Michigan. On the early years of the School of Political Science, 1881-1887

I very much would like to have a few weeks in each of the libraries of the great state universities of Wisconsin and Michigan to be able to add some actual archival artifacts related to the economics programs in Madison and Ann Arbor, but until then I am happy to troll (in a good way) the internet for content to post here.

Today Economics in the Rear-view Mirror presents an excerpt from The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities (1887) by Johns Hopkins history professor Herbert B. Adams. In 1887 political economy was still served as one ingredient in a stew of social sciences that included a big chunk of history and a dash of social statistics.

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FOUNDATION OF THE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

In the University of Michigan the development process from the old order to the new was largely aided by the School of Political Science and by the personal influence of Professor Charles Kendall Adams, the first dean of the new school. He appeared as the champion of the Michigan method of realizing the university idea, in a series of letters published in The Nation. A close study of the calendars of the university from 1881 to 1885, and of other official documents, will show that the historical department was foremost in the new movement; and yet the original impulses lay far back in the history of the university, as early as the régime of President Tappan and the opening of senior electives in the year 1856, when Watson took astronomy.

The study of political science was nothing new in Ann Arbor. The subject appears to have been taught by Professor Edward Thomson to the first class that ever graduated from the university. “Political Grammar,” Story on the Constitution, and Wayland’s Political Economy are mentioned in the oldest catalogue (1843-44). The latter subject continued for thirty years in the department of intellectual and moral science. President Tappan (1852-63) taught political economy, protesting that it should be joined with history rather than with philosophy. President Haven (1863-69) taught it in the same old-time way, in connection with mental and moral science and the evidences of Christianity. This was still the situation when President Angell came into office in 1871 (after a presidential interregnum of two years, during which time Professor Frieze was in charge of the university).

In his first annual report President Angell recommended “at an early day a professor to give instruction in political economy, political philosophy, and international law.” He said also that “provision should be made by which every student should be able to take a generous course in the political sciences” (report for 1872, p. 16). So important did the president think these studies that he soon determined to take charge of them himself. His report for 1874 shows that he had conducted a senior elective in political economy for two hours a week, during the first semester, with 48 students; and during the second semester a similar elective in international law, with 46 students. Both classes were taught by dictations and oral expositions, with questions at each meeting upon the topics presented at the previous lecture, In international law the aim was, “after tracing the growth of the laws which govern modern nations in their relations to each other, to expound and criticise the most important of those laws, and to illustrate them as far as practicable from the rich history of our own diplomatic intercourse with the world.” The history of diplomacy and the law of nations have remained to this day the president’s own specialty in the university course. His natural interest in the political sciences; his engagement of Dr. Henry Carter Adams to teach political economy when he himself went abroad for two years upon a diplomatic mission to China, 1881-82; Michigan zeal for political science, kindled by this very appointment; and the conspicuous example of Columbia College in opening a school of political science in 1880 — all these tributary influences entered the historical drift toward a school of politics in 1881. In June of that year the board of regents voted to establish a school of political science within the faculty of literature, science, and the arts.

In the requirements for admission it was provided that matriculated students in the department of literature, science, and the arts, might be admitted as candidates for a degree when they had completed two years of work in the ordinary college curriculum, work which had embraced at least twelve full courses, each averaging five hours a week for one semester, and including all the prescribed studies offered during that period towards the baccalaureate degree. Students with an honorable dismissal from any other college or university, and with a record equivalent to the above, were admitted to the school of political science without examination. Graduates might be received to advanced standing, receiving credit for any portion of the work of the school already completed.

OPENING OF THE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

On the 3d of October, 1881, the new school of political science was formally opened by an address on the Relations of Political Science to National Prosperity, by the dean of the school, Professor Charles Kendall Adams. The address was published by the university, and is a vigorous plea for the encouragement of political science in the interest of good government and the general welfare of the people. The professor chose for his text a passage from Milton’s tractate on Education, wherein the great publicist and poet calls “a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.” While urging, as educational ground work, the ancient and modern languages, mathematics, and natural science, Milton adds, “The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such tottering conscience as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state.” Professor Adams’ address was a development of this pregnant thought. He showed the necessary dependence of popular government and institutions upon educated public opinion. He showed that the Puritan foundations of New England and the national endowment of the Northwestern Territory both established schools and supplied the means of education.

Reviewing the examples set by European states, he noted that the excellence of French and Italian administration, in recent years, was due to schools of political science. English politics have been shaped by the economists, by the student of Adam Smith, Ricardo, McCulloch, Cairnes, Thorold Rogers, and John Stuart Mill. The upbuilding of Prussia through the economic reforms of Baron vom Stein was primarily due to the influence of the writings of Adam Smith and to the economic teachings of Professor Kraus in the University of Königsberg. New Germany is the result of such beginnings. The present efficiency of German administration is acknowledged to be the product of university-training and of special schools of political science. But are not American methods better than European? Professor Adams then put a few searching questions: “Is it certain that our municipal governments are better than theirs? Are our systems of taxation more equitably adjusted than theirs? Do our public and private corporations have greater respect for the rights of the people than theirs? Can we maintain that our legislatures are more free from corruption and bribery than theirs? Was our financial management at the close of our war wiser than that of France at the close of hers”?

Professor Adams then demonstrated the necessity of political education in our Republic by reference to the three main branches of government, the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. Admitting the excellence of our federal tribunal and of the supreme courts of some of our States, our lower courts are, in many instances, a standing disgrace by reason of the ignorance and incompetence of judges, the frequent errors of judgment and delays of justice; “the cost of our judicial system is enhanced by the very means which have been taken to reduce it.” In legislation our country has need of all the wisdom that we can command. “Questions in education, questions in finance, questions in sanitary science, questions as to the control of our penal and reformatory institutions, questions as to methods of administration, as to the government of cities, as to the proper restraints to be put upon our corporations, in short, questions of every conceivable nature and of every conceivable difficulty demand consideration, and demand to be settled in the light of all the knowledge that can be gained from the experience of the world, for we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that some of the very evils are beginning to appear that played such havoc with the republics of the Old World.” Regarding the executive service of State and Nation, the necessity of reform is acknowledged by both political parties. The question now is whether we shall grope our way blindly to good methods of civil service, or whether we shall study the experience of England and Germany, countries that long ago reformed their administration. Besides the great branches of Government, there are two other important fields of influential activity — the press and the platform. In molding public opinion newspapers are more powerful than all other agencies combined. How necessary it is that our journals should have, not merely reporters, but educated journalists, competent to grapple with economic questions and to interpret the politics of the world. In this country there is more political speaking than in any other, on account of our frequent elections. What do our people want? “Not political cant, but political candor; not eloquent frivolity, but earnest discussion. If the history of the last twenty-five years in our country teaches anything, it is that there is much greater need of good leading than there is of good following.”

Professor Adams then said it was for the purpose of aiding in these directions that a School of Political Science had been established in the University of Michigan. He proceeded to mark out the proposed course of instruction and to define the relations of the new school to collegiate work, on the one hand, and to genuine university work on the other. He said that no part of the course would range within “the disciplinary studies of the ordinary college curriculum.” The University “has practically fixed the dividing line for its own students at the close of the second year.” Here would begin the work of the School of Political Science, after the usually required work in the ancient and modern languages, in mathematics, and natural science. “We shall give to our students the largest liberties; but we shall accompany those liberties with the responsibilities of a searching final examination. We shall endeavor to bring no reproach upon the school by giving its final degree to unworthy scholarship. In so far as we strive to imitate any we shall strive to follow in the methods and in the spirit of what we believe to be the best universities in the world.”

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION AND PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOL.

The course of instruction provided for the School of Political Science was based, like the Columbia course, upon historical foundations. The courses already described in connection with the work of Professor Adams and Assistant Professor Hudson constituted not only the basis but a considerable portion of the superstructure of the political edifice. To these beginnings were added elementary and advanced courses in political economy, each a course of two hours a week, by Dr. Henry Carter Adams (Ph.D., Baltimore, 1878), who, in the autumn of 1880, began lecturing in the University of Michigan. President Angell contributed his lectures on international law, two hours a week for one semester, to the up-building process. A course of two hours for a half year was given by Assistant Professor Vaughan on Sanitary Science. Judge Cooley introduced a law course on Civil and Political Rights, three hours a week for parts of both semesters. Social Science was represented, two hours a week for one semester, by Professor Dunster, and forestry, for one hour a week, second half year, by Professor Spalding. This was the course of instruction offered in 1881-82. It is impossible to show a tabular view of the arrangement or succession of courses, for, within such limits as those stated in the historical department, the work was more like the elective system of a German university than like the prescribed system of the Columbia School of Political Science.

In the report of the Dean of the Michigan school for 1882-83 may be found evidences of decided progress during the second year. Professor Adams says: “A grouping of the studies shows that there were twelve courses in History, eight courses in Economic Science, seven courses in Social, Sanitary, and Educational Science, and six courses in Constitutional, Administrative, and International Law. Of these the following were given in 1882-83 for the first time: The course in the History of American Finance, the course on Public Scientific Surveys, the course on the Economic Development of Mineral Resources, the course on the Historical Development of Educational Systems and Methods, the course on the Government of Cities, the course on the History of Modern Diplomacy, and the course on methods of Local Government in Europe and America. The studies offered for the first time during the past year, as well as those previously provided for, were open not only to the registered members of the school, but also to all students of proper advancement in the Academic Department of the University. The classes were in all cases attended by encouraging numbers. Of the students of the school who were examined at the end of the year for degrees, six took the degree of Master and one the degree of Bachelor. Three of those who received the Master’s degree had not previously taken the degree of Bachelor. Of these, two were examined at the end of the fourth year and one at the end of the fifth year in the University. A general survey of the work of the year would seem to encourage the belief that the school is doing a useful service. Of the twenty students who enrolled themselves in the school at the beginning of last year, nearly all carried forward their studies with an enthusiasm that is deserving of the highest praise.”

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION.

During the second year of the School of Political Science was organized the Political Science Association. This society was formed “with the design of drawing together into more intimate and sympathetic intercourse the teachers and students of the school, and of encouraging by mutual contact the spirit of scholarly and original research.” The idea of this friendly, co-operative association of students and instructors was probably imported into Ann Arbor from Baltimore by Dr. Henry Carter Adams, who had been one of the original founders of the “Historical and Political Science Association” of the Johns Hopkins University, in 1876, one of the first “Associations” that came into existence in that institution. It was a kind of enlarged form of the “Historical Seminary”; in fact, it was a monthly public session of the same, with invited guests and with an historico-political programme of a somewhat more interesting character than seminary meetings. This appears to have been the complexion of the “Political Science Association” of the University of Michigan. In his report of the School for 1882-83 the Dean said of this society: “Papers were presented by the President of the University, and by several of the professors and students of the school. Reports were given at each meeting of books on Political Science either recently published or recently procured for the University Library.” Some of the papers prepared in connection with the Historical or Political Seminary were finally read before the Association. Several of the subjects mentioned under the head of “Original Work at Michigan” were presented to the larger body. It occupies much the same place in the organization of the historico-political department of the University of Michigan as does the “Academy of Political Science” in Columbia College.

BEGINNINGS OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.

So important is a good working library to a department of historical and political science that the writer has noted with special interest the origin of the present facilities for advanced work in the University of Michigan. It is a striking fact that the first officer appointed by the first board of regents, in 1837, was a librarian, the Rev. Henry Colclazer. One of the first purchases, by vote of the regents, was Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanæ. The first catalogue (1844) mentions a library of between four and five thousand well-selected standard works in literature and science. The selection was largely made in Europe by Dr. Asa Gray, the first appointed professor of Botany, about the year 1840. The library grew by slow accretions, but with no especial vigor, until Dr. Tappan’s election to the presidency in 1852. He stirred the citizens of Ann Arbor to benefactions, and added 1,200 volumes to the old collection. The library and museums developed together. John L. Tappan, son of the president, became the first active librarian. In 1862 Charles Kendall Adams was made instructor in History and assistant librarian — an auspicious connection for the historical department. Soon after (1865) Mr. Andrew Ten Brook, the Historian of State Universities, took charge of the library and administered the same for over ten years, until (1877) the present active and helpful Raymond C. Davis took command of the situation and began to labor, with his colleagues, for a new library building.

THE RAU LIBRARY.

Meantime, in 1870, came the first gift of importance to the University and to the department of History. Acting President Frieze, in his report for 1871, describes the acquisition: “It consists of the entire collection of the late Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, made during his long service of fifty years as professor of Political Economy in Heidelberg University, and embracing all the most valuable literature contained in the European languages on political science and kindred topics. The number of volumes in this collection is 4,034, and of pamphlets more than 6,000. While this munificent gift is of great importance on account of the intrinsic worth of the collection, it is not less valuable as an example which cannot fail to find imitators. It is undoubtedly as nearly perfect as a library can be made on the specialty which it represents. And it was the well authenticated statement of this fact which influenced the authorities at Yale to send an order for the purchase of it before it was known to have been secured for this University. The most important is the series of volumes issued by the Academy of Vienna and those on the original sources of the history of the House of Hapsburg, a work of great importance in the study of European history.” Many of the volumes in the Rau library were unbound, but the donor, the Hon. Philo Parsons,* of Detroit, made provision for binding them and also increased the collection by fresh purchases. (See President’s report for 1874.) The present librarian, Mr. Davis, in his address at the opening of the new library building in 1883, estimated the Rau Library at 4,000 volumes and 6,000 pamphlets.

*The acquisition of the private libraries of distinguished specialists for the collections of American Universities is worthy of mention: Yale has the library of the distinguished Heidelberg publicist, Robert von Mohl, predecessor of Dr. J. C. Bluntschli, whose library went to the Johns Hopkins University, by the gift of German citizens of Baltimore; the library of Francis Lieber was presented to the University of California by [apparently missing text in original] Professor Rau’s collection was given to the University of Michigan by the Hon. Philo Parsons, of Detroit; the library of Neander is now owned by the University of Rochester; the library of Bopp, the German philologist, also that of Professor Anthon, of Columbia College, that of Professor Goldwin Smith, and that of Jared Sparks, of Cambridge, are all owned by Cornell University; the library of Leopold von Ranke has lately been purchased for the Syracuse University.

MOVEMENT TOWARDS THE NEW LIBRARY.

For many years the growth of the library was very slow. In 1874 President Angell reported to the regents that “We are able to add less than 1,000 volumes a year, including public documents of all kinds.” The present librarian, Mr. Davis, states that from 1856 to 1877 the average annual increase was only about 800 volumes; but since that date the increase has averaged 3,000 volumes annually, until, in 1883, the library numbered 40,000 volumes. This increase was largely due to the intelligent demands made by the faculties, by the students, and by the administration. The president in his annual reports repeatedly called attention to the fact that, in proportion to its size, the University library was in more active use than any other in the country.

The files of The Chronicle, the student organ of Ann Arbor, indicate that no need was greater, on the part of the University, than that of a new library and a gymnasium. The editors never ceased to quote mens sana in corpore sano and to reproach the regents for neglecting the body and soul of the University. When Professor Moses Coit Tyler, long the popular champion of the gymnasium cause, accepted a call to the Cornell University the editors understood that he was influenced by “the fact that the Sparks library is there — one of the richest libraries in American literature in the country. It is especially discouraging when it is remembered that the Sparks library might just as well have been secured for this University as not. When it was offered for sale, considerable talk was made about buying it, but the business was managed so slowly and so much time was taken to think about it that President White stepped in and bought it for Cornell.” In the spring of 1882, upon the return of President Angell from his mission to China, the editors promptly observed: “It was very truly said by President Angell, in his address upon the evening of his arrival, that our weak point is our library. It is impossible that in 30,000 volumes can be comprised half the needs of a great and growing institution like this, and equally impossible that, with the present meager appropriation of $2,500 a year, these needs can for a long time be supplied. Harvard has 200,000 volumes in her library, Yale 100,000, Michigan 30,000.”

Source: Adams, Herbert B. The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, No. 2, 1887. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), pp. 114-121.

Image Source: An earlier seal for the University of Michigan that gives the year of Michigan’s statehood as the founding year. In 1929 the regents changed the date on the seal to 1817, when the Catholepistemiad Michigania was founded on the Michigan Territory.

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