s act also gave
the Regents power to assign the duties of vacant professorships to any
professor already appointed and to establish branches in the different
counties without further legislative authority. The Board was also
authorized to purchase philosophical apparatus, a library, and a cabinet
of natural history.

These were the essential provisions for the University. With so novel a
scheme the Regents and the Legislature naturally had to proceed on a
more or less cut and try method, but those at all familiar with the
organization of the present institution will recognize familiar features
in this first plan. One of the practical problems which faced those who
held the fate of the University in their charge was the question as to
where students, sufficiently trained in the higher branches, were to be
found in a state which numbered, all told, not more than 100,000 souls,
scattered for the most part in little frontier settlements. This
explains the provisions for the branches, which were to be in effect the
high schools from which the University was to draw its students. For a
time this was the actual development; but after the branches were
discontinued, high schools, supported by the various towns of the State,
came into existence and were eventually bound to the University through
the admission of their students by certificate. Thus the same end was
accomplished and at less expense.

When one considers the actual situation in Michigan at that time, the
program outlined by this act seems extraordinarily ambitious if not
actually ridiculous. The hard and primitive life of those days is almost
inconceivable now, and yet the change has come well within the lifetime
of the oldest inhabitants of many thriving cities of the State. The
secret lay in the extraordinary increase of the population. Settlers
came in so rapidly that, where in 1834 there were but 87,278
inhabitants, there were over 212,267 in 1840, and it was precisely this
growth, evidences of which were on every hand, that encouraged those
educational pioneers to aim high. The result has justified their
optimism; though there were to be many years of small things and limited
means before the fulfillment of this early vision. As Professor Hinsdale
wisely says in his History: "A large scheme would do no harm provided no
attempt were made at once to realize it, and it might in time be well
filled out; while a small plan, in case of large growth, would require
r