A QUARTER CENTURY OF BOTANY AT MICHIGAN
By F. C. Newcombe
The close of the present academic year is to mark the transfer in this University of six laboratory sciences from inadequate and in hospitable quarters in recitation rooms, attics, basements and cellars to adequate and congenial quarters built for particular laboratory uses.
During a quarter of a century the writer as a member of one of these six departments—the botanical—has seen them grow from small size to their present important development, has seen them in the face of discouraging surroundings struggling to maintain their position in the world of science. It would be a worthy task to attempt to trace the progress, to name the milestones along the upward path of each of these departments; but the writer must limit himself to his own department, knowing that what he may say of the progress of this one could be in general extended to the others as well.
Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Botany occupied two rooms of one thousand square feet each in the north wing of University Hall, one room on the fourth floor, used as a laboratory, and the other room on the second floor, used to house the plant collections. All the laboratory work of the department was done in the one room on the fourth floor. The staff consisted of one professor and one instructor. The total number of registrations of literary students in the department for the first semester of the year 1890-91 was 31; the number of courses offered was four.
A table will show at a glance the changes in students, staff and courses for the last 25 years, the numbers being for the first semester of each year; the number of different students would be not more than 7% below the number of registrations:
1890 1900 1910 1915
Student registrations 43 137 301 444
Staff 2 3 6 7
Courses 4 8 13 19
In 1891, the department was moved from the two rooms in the north wing of University Hall to the four rooms on the fourth floor of the south wing, thus giving the department about 4,000 square feet of floor space for laboratory and herbarium. Later three additional rooms were occupied on the ground floor of the south wing, the ends of the hallways were cut off for small private rooms, and storerooms were fitted up in the attic giving finally about 7,500 square feet of floor space for laboratory and 2,500 square feet for herbarium and storeroom. For lecture rooms, the department has always been obliged to depend on the courtesy and convenience of other departments.
Thirty years ago the study of botany and zoology in universities was little more than anatomy and classification. Twenty-five years ago, when the writer became a member of the botanical staff, Professor Spalding in botany and Professor Reighard in zoology had recently introduced that study of the structure and activities of living things which we term biology, the science which in both botany and zoology has since yielded such splendid results and which claims now the principal attention of the followers of these two sciences. But a quarter of a century ago this side of botany was still elementary, and its present stately proportions have been attained almost wholly within the period of the writer's experience in this University. The roster of early botanical professors is illumined by the names of Asa Gray, Sager, Hilgard, Winchell and Harrington; but Professor Spalding, coming in 1876, was the first instructor to give all his time to botany and to him must ever belong the credit of introducing the biological study of botany into this University.
The study of biology requires the control of conditions and the extension of equipment far more varied and much more expensive than the older methods of study. The Department of Botany was soon therefore confronted with the need of providing this equipment or losing in the competitive race with other universities. In apparatus it equipped itself as well as any university; it adapted its laboratories to the newer study as well as the rather rigid construction would allow; in 1903 it began the rent of a small space in a neighboring greenhouse. Experimental greenhouses and gardens are a prime necessity for satisfactory work, and the department tried many ways to supply the deficiency. In 1906, Dr. Walter H. Nichols and wife, both former students in botany in the University, presented to the University 30 acres of land about one mile from the Campus, to be used for a botanical garden and arboretum. On this ground a small greenhouse was erected in1908. Though this land and greenhouse have been of considerable aid, the department must have a much better provision in garden and greenhouses before it can use most efficiently the extensive equipment, which it has in apparatus and staff.
Notwithstanding the unfavorable quarters to which the department has always been confined, the number of students has increased from the 34 in the first semester in 1890-91 to 444 in the first semester of 1914-15, these all literary students to whom could be added 51 pharmacy students taking work in the Botanical Department. This growth is, as one can readily see, more rapid than the growth in numbers of the literary department or than the whole University. During the past ten years, the Literary College has increased in numbers about 62.5%, the Botanical Department 100%. No department on the Campus, with the possible exception of the chemical, enrolls as many literary students in laboratory work as does the botanical. None of the universities in neighboring states shows as high a percentage of literary students electing laboratory work in botany, as does Michigan. Here about one literary student in every six takes work in botany. In neigh-boring universities the proportion runs from one in thirty to one in seven.
Besides the instruction of undergraduates, that other side of university life—the contribution to knowledge and the training of men and women for professional service—has not been forgotten. Neglecting the numerous publications of lesser importance, the published contributions to knowledge from the Botanical Department have numbered 146, of which 99 were by members of the staff, the others by students. Nearly one-half the total number has been published within the past 10 years.
In professional life, those who have specialized in botany at Michigan within the last 25 years, are numbered by the hundred in secondary schools, and by the score in institutions of higher learning. Thirty have held, and twenty-seven are still holding professors' or instructors' chairs in universities, (including Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Syracuse, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Washington State and California), over 35 in colleges or normal schools, and over 30 working as experts along botanical lines in the Government service or other research institutions.
The first doctorate in botany conferred by this University was given in 1878, and there were but three others up to the year 1900. Altogether 22such doctorates have been given. Compared with these 22 in botany, 23 doctorates have been given in Latin, 22 in economics, and 20 in philosophy and psychology combined. The other departments show numbers considerably less. An examination of this 25-year period shows that whereas up to the year 1900 the group of departments including philosophy, economics, history, and languages had almost three times the number of doctors of philosophy as the scientific departments, during the last 15 years the doctors in the scientific departments have exceeded all others. In these last 15years, botany has had the highest number of doctors, namely 18, while physics and Latin come next, each with 15, and chemistry third with 12.
Some critics are given to scoffing at the number of doctors of philosophy now being made by the universities. No general consideration need be given here to this criticism. Tint the Department of Botany has exact knowledge as to the standing of its 22 doctors, and the following summary will show that all have taken professional positions; 9 doctors hold positions in universities; 6 are professors or instructors in colleges, agricultural colleges or normal schools; 3 are experts in government agricultural positions; one is peat expert in the Bureau of Mines; one is inspector of high school science for the State of Wisconsin; one has retired after holding college positions; and one died while professor of botany in a state agricultural college. Of the 21 living doctors, 15 are still engaged in research. There has never been difficulty in securing positions for these doctors. The most of them act for one or more years as assistants in the laboratory, and thereby receive a course of training which is designed to aid in fitting them for instructors' or investigators' positions, and which gives their instructors the knowledge necessary for recommendation to suitable positions.
To this retrospect there may be permitted a glance to the future: With the opening of the new laboratories next year there is danger of too great an increase in the numbers of students. It has been the history of other departments in the University. The material equipment too will be far greater than in the past, and the staff will need to be watchful lest the machine take all their time in its operation. If the land recently acquired for the purpose is equipped with gardens and experimental greenhouses as already planned and the work of the department is well organized, the staff will be able not only to do better teaching than ever before, to prepare experts for more varied biological work, but to engage in and direct research in new problems with both theoretical and practical bearing. In doing these things the department will be able to align itself with those of other institutions which have anticipated Michigan in providing modern facilities.
May the success of the new period soon to open justify the hopes which have prompted the extensive preparations now being made to extend the field of operations.
The Michigan Alumnus
1915, Pages 477-480
