CIENCE, AND THE ARTS

As the University grew, the first Faculty of two members gradually
increased, though for years the roster was far from impressive. What
this first Faculty lacked in numbers, however, it made up in character
and ability. One has only to read the whole-hearted and loving tributes
of early graduates to discern the powerful personalities which inspired
them. It is true that for the most part they were scholars of an older
school, content to hand on the classical learning of the contemporary
college course, rather than original investigators. But how well they
performed this task! They inspired a real enthusiasm and love of
knowledge for its own sake in those they taught, and furnished them, as
well, an ideal for right living--all for five hundred dollars a year. We
of a later generation cannot honor them too much.

About these men, strongly individualized in the minds of their students,
have clustered stories which have become almost classic. Sharply
contrasted in particular characteristics, they have lived as vivid
personalities for future college generations in the memories of those
students, "who studied syllogisms under the noble Whedon, who polished
Greek roots for the elegant Agnew, who bungled metaphysics to the
despair of the learned Ten Brook, who murdered chemistry under the
careful Douglas whose experiments never failed, and who calculated
eclipses of the moon from the desk of Williams, the paternal." This
characterization by a member of the class of '49 is paralleled in a
more caustic estimate of a somewhat later Faculty by a member of the
class of '65 who speaks of "Boise the precise, Frieze the effusive,
Williams the plausible, and White the thinker."

Always first in any reminiscences of the early days was Professor George
Palmer Williams, the first real member of the Faculty, always known to
his students as "Punky," possibly, as Professor D'Ooge suggested,
because of the "dryness of his wit." Freshmen were even known to address
him as "Professor Punky," only to be pardoned with a never to be
forgotten kindliness when they discovered their awful mistake. Professor
Williams was a graduate of Vermont (1825) and came to the University
from the Pontiac branch to take the Professorship of Natural Philosophy.
He was especially loved, not only for his fatherly kindness and genuine
sympathy that won the confidence of his students, but also because "the
college student pays unstinted admirati