The story of Detroit / by George B. Catlin.

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL PROMOTIONS

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were Rev. Gabriel Richard, Rev. John Monteith and Judge Augustus B. Woodward.
Fr. Richard was the most active of these in the early
promotion of schools. He was a very lovable man, a fine
scholar and a man of liberal mind. Often when there was no
Protestant minister in Detroit he would, on request, preach to
the Protestant population in the Council House, conducting
religious services somewhat after the method common to
Protestant churches. His English was broken and his accent
and pronunciation decidedly Gallic. When the English word
he wanted did not come to him readily in his discourse he would
substitute the French word. For example: One day he preached
a sermon from the text, "The Good Shepherd giveth his life for
his sheep." Frequently when the word sheep did not come
readily to his lips he substituted the French word "moutons."
But nearly everybody loved Fr. Richard because he seemed to
love everybody.
On August 26, I817, the first educational movement in Detroit came to a head in the passing of an act by the Governor and
Judges for the founding of a university. Here was a golden opportunity for Judge Woodward to bring to the surface the most
polysyllabic words in his astonishing vocabulary and, like a
turtle when it lays its eggs, having once started on this route he
seemed unable to stop his raid on the dictionaries. In fact, he
overran the dictionaries at several points and fabricated a few
terms of his own, which nearly threw the community into convulsions. In the act which he drew he styled the university
which was to be, the "Catholepistemiad," or "University of
Michigania." But the movement had such vital energy behind
it that it could not be stalled by hard words. It was a most
ambitious program from the beginning, for the act provided
for a university, not a mere college, and provided for 13 professorships, in spite of the lack of professors or funds. Some of
the chairs were given such names that only men of daring, as
well as learning, would dare to sit upon them.
The 13 professorships specified were: Catholepistemia, or
universal science; anthropoglossica, or language and literature;