College of Agriculture at Lansing.
The strength of President Tappan's policy is shown in the group of men
he appointed to Professorships--leaders as well as scholars. Among the
first was Alexander Winchell, Wesleyan, '47, whose versatility was shown
by the range of his teaching as well as by his long list of published
works. He came to Michigan in 1853 as Professor of Physics and Civil
Engineering, but within two years was transferred to the chair of
Geology, Zooelogy, and Botany, which he held until his resignation in
1873 to accept the Chancellorship of Syracuse University. He returned to
Michigan in 1879 as Professor of Geology and Paleontology, and ended his
days in Ann Arbor in 1891. With a personality vigorous and powerful, if
somewhat unyielding, he was always a factor in faculty affairs, though
he was not so happy in his relations with the students as some of his
colleagues and therefore does not figure so prominently in their
reminiscences. He has been described as a sober, earnest, eloquent,
sometimes shrewd and witty but very absent-minded, scholar whose
"beautiful and even eloquent language led many to an admiration and love
for sciences." His work on the Michigan Geological Survey of which he
was twice director, and his life-long effort for the reconciliation of
science with religion, brought wide recognition to the University.
A totally different personality was Dr. Henry Simmons Frieze, Brown,
'41, who came to Michigan the next year as Professor of Latin Language
and Literature, in place of Dr. Haven, who assumed the Professorship of
History and English Literature. No name on Michigan's long Faculty roll
has been more honored than his. He brought to the University not only
well-grounded ideals of true scholarship, but also a broad culture, not
too common in those days, and an inspiring interest in literature and
art which left a deep impression. It was such spirits as Dr. Tappan, Dr.
Frieze, and Andrew D. White, who was also of that early company, that
set for the University standards in academic life and ideals which have
never been lost, and which enabled Michigan to take her place with such
extraordinarily little delay as one of the country's great educational
forces. Unhampered by the formalism and traditions of the Eastern
universities of that time, these men found here an opportunity for the
establishment of the progressive methods of the better European
universities. The services of Dr. Frieze as Acting President for the two
years preceding President Angell's election are mentioned elsewhere. He
was once more called upon to be Acting President during the year Dr.
Angell was in China in 1881 and again for a few months in 1887. But
these were only interludes, for his influence during his long
Professorship, where he easily stood _primus inter pares_, must be the
gauge of the high favor in which he was held by students and Faculty
alike. Among the many facets of his genius was a remarkable ability as a
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