Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir
History
Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir
Great Britain -- Colonies -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Description and travel; Voyages around the world
In her special and selected studies, Michigan is as merely practical as
Swift‘s University of Brobdingnag; but, standing far above the ordinary
arts or science courses, there is a “University course” designed for
those who have already taken the Bachelor‘s degree. It is harder to say
what this course includes than what it does not. The twenty heads range
over philology, philosophy, art, and science; there is a branch of
“criticism,” one of “arts of design,” one of “fine arts.” Astronomy,
ethics, and Oriental languages are all embraced in a scheme brought into
working order within ten years of the time when Michigan was a
wilderness, and the college-yard an Indian hunting-ground.
Michigan entered upon education work very early in her history as a
State. In 1850, her legislature commissioned the Hon. Ira Mayhew to
prepare a work on education for circulation throughout America. Her
progress has been as rapid as her start was good; her natural history
collection is already one of the most remarkable in America; her medical
school is almost unequaled, and students flow to her even from New
England and from California, while from New York she draws a hundred men
a year. In only one point is Ann Arbor anywhere but in the van: she has
hitherto followed the New England colleges in excluding women. The State
University of Kansas has not shown the same exclusiveness that has
characterized the conduct of the rulers of Michigan: women are admitted
not only to the classes, but to the professorships at Lawrence.
This Northwestern institution at Ann Arbor was not behind even Harvard
in the war: it supplied the Union army with 1000 men. The 17th Regiment
of Michigan Volunteers, mainly composed of teachers and Ann Arbor
students, has no cause to fear the rivalry of any other “record;” and
such was the effect of the war, that in 1860 there were in Michigan 2600
male to 5350 female teachers, whereas now there are but 1300 men to 7500
women.
So proud are Michigan men of their roll of honor, that they publish it
at full length in the calendar of the university. Every “class” from the
foundation of the schools shows some graduates distinguished in their
country‘s service during the suppression of the rebellion. The Hon.
Oramel Hosford, Superintendent of Public Instruction in Michigan,
reports that, owing to the presence of crowds of returned soldiers, the
schools of the State are filled almost to the limit of their capacity,
while some are compelled to close their doors against the thronging
crowds. Captains, colonels, generals, are among the students now humbly
learning in the Ann Arbor University Schools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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