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THE DEPARTMENT OF LATIN
THE "Act to establish the Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania," of August 22, 1817, provided for "a didaxia, or professorship, of anthropoglossica, or literature, embracing all the epistemiim, or sciences, relative to language." Three weeks later it was enacted that "in Classical Academies the Pupils shall be instructed in the French, Latin, and Greek languages," and authorization was given for the establishment of the "Classical Academy of the City of Detroit," the first branch of the Catholepistemiad.
On the following Candlemas Mr. Hugh M. Dickie was appointed Instructor of the Academy, and a year later Mr. Ebenezer Clapp was named to the same post at a salary of "not over $500, such salary to be retained by him out of tuition." In the spring of 1822 the trustees employed the Reverend A. W. Welton in the same capacity. On the first of December, 1825, they extended for one year the contract of Mr. Ashbel S. Wells, a graduate of Hamilton College, who had been "in charge of the Classical department of this institution" for an unnamed period. The salary was increased to $600 at the same time, but eleven months later, when Mr. Wells resigned, it was $170.19 in arrears, presumably because of low tuition receipts. Mr. Charles C. Sears, the next incumbent, was hired for $500, with a guarantee that if the tuition payments did not equal this amount, the trustees would make good the deficit.
Financial difficulties presently made further appointments and guarantees impractical, and the trustees apparently were glad to place the University building at the disposal of any qualified teacher who was willing to provide instruction in return for tuition fees. In November of 1828, the lower room (English school) of the University was "granted to Mr. Healy … for the tuition of scholars in the classics or such other branch or branches of education as may be useful and necessary in the state of the country," and in the following year it was voted by the trustees that when Mr. Hathon should leave the upper room [classical school], Mr. Delos Kinnicutt should be "permitted to occupy it." Finally, on September 1, 1830, the whole building was lent to the citizens of Detroit for the establishment of a common school. Throughout the history of the first institution in Detroit the classical languages had constituted the core of its academic curriculum.
When the University was reorganized in 1837, it was provided, in language much less picturesque than that of 1817, that among the professorships in the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts there should be "one of ancient languages." In July of 1841, before the University at Ann Arbor opened its doors to students, the Reverend George Palmer Williams (Vermont '25, LL.D. Kenyon '49) was appointed Professor of Languages. For four years he had been principal of the Pontiac branch of the University. He had shown executive ability in this position and had devised the first "Administrative Questionnaire," with the purpose of creating standards for the admission of prospective students. Before a month had passed, during which Professor Williams framed the original entrance requirements to the University, his title was changed to Professor of Mathematics, and the Reverend Joseph Whiting (Yale '23, A.M. ibid. '37), principal of the Niles branch, was made Professor of Languages, or, as he