ed in 1893 and a second time in 1898,
when it was almost completely made over into its present form.

The College of Engineering, the fourth of the larger divisions of the
University, was in fact the last to be established, as it was not until
1895 that the Regents authorized its organization as an independent
department with Professor Charles E. Greene, Harvard, '62, as its first
Dean.

The history of the course in engineering, however, is almost as old as
the University, and really begins with the designation of a chair in
Civil Engineering and Drawing in the article authorizing the University.
That was as far as the matter went, however, for the first fifteen
years, or until the appointment of Alexander Winchell in 1853 as
Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering. Physics is the science upon
which the profession of the civil engineer rests and the two subjects
were closely associated in those days of small beginnings. There is
little to indicate that Professor Winchell or his successor to the chair
in 1855, William G. Peck, West Point, '44, did much to advance the
engineering half of their charge. But with the coming of DeVolson Wood
as Assistant Professor, immediately upon his graduation in 1857 from
Rensselaer Polytechnic, the cause of engineering was properly presented
to the students. Though the fourth institution in this country to offer
courses in engineering, the first two students were not graduated until
1860, so that actually Michigan became the sixth institution in America
to grant degrees in that branch of scientific training.

Professor Charles S. Denison, whose long service in the University began
as an instructor just before Professor Wood's resignation, pays a
tribute to his sturdy and at the same time genial character, his
powerful intellect, and singularly virile influence on his students. He
showed remarkable energy and administrative ability, in spite of many
difficulties and a general lack of understanding of his aims in
technical education, characteristic of those days. It is told of him
that he even recommended an adaptation of one of the professors' houses
on the Campus to the needs of the work in engineering, exactly thirty
years before it was actually done. While he was here a course in
military engineering was organized in 1862 and he delivered a course of
lectures on that subject, but after the war it was abandoned. A similar
fate overtook the School of Mines established in 1864-65, ow