With these men as leaders Michigan boldly embarked on a series of departures from educational precedents. Though the time was not ripe for graduate study, its desirability had been recognized emphatically in the annual catalogues. In their class rooms several of the Faculty endeavored to do more than follow the accepted textbooks, through lectures, assigned readings, and exercises designed to develop the individual powers of each student. Professor White was particularly fertile in these expedients. The claims of comparatively new subjects, foreign to the traditional curriculum, were recognized in chairs of history, English literature, the modern languages, and above all the sciences, where true laboratory work was gradually introduced until Michigan had under Professor Douglas what was probably in its early years the largest chemical laboratory in any American university. The new scientific course, which was established within the Literary Department and not as a separate school, was particularly significant of the progressive spirit of this early Faculty. This came to be so well recognized that Dr. Angell remarked in his inaugural address that the drift of intelligent opinion had been for twenty years towards some of the positions early adopted by the University, such as elective studies and larger opportunities for the study of history, modern languages, and the natural sciences. He also took occasion to suggest that the University would always have to be in a measure dependent upon the alumni, since the Legislature would never become so generous in its appropriations as to make private gifts undesirable or unnecessary.