the stream of alumni
gifts now beginning to flow so strongly toward the University. It not
only provides a trustworthy and conservative body to which any gift may
be entrusted, whether in the form of a class fund, individual
contribution, or bequest, but it also ensures that all such gifts which
are unrestricted, shall be utilized wherever, in the judgment of the
Directors, the University's need is greatest. The existence of such a
fluid source of income properly administered can be made of incalculable
benefit, particularly in the numerous critical occasions, when the
regular income is entirely unequal to the emergency, though it is not
proposed to relieve the State from providing for the normal needs of the
University, but to meet the special demands which are continually
arising in such an institution. Finally, the existence and
administration of such a fund will tend to tie the alumni to the
University as could no other agency, particularly if, as elsewhere, a
good part of the income arises from small annual subscriptions,
collected by a class officer, who remits the total as a class
contribution.

Thus, though the alumni of the University have no direct voice in the
administration, as have the graduates in many other institutions, they
have established several agencies through which their natural desire to
have a recognized share in University affairs may be expressed. These
include first of all the General Alumni Association, with its many
subsidiary class and local organizations, which maintains the _Alumnus_
as its official organ, and with at least the outlines of an advisory
body in the Alumni Council with its Executive Committee. The alumni also
have further means of associating themselves with the affairs of the
University through the power of appointment of a majority of the members
of the Board of Governors of the Michigan Union and the Directors of the
Alumni Fund, which rests with the Directors of the Alumni Association;
while the four alumni members of the Board of Directors of the Union are
likewise elected by the alumni at large at the annual meeting in June.

With so large and widely distributed a body of graduates it is to be
expected that many have become prominent in the life of the country, and
in their professions. An analysis of the names of Michigan men and women
in "Who's Who" for 1912-13 showed that, exclusive of the holders of
honorary degrees and Summer School students, the names of 604 f