Of his decision to come to Michigan, Dr. Angell said twenty-five years later: "While, with much embarrassment, I was debating the question in my own mind whether I should come here, I fell in with a friend who had very large business interests, and he made this very suggestive remark to me: 'Given the long lever, it is no harder to lift a big load than it is with a shorter one to lift a smaller load.' I decided to try the end of the longer lever." James Burrill Angell was inaugurated President of the University of Michigan in June, 1871. From that time his life was the life of the University except for interludes of diplomatic service in China, Turkey, and upon various commissions. His diplomatic career, though only incidental to his life work as an educator, showed that he possessed the necessary qualifications for what might well have been a very distinguished career in other fields. At the time of his appointment to China as Minister Plenipotentiary, diplomatic relations in the East were decidedly indirect and characteristically Oriental. It had just taken Germany two years to conclude a rather unimportant commercial treaty, and upon his arrival at Peking his colleagues in the diplomatic service laughed at him for supposing that his one year's leave of absence would suffice for his far more important mission. Yet the revision of the Burlingame treaty, restricting the importation of cheap coolie labor into this country, which he sought, was accomplished within two months. Another important commercial treaty relative to the importation of opium was likewise completed at the same time. He was also successful in his mission to Turkey in 1898 and as a member of the Alaska Fisheries and other international commissions. But his heart was in his work at Ann Arbor, and thither he always returned despite flattering temptations to enter diplomatic life. A great opportunity lay before him when he took up his new duties and he recognized it. It was his task to bring the State, exemplified in particular by a not always sympathetic Legislature, and by a Board of Regents of continually varying complexion, to a realization of the true function of a university supported by the State. He must arouse the enthusiasm for education and learning which he knew lay deep in the hearts of the people of Michigan. As Professor Charles Kendall Adams, later President of Cornell and Wisconsin, said: "What was called for first of all was the creation and dissemination of an appreciative public opinion that would produce, in some way or other, the means necessary for the adequate support of the University." So well did Dr. Angell accomplish this purpose that of late years he loved to dwell, in his speeches before the alumni, upon what he chose to call the "passion for education" on the part of the people of the State, forgetting utterly the yeoman service he performed all his life toward bringing about that same regard for popular education.