IN the several departments there shall be established the following professorships. In the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, one of Ancient Languages …" Thus, in section 8 of the act of May 18, 1837, there was laid, in accordance with the universal academic tradition of the times, the first and indispensable cornerstone of a liberal arts college. But it was not only in the intellectual and academic foundation of the University that the ancient languages took first place. In providing for the organization of the branch at Ann Arbor, the Regents at a meeting on July 22, 1841, resolved "to authorize the organization … by the appointment of a Professor of Languages who shall perform the additional duties prescribed in the resolution hereby modified." These duties, as we learn from the resolution of July 8, included "the power to organize collegiate classes and to make such arrangements respecting the buildings and grounds as they may deem necessary." Thus, so to speak, the material as well as the intellectual structure of the University was to be built upon Roman and Greek organization and culture.
The Board then "proceeded to the election of a Professor of Languages in pursuance of the above resolution, and Mr. George P. Williams of the Oakland Branch was appointed such Professor." The Reverend Mr. Williams did not, however, accept this appointment, but shortly afterward became instead Professor of Mathematics. In his place the Reverend Mr. Joseph Whiting (Yale '23, A.M. ibid. '37) assumed the duties of this position in September, 1841. For a short period he and Professor Williams constituted the entire faculty of the University. At the time of his death in 1845, just before the graduation of the first class, Whiting was Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages. The amount of teaching expected of Professor Whiting was, to judge by modern standards, tremendous. Entirely apart from the full schedule in Latin, the Catalogue for 1844-45 offered the following courses in Greek: for freshmen, first term, Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Anabasis (in extracts); second term, Thucydides and Herodotus; third term, Homer's Odyssey; for sophomores, first term, Lysias, Isocrates, and Demosthenes; second term, Greek Tragedy and Grecian Antiquities; third term, Greek Tragedy; for juniors, first and second terms, Greek Poetry; for seniors, first term, Lectures on the Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures. It is interesting to note in passing that the last-mentioned course, given, if at all, for this one year, represents a type of instruction in the classics considerably in advance of the times. Professor Whiting was assisted during this last year of his teaching by Burritt A. Smith, Tutor in Latin and Greek. He remained during the following year, 1845-46, which marked the arrival of Professor Whiting's successor. Thereafter Smith's name disappeared from the Catalogue.
From 1845 to 1852 the professorship of Greek and Latin was held by the Reverend Mr. John Holmes Agnew (Dickinson '23, D.D. Washington Coll. [Pa.] '52). After the loss of B. A. Smith in 1846, he appears to have shouldered alone the burden of instruction in the classics. Under him the Greek course was slightly modified by the omission of the lectures on language and literature, and by some shifting in the terms during which certain authors were read. He seems to have added a course in Plato in