REPORT OF THE VISITORS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

Hon. JOHN M. GREGORY, Supt. of Public Instruction :

The term for which the subscribers were appointed to serve as Visitors of the University of Michigan, being about at an end, they beg leave to report that they have discharged the interesting duty assigned them, as faithfully as numerous other engagements would permit.

The examinations attended were, in the main, highly creditable to the pupils and to their instructors. The public exhibitions witnessed have, upon the whole, done honor to the University and to the State, by the talent and training evinced. And the general aspect of the Institution, its numbers keeping well up, and the ordinary routine continuing, does not as yet, at least, present any marked symptoms of the transition which is going on, except a few discontented demonstrations on the part of the students, a certain anxious and restless disquietude among the professors, and the loss from among them of some of the brighter lights, such as Brunnow and White.

But the positive existence and pernicious character of this transition, is a subject to which we feel compelled to call your attention, and through you, that of the people of the State.

For several years the interior management of our beloved and honored University has been gliding out of the hands of the president and professors, where it constitutionally and properly belongs, into those of the Regents, who are of course, as a body, unqualified for this work, and were never elected for any such purpose. During this time, the governing and directive functions of the University, the administrative and executive control of its affairs, passing gradually from the faculty ap

pointed over it, has been largely usurped by the Regents and farmed out among themselves.

Such a procedure was never permitted in connection with any College of standing, is directly subversive of the best interests of our State University, and was effected against the judgment, nay, in spite of the resistance of the "chief executive officer." This is, in fact, the very controversy which those Regents had with that great and good man, Dr. Tappan. And this is the reason why, failing to entirely overmaster him, and being themselves excused from further attempts at it, by the people, they wound up with a final parting vote to remove him from his place. It was a fit termination of the disorganizing and revolutionary measures which they undertook to introduce. And a more deadly stab was never given to the cause of education, learning, high-toned refinement and christian culture in Michigan, and throughout the west. There is, in our judgment, no man in the United States who combines so many strong points for a successful and illustrious head and front of the University of Michigan, as he who, after years of faithful, most able and triumphant service in that capacity, has been so unceremoniously discharged, and that by men who had, themselves, been repudiated by the people. But it is not the wrong done him, it is the tendency of such proceedings, and the effect of that consummating act upon the cause of sound learning, high scholarship and elevated sentiment among us, that we here complain of. Our University ought to be conducted upon principles most conducive to the rapid development of its magnificent resources. And foremost among them, as every tyro in University matters well knows, is freedom for the faculty from meddlesome interference on the part of the Regents. The latter, of course, are comparatively unfamiliar with such matters, and reside in different parts of the State, with affairs of their own to manage, while the College officers are ever there on the ground. Their work, their interests, their pride, their ambition are there. In the study, the observatory, the cabinet, the laboratory, the lecture hall and recitation room, do they live,

breathe and exult. And there should they be protected, there encouraged by generous and noble treatment, to do their very best to advance scholarship, elevate science, and fill the west with highly educated and refined young gentlemen. The people meant to say "hands off," let these men, and especially their chief executive officer, alone, when they hurled those meddling Regents out of power. Whether they said so with emphasis enough, remains to be seen.

But the reasons why the people of the State may well insist upon their determination in this matter, are these:

If the Regents undertake to "run the Institution," so to say, they at once run foul of the chief executive officer. The thing is unconstitutional in principle, ruinous in tendency, wrong every way, and as a true man he will resist them. And he will sacrifice himself without hesitation rather than give up so vital an issue. When Cornelius Vanderbilt, a great ship owner, but no sailor himself, at sea in the North Star, a vessel of his own, once undertook to interfere during a storm with the management of the ship, the captain ordered him from the quarter deck, and compelled him to go below. Think of Dwight, of Nott, of Wayland, of Woolsey, or of Hopkins-all presidents of colleges and men of the largest type, of whom professors sometimes become jealous-and last but not least, if inferior to any of them, think of Tappan yielding, in such a struggle, to men who merely have the constitutional right to appoint him, and name his salary out of the people's money.

Then the mischief it works among the professors. The proper president removed or neutralized, they begin to cast about for some of his functions and prerogatives. They look away from their work among the students or in the fields of science and literature, towards the Regents who may next be prompted by outside influences to attack and remove some of them. rolling and wire-pulling soon commence beneath and about classic shades. The students are induced to sign and unsign petitions to the Regents, and a truly pitiful state of things ensues. Think of Dana or Hadley at New Haven, of Agassiz or

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Longfellow at Cambridge, of Encke or Magnus at Berlin reduced to scrambling for portions of some college president's vacant or half filled office; or left to run after students and Regents by turns in order to keep hold of their bread and butter.

It works just as badly upon the students. Discipline will give way and be broken up among them. Their respect for the Faculty will disappear and be lost; and they will be running to the Regents with their complaints and petitions, and not as otherwise they would and always should, to the officers of the College.

But the great mischief comes through the Regents themselves. By this change the University is through them exposed to the reach of sect and party. According to the constitution and charter, as understood and administered before Dr. Tappan was removed, or rather before his executive functions were usurped by the Regents, the Institution stood high and dry above the range of such subversive influences. But the Regents are among the masses. They have other interests and objects to serve beside those of the University, with which they are transiently connected. They may themselves be strong partisans in politics or religion, with desires and aspirations of their own to consult. And they undoubtedly are where parties and sects can beset them with blandishments and threats. So that the University, if directly controlled by them, is cast into the midst of struggling contention, and will assuredly sink from the exalted position to which the opposite policy under the strong lead of Dr. Tappan elevated it, into insignificance and contempt. Some one or two grasping sects may get hold of and use it for a time; but the rest will assail it, and send their young men and influence away to other institutions of learning. And in the end the people will suffer, the State be defrauded of the fruits of her munificence, and the high hopes we cherish be bitterly disappointed.

The only wise and safe course is to have our University restored as soon as possible, in all except monetary and outside interests of the most general character and such restraining or

confirmatory action as may be necessary at very considerable intervals, to the entire control and management of its own officers, with a chief executive over them fully qualified by his talents and attainments, by commanding personal and social advantages, by extensive knowledge of books, art and the world, and by intimate relations with the learned and great of this and other lands, to hold that position, make it resplendent, and extend the young renown of the University of Michigan both at home and abroad.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

AZARIAH ELDRIDGE,

E. H. THOMSON.

NOTE.-The foregoing report, sent at a very late date, and reaching me still later, by reason of being sent to Ann Arbor rather than to this office, was accompanied by a note from Mr. Eldridge, asking that the report should be presented to the third Visitor "if he is at Ann Arbor," but that "otherwise it must go into your report signed as it is." A letter from Dr. Underwood, afterward received, is given here as his expression of views as a Visitor :

To HON. J. M. GREGORY, Supt. of Public Instruction:

SIR. I have recently seen in one of the Detroit daily papers a report made to you by two of the Board of Visitors to the University of Michigan for the years 1862 and 1863. As one of the members of the Board I wish to say that the above mentioned report was not submitted to me for my approval or signature, nor was I consulted in any way about a report. The following paragraph in "the report" has my approval. "The examinations attended were, in the main, highly creditable to the pupils and to their instructors. The public exhibitions witnessed, have upon the whole, done honor to the University, and to the State, by the talent and training evinced." From the remainder of "the report" I wholly dissent, for the following reasons I do not believe it to be the proper business of the Vistors to sit in judgment upon the acts and motives of the