 1871, 1891, 1901 and 1911, in addition to a privately
published volume issued in 1880. The slender
pamphlet of 1864 became, in 1911, a volume of 1,096
pages which recorded 43,666 names, while the catalogue
of 1921 will be even more impressive.
Though the interest and enthusiasm
of the graduates is expressed in many less spectacular
ways, the amount of alumni gifts is the most available
standard by which the effectiveness of this support
can be shown. Judged by this rough and ready
approximation for a force which is in reality intangible
and based on something finer and more spiritual than
material gifts, particularly since it represents obviously
only the sentiment of the few rather than that of
the thousands who would do likewise if they were able,
it shows nevertheless how responsively the University’s
alumni regard her call for their support. They
have given their alma mater funds and property whose
estimated value may be conservatively placed at from
$4,000,000 to $5,000,000. This includes many gifts
of small sums for loan funds, fellowships, and investigations
in special fields, as well as the income from these
funds up to the present time. Some of these gifts,
too, are of such a character that no definite value
can be placed upon them.
The total amount of such special funds
in the hands of the University Treasurer, largely
arising from alumni gifts, is $843,815.40. It
should also be borne in mind that this does not include
the many gifts which do not come from graduates of
the University, such as the Newberry Hall of Residence,
the late Charles L. Freer’s numerous gifts, including
a fund of $50,000 for the study of Oriental art, the
Lewis Art collection, the Stearns Musical Collections,
Waterman Gymnasium and Ferry Field, or such buildings
as Newberry Hall, now used by the Y.W.C.A., and Lane
Hall, for the University Y.M.C.A.
Two of the larger gifts to the University
have come through collective effort on the part of
the alumni. The Michigan Union, made possible
through the $1,200,000 raised by students and alumni,
has been mentioned in another chapter. Alumni
Memorial Hall, which stands just across the street,
is also largely the result of comparatively small gifts
from hundreds of graduates. It is an imposing
building of classical outlines, designed as a memorial
of the men who served in the Civil and Spanish-American
Wars. It is intended to be at once an art gallery
and the headquarters of the Alumni Association, which
has a spacious reception room on the first floor and
commodious offices in the basement, where the University
Club also has a large and well-furnished room.
The building was completed in 1910 at a cost of $195,000,
of which $145,000 was contributed by the alumni, and
was formally opened with an exhibition of Oriental
art and the work of modern American painters under
the charge of the late Charles M. Freer of Detroit,
who loaned many of the pictures shown.
Other gifts arising from general alumni
effort are the Williams Professorship fund and the
Alumnae Hall of Residence for women, given to the
University by the alumnae; while Faculty, alumni, and
student efforts have been responsible for several
paintings, notably the Chase portrait of Dr. Angell,
the portrait of Dr. V.C. Vaughan by Gari Melchers,
and Ralph Clarkson’s recent picture of President
Hutchins, which is to hang with Dr. Angell’s
portrait in the Union.
The greater portion of alumni gifts,
however, have come from individual graduates.
These include such monumental benefactions as the Hill
Auditorium, for which a bequest of $200,000 was left
by the late Regent Arthur Hill, ’65e, of Saginaw;
the Martha Cook Building which was completed at a
cost of about $500,000 by the Cook family of Hillsdale,
the Betsy Barbour Dormitory, costing some $100,000
given by ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, ’63, ’65l,
of Detroit, and the great library of American history,
with its special building, given by Regent William
L. Clements, ’82e, of Bay City. This
library, which is reported to have cost $400,000,
and has been judged by experts to be worth much more
than that now, and the $200,000 building to come,
represent a princely gift. Ex-Regent Barbour
also gave, in 1917, a fund of $100,000 to be used for
providing scholarships for Oriental women in the University.
To this he added two years later property in Detroit
from which the income alone, during the term of the
ninety-nine years’ lease now in effect upon it,
will amount to nearly $2,500,000. The sum of $100,000
was also left by the late Professor Richard Hudson,
’71, to establish a professorship in history,
at present held by Professor Arthur Lyon Cross, Harvard,
’95. Professor Hudson also left his library
to the University, which has benefited by many similar
gifts from alumni, notably the historical books given
by Clarence M. Burton, ’73, the library of Thomas
S. Jerome, ’84, of Capri, Italy, and the musical
library presented by Frederick and Frederick K. Stearns,
’73-’76, as well as the libraries of several
members of the Faculties given the University upon
their death. These include the library in Romance
Literature of Professor Edward L. Walter, ’68,
the philosophical library of Professor George S. Morris,
’81 (hon.), the Germanic Library of Professor
George A. Hench, the geological library of Professor
Israel C. Russell, and the classical library of Professor
Elisha Jones, ’59.
Too numerous to mention in detail
are the many special gifts for research, such as the
continual funds for the work of the University Museum
supplied by Bryant Walker, ’76, of Detroit, or
the large telescope and other gifts to the Department
of Astronomy by Robert P. Lamont, ’91e, of
Chicago, or for fellowships, the purchase of books,
educational material, and scientific apparatus, as
well as the numerous funds left for various designated
purposes and administered by the University.
The various memorials left by the
graduating classes should not be forgotten in this
connection, though some of them, owing to poor judgment,
have been ill-adapted to the purposes they were intended
to serve and have more or less mysteriously disappeared.
Perhaps the best known example was the ill-fated statue
of Ben Franklin, long a Campus landmark, left by the
class of ’70. Early in his academic course
he became the victim of the paint-buckets of successive
classes, and eventually his outlines became so blurred
that he was perforce retired. Aside from the
tree-planting efforts of ’58, the first class
memorial was the reproduction of the Laocooen group,
now in Alumni Memorial Hall, presented by ’59.
Reproductions of painting and sculpture were for many
years the favored forms of class memorials, of which
the most unique and valuable was the complete set
of casts from the arch of Trajan at Beneventum, presented
by ’96. In recent years many classes have
left portraits of members of the various Faculties,
while others have left loan funds which have been
of inestimable service to many worthy but impecunious
students.
The University chimes, a peal of five
bells, presented by James J. Hagerman, ’61,
Edward C. Hegeler, and Andrew D. White, must not be
forgotten. They are now in the tower of the Engineering
Shops, whence they were removed when the old Library
was torn down.
Perhaps the most far-reaching in its
effects was the fund left by 1916. This was accompanied
by a recommendation to the General Alumni Association
that an alumni fund be created of which their contribution
was to be the nucleus. The Association took measures
to act upon this suggestion, but owing to the war
and the preoccupation of the alumni in the Union,
its establishment was delayed for several years.
The plan for this fund, as finally approved in 1920,
provides for an incorporated board of nine directors,
the first members of which were appointed by the Board
of Directors of the Alumni Association. This project,
while still in its formative stage, has great possibilities
for the future of the University, judged by the success
of similar funds in other institutions. This
is particularly true at Yale, where the alumni fund
amounts to nearly $2,000,000 in addition to some $1,500,000
given for various purposes.
There are obvious advantages in thus
organizing the stream of alumni gifts now beginning
to flow so strongly toward the University. It
not only provides a trustworthy and conservative body
to which any gift may be entrusted, whether in the
form of a class fund, individual contribution, or
bequest, but it also ensures that all such gifts which
are unrestricted, shall be utilized wherever, in the
judgment of the Directors, the University’s
need is greatest. The existence of such a fluid
source of income properly administered can be made
of incalculable benefit, particularly in the numerous
critical occasions, when the regular income is entirely
unequal to the emergency, though it is not proposed
to relieve the State from providing for the normal
needs of the University, but to meet the special demands
which are continually arising in such an institution.
Finally, the existence and administration of such
a fund will tend to tie the alumni to the University
as could no other agency, particularly if, as elsewhere,
a good part of the income arises from small annual
subscriptions, collected by a class officer, who remits
the total as a class contribution.
Thus, though the alumni of the University
have no direct voice in the administration, as have
the graduates in many other institutions, they have
established several agencies through which their natural
desire to have a recognized share in University affairs
may be expressed. These include first of all
the General Alumni Association, with its many subsidiary
class and local organizations, which maintains the
Alumnus as its official organ, and with at
least the outlines of an advisory body in the Alumni
Council with its Executive Committee. The alumni
also have further means of associating themselves
with the affairs of the University through the power
of appointment of a majority of the members of the
Board of Governors of the Michigan Union and the Directors
of the Alumni Fund, which rests with the Directors
of the Alumni Association; while the four alumni members
of the Board of Directors of the Union are likewise
elected by the alumni at large at the annual meeting
in June.
With so large and widely distributed
a body of graduates it is to be expected that many
have become prominent in the life of the country, and
in their professions. An analysis of the names
of Michigan men and women in “Who’s Who”
for 1912-13 showed that, exclusive of the holders of
honorary degrees and Summer School students, the names
of 604 former students appeared, of whom 498 were
graduates and 106 were non-graduates. This is
approximately 3.2 percent of the total names given
in that edition, and was 6 percent of the college graduates
listed. There is no reason to suppose that the
same percentages at least would not apply in a similar
survey of the latest edition.
While it is, for obvious reasons,
impossible to give the names of all graduates who
have achieved a certain measure of distinction, a few
who have attained special prominence in their special
fields may be mentioned.
It is most natural that Michigan alumni
should figure prominently in the educational world.
Thus, among college presidents, in addition to President
Hutchins, ’71, Michigan can claim Charles Kendall
Adams, ’61, President of Cornell University
from 1885 to 1892, and later, 1892 to 1901, of Wisconsin;
Mark Harrington, ’68, University of Washington;
Austin Scott, A.M., ’70, Rutgers; Alice Freeman
Palmer, ’76, Wellesley, 1881-87; Henry Wade
Rogers, ’74, formerly President of Northwestern,
and later Dean of the Yale Law School; Elmer Ellsworth
Brown, ’89, New York University; and Stratton
D. Brooks, ’96, Oklahoma.
Aside from the many distinguished
graduates on her own Faculty rolls, Michigan has also
for many years been well represented in the faculties
of all the leading American universities. At Harvard
these include Edwin L. Mark, ’71, Professor
of Anatomy; Paul Hanus, ’78, Head of the Department
of Education; and Edwin F. Gay, ’90, until recently
Dean of the School of Business Administration; at
Yale, John E. Clark, ’56, for many years Professor
of Mathematics, and the late Professor Willard T.
Barbour, ’05, of the Law School; at Columbia,
the late Calvin Thomas, ’74, Professor of Germanic
Languages and Literatures; Henry R. Seager, ’90,
Professor of Economics; at Dartmouth, Gabriel Campbell,
’65, long Professor of Philosophy; and Frank
H. Dixon, ’92, Professor of Economics, later
occupying the same chair at Princeton; where are also
Duane Reed Stuart, ’96, Professor of Greek, Christian
Gauss, ’98, Professor of Romance Languages,
and Edward S. Corwin, ’00, who now holds the
chair of Political Science, formerly occupied by President
Wilson. At Tufts, Amos Dolbear, ’67e,
was for many years Professor of Physics. The
Johns Hopkins faculty roll shows the names of Henry
M. Hurd, ’63, ’66m, Professor of Psychiatry;
John H. Abel, ’83m, Professor of Pharmacology;
Franklin P. Mall, ’83m, Professor of Anatomy,
and Herbert S. Jennings, ’93, Professor of Biology.
At Cornell, Jeremiah W. Jenks, ’78, was for
many years Professor of Social Science and Economics
and now holds a research professorship in New York
University. L.M. Dennis, ’85, is also
Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Cornell.
As is natural, many Michigan teachers
are to be found in practically all the Western universities,
although only a few can be mentioned. Thus at
Chicago are Andrew C. McLaughlin, ’82, Professor
of American History, James R. Angell, ’90, who
was Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Graduate
School until he became President of the Carnegie Foundation
in 1920; and at Wisconsin, J.B. Johnson, ’78,
who was, until his death in 1902, Dean of the Engineering
College, and George C. Comstock, ’77, Professor
of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory; while
at Minnesota Edward VanDyke Robinson, ’90, is
Professor of Economics, and John B. Johnston, ’93,
Professor of Comparative Neurology and Dean of the
College, and for a short period the late John R. Allen,
’92e, formerly at Michigan, was Dean of the
Engineering Department. At Ohio State University
may be mentioned Stillman W. Robinson, ’63, Professor
of Mechanical Engineering until 1910, George W. Knight,
’78, Professor of American History, and Joseph
V. Denney, ’85, Professor of English, and Dean
of the College of Arts; and, at Nebraska, Herbert H.
Vaughan, ’03, Professor of Modern Languages.
One of the oldest of Michigan’s educators is
Professor William J. Beal, ’59, Professor of
Botany at Michigan Agricultural College from 1871
to 1910.
On the Western coast, Alexander F.
Lange, ’85, Professor of German at the University
of California, and Dean of the Faculties, has also
served as Acting-President; while other representatives
of Michigan are Charles M. Gayley, ’78, Professor
of English, Bernard Moses, ’70, Professor of
History and Political Science, and Armin O. Leuschner,
’88, Professor of Astronomy. At Stanford
are George Hempl, ’79, Professor of Germanic
Philology, Ephraim D. Adams, ’87, Professor of
History, and Douglas Campbell, ’82, Professor
of Botany.
Among Michigan graduates in foreign
universities may be mentioned the names of Stephen
Langdon, ’98, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford,
the late Alfred Senier, ’74m, Professor of
Chemistry at the National University of Ireland at
Galway, and Masakozu Toyama, ’73-’76, Dean
of the College of Literature at Tokio until his death
in 1900, and founder of the study of sociology in
Japan.
Though most of the men of attainment
in science have continued in University positions,
Robert S. Woodward, 72e, President of the Carnegie
Institution, Charles F. Brush, ’69e, the inventor
of the arc light, Otto Klotz, ’72e, Director
of the Dominion of Canada Observatory at Ottawa, William
W. Campbell, ’86e, Director of the Lick Observatory,
and Heber D. Curtiss, ’92, at the same observatory,
may be mentioned as exceptions. All but the last
were graduates of the Engineering Department, among
whose graduates are also to be numbered A.A.
Robinson, ’69e, the late President of the Santa
Fe and Mexican Central railroads, Alfred Noble, ’70e,
until his death the leading American engineer, Henry
G. Prout, ’71e, one time governor of the Equatorial
Provinces of Africa and later editor of the Railroad
Gazette, Cornelius Donovan, ’72e, the builder
of the great jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi,
Joseph Ripley, ’76, the designer of the Panama
Canal locks, and Howard Coffin, ’03, automobile
engineer, and chairman of the war-time aviation board.
Aside from the graduates of the Medical
School who have made distinguished records on other
medical faculties, the names of many prominent practitioners
and medical writers might be mentioned, including
Edmund Andrews, ’49, ’52m, an organizer
of the Medical School of Northwestern University,
and founder of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Lewis
S.F. Pilcher, ’66m, the founder of The
Annals of Surgery, William J. Mayo, ’83m,
the distinguished surgeon of Rochester, Minnesota,
and Woods Hutchinson, ’84m, of New York, a
popular writer on medical subjects. Among the
Michigan graduates who have made a record in the legal
profession are to be found an unusual number of distinguished
occupants of the bench, including William L. Day,
’70, of the United States Supreme Court, who
was Secretary of State under McKinley and Chairman
of the Board of Peace Commissioners after the war
with Spain, William B. Gilbert, ’72l, Judge
of the Ninth U.S. Circuit at Portland, Oregon,
Loyal E. Knappen, ’73, and Arthur Dennison,
’83l, of the Sixth Circuit, and Francis E.
Baker, ’82l, of the Seventh Circuit.
There are twelve other Michigan graduates in the Federal
District judiciary in addition to John E. Carland,
l’74-’75, Circuit Judge assigned
to the Court of Commerce at Washington, and Fenton
W. Booth, ’92l, of the U.S. Court of Claims.
Among legal authors are Melvin M. Bigelow, ’66,
’68l, Dean of the Boston University Law School,
and recognized authority on jurisprudence and legal
history, William W. Cook, ’80, ’82l,
who not only has been a great benefactor to the University,
but is perhaps the best-known author on private corporations,
as well as counsel for several of the leading telegraph
and cable companies.
Among the graduates of the University
in high government positions have been Don M. Dickinson,
’67, Postmaster-General under Cleveland, and
J. Sterling Morton, ’54, Secretary of Agriculture
during Cleveland’s second term, when Edwin F.
Uhl, ’62, was also acting Secretary of State
and later Ambassador to Germany. Other diplomatic
posts have been filled by Thomas W. Palmer, ’49,
Minister to Spain under Harrison, William E. Quinby,
’58, Minister to Holland under Cleveland, Thomas
J. O’Brien, ’65l, Minister to Denmark
and later Ambassador to Japan and Italy under Roosevelt
and Taft, and William Graves Sharp, ’81l, Ambassador
to France under Wilson. Michigan has for many
years had a large representation in both Houses of
Congress; for example in 1913 there were eight former
students of the University in the Senate, of whom five
held degrees, and twenty-two in the House. Senator
Cushman K. Davis, ’57, who died in 1900, was
among the conspicuous leaders of his time, while of
the present generation are Porter J. McCumber, ’80l,
of North Dakota, Gilbert Hitchcock, 81l, of Nebraska,
and Charles S. Thomas, ’71l, and John F. Shafroth,
’75, of Colorado.
In various forms of public service
as well as in the business world Michigan’s
graduates occupy prominent places: William C.
Braisted, ’83, is Surgeon-General of the Navy,
Laurence Maxwell, ’74, succeeded Charles H.
Aldrich, ’75, as Solicitor-General of the State
Department in 1893, Major-General John Biddle, who
left the University for West Point in 1877, served
as chief of staff, and later head of the American forces
in England during the world war, Charles S. Burch,
’75, is now Bishop of the New York Diocese,
Dean C. Worcester, ’89, was Secretary of the
Interior on the Philippine Commission, Charles B. Warren,
’91, has been counsel for this country before
the Hague Tribunal, Royal S. Copeland, ’84h,
is Health Commissioner for New York City, and Earl
D. Babst, ’93, is President of the American
Sugar Refining Company. Among architects Michigan
numbers Irving K. Pond, ’79, the designer of
the Union, and President of the American Institute
of Architects, 1910-11, and among landscape architects,
O.C. Simonds, ’78e, of Chicago.
Many alumni have turned to literature,
and the names of not a few, particularly among the
more recent graduates, are continuously appearing
in different magazines and reviews. Particularly
well known are Stewart Edward White, ’95, Katharine
Holland Brown, ’98, Franklin P. Adams, ’03,
and Harry A. Franck, ’03, no less well known
as an unconventional traveler. Michigan has also
left her mark in journalism, from Liberty E. Holden,
’58, editor and publisher of the Cleveland Plain
Dealer and William E. Quinby, of the same class,
of the old Detroit Free Press, to Edward S.
Beck, ’93, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune,
S. Beach Conger, ’00, who was in charge of the
European service of the Associated Press during the
Great War, Paul Scott Mowrer, a one-time member of
the class of ’09, who was the Paris representative
of the Chicago Daily News, and Karl Harriman,
’98, editor of the Ladies Home Journal
and author of “Ann Arbor Tales,” (1902).
As with the men so with the women
graduates of the University. Their ranks include,
in addition to the President of Wellesley, many important
positions in the university world, including Angie
Chapin, ’75, Professor of Greek, and the late
Katharine Coman, ’80, Professor of History and
Economics, at Wellesley, and Gertrude Buck, ’94,
Professor of English at Vassar. Among alumnae
particularly prominent in science are Mrs. Mary Hegeler
Carus, ’90e, the first woman to graduate from
the Engineering College, who is president of a large
manufacturing company and secretary of the Open Court
Publishing Company, and the late Marion S. Parker,
’95e, who as a structural engineer has had
a large share in the designing of some of the monumental
buildings of New York. Annie S. Peck, ’78,
is also well known as a traveler and mountain climber.
In the medical profession there have
been many alumnae of prominence, notably Dr. Alice
Hamilton, ’93m, who has recently become Assistant
Professor of Industrial Medicine in the Harvard Medical
School, and Dr. Harriet Alexander, who has become
an authority on diseases of the nervous system.
Two Chinese graduates of the medical school, Dr. Ida
Kahn, ’96m, and Dr. Mary Stone, ’96m,
have done a great work for their fellow countrymen
in their large hospital at Kiu Kiang.