hasis on daily
chapel exercises which were maintained long after the practice of
considering religious affiliations as one of the prime professorial
requisites was abandoned. This emphasis on the proper observance of the
Sabbath is rather amusingly illustrated in the regular practice in those
days of having the Monday Greek lesson consist of a chapter of the Greek
Testament; it being no sin to study the scriptures on Sunday. From which
we might gather that in some essentials, such as Sunday study, the
student of 1850 was true grandfather of the undergraduate of today.
Every effort was made to make college regulations a substitute for home
influences, and the members of that first Faculty were all remembered
for their kindly and paternal relations with the students. It was
largely because of the personal qualities and wisdom of these men that
the institution was able to steer successfully between the dangers of
religious indifference and sectarianism.

[Illustration: THE DOORWAY OF THE MARTHA COOK BUILDING]

The changes from those stricter days have come gradually and as a
reflection of the spirit of the age; the scientific and not the
ecclesiastical spirit rules, with the result that the student is left
more to his own devices in ordering his life. The discipline of the old
days would not be tolerated now and any tendency towards firmer
regulation of undergraduate life is often resented. The break came
first, perhaps, in a new spirit of independence which followed the
fraternity crisis in 1850. This was emphasized by the fact that the
students in the professional schools were excused from compulsory church
and chapel attendance, a discrimination which did not fail to react upon
the literary undergraduates. The rule still held, however, until 1871;
though the Sunday monitor who checked church attendance had long
disappeared. Daily prayers were maintained until 1895 when they were
succeeded by semi-weekly vesper services, which, in turn, were
eventually discontinued. Current opinion upon this gradual change is
possibly reflected in the statement made in 1900 by President Angell:

Where, as at the University of Michigan, the average age of the
freshman on entering college is 19.5, it is at least open to
discussion whether the spiritual welfare of undergraduates will be
promoted by their being driven to religious services under fear of
the monitor's mark.

A religious census made in 1894 showed