{"id":10,"date":"2024-04-30T20:11:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T20:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMI2\/?p=10"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:22:18","slug":"reorganization-of-1861","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/reorganization-of-1861\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reorganization of 1861"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"College
College Hall<\/a> in 1857, surrounded by tree stumps yet to be cleared. Image source: MSU Archives<\/a><\/span>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The earliest years of the Michigan Agricultural College were a constant struggle for its very existence. Since the field of scientific agriculture was quite a new concept in the United States, many doubted whether it was really beneficial for the state\u2019s young men to attend the school. The uncleared land of the experimental farm meant that for the first few years, much of the labor was spent in removing brush, pulling stumps, and digging drainage ditches, rather than actual experimentation. The state Board of Education, which had governed the College since its founding, managed it poorly, tasked with a new charge it scarcely understood and finding \u201cthe College\u2019s problems more vexing and less congenial than those of the Normal\u201d (i.e. the State Normal School at Ypsilanti, now Eastern Michigan University). There were political forces at work too, since the land grant that financed the school\u2019s creation and operation was a potentially lucrative pearl that many wanted to grasp.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hon.
Hon. J. R. Williams, M.A.C. President (1857\u20131859). Image source: Beal<\/a>, p. 23.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By 1859, four years after its founding and just two years after classes had commenced, the College was at a difficult juncture. It faced three conflicting schools of thought regarding its purpose and its future. One group, led by M.A.C. President Joseph Rickelson Williams, wanted the College to continue on the path it was founded upon, that is a four-year program focused on agriculture but with a strong base of liberal and scientific education. A second group wanted to switch to a two-year program, eliminating all the liberal arts to focus solely on practical studies and turning the College into, essentially, a vocational school. And of course there was the third faction, which wanted the entire enterprise to fold, so that the land grant could be reassigned to the University at Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding pressure to the situation, the College was in debt and seriously strapped for cash. It did not help that \u201cthe [1859] appropriation made by the Legislature for the support of the College [was] to be paid from taxes which would not be received until February or March of 1860.\u201d This led to \u201cthe introduction of the closest economy into all the affairs of the College.\u201d Believing that Joseph Williams\u2019 intentions for the College were extravagant or frivolous, and under pressure from public opinion, the Board of Education forced Williams to resign his position as president.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Williams out of the way, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Milton Gregory, ex officio<\/em> secretary of the board, proposed to switch to a two-year program. On the surface, Gregory\u2019s intent with this plan seemed to have been simply to focus its studies in order to drum up more interest in the school,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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so that it shall be sought not by those who merely wish a general education, but by those who desire to fit themselves for practical and scientific agriculturists. It was considered that the institution was designed not merely for farmers\u2019 sons, but for all who wished to become good and intelligent farmers.<\/p>\nBeal<\/a>, p. 41<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But underlying Gregory\u2019s proposal was the fact that he was a strict classicist: he believed that education in such areas as English literature, logic, ethics, and psychology were \u201cirrelevant,\u201d that \u201ca liberal education was best obtained through the study of Latin and Greek,\u201d i.e. the classics. Since the Agricultural College did not require Latin or Greek, which were not often taught in the rural high schools that prepared most of its students, in Gregory\u2019s eyes the College was already no more than a vocational school with extraneous coursework.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 1859, the board met at Lansing, and after discussion they voted to adopt the two-year plan. In response, the entire faculty immediately resigned their places, and their resignations were accepted by the board. However this was more formality than protest, because two of those professors were retained even as the faculty was reduced to a mere four positions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lewis
Lewis R. Fiske, Professor of Chemistry (1857\u20131862), M.A.C. President pro tempore<\/em> (1859\u20131862).
Image source: MSU Archives<\/a><\/span>, reprinted in Beal<\/a>, p. 40.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n