the University from the branches, suffered a considerable
diminution of their salary, as the scale outlined at the first Regents'
Meeting was more than halved; they received annually but five hundred
dollars and the rent of their houses. In fact it was not for many years
that the $2,000 maximum salary first established was reached. Even these
salaries were not certain in the dark days of 1842 and 1843, when the
Regents felt it their duty to make known to the Faculty the University's
financial difficulties. The University owes not a little, surely, to
these men who signified their willingness to stick by the institution
and to endure privations and hardships as long as there was hope.

Life for the students in those days was also no bed of academic ease,
though it was perhaps no harder than the home life to which they were
accustomed. One study with the two adjoining bedrooms was assigned to
two students who were expected to care for their own rooms and sweep the
dirt into the halls for Pat Kelly, the "Professor of Dust and Ashes," as
well as to cut their own wood at the woodpile behind the building and
carry it in, sometimes up three flights of stairs. Chapel exercises were
held from 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning and at 4:30 or 5:00 in the
afternoon, according to the time of year, and were compulsory. Tradition
has it that the efforts of the official monitors were supplemented by
the janitor, whose duty it was to ring a bell, borrowed from the
Michigan Central Railroad, and who aroused more than one delinquent by
shouting, "Did yez hear the bell?", a commentary either on the bell or
on Pat Kelly's voice. To a student of modern days the greatest hardship
would appear in the first recitation of the day before breakfast
following chapel exercises. Three classes were held daily except on
Saturday, when there was only one recitation and an exercise in
elocution.

On Sunday the students were obliged to attend service in some one of the
churches, and monitors, sometimes not overzealous, were on hand to see
that they attended. The expenses are given as from $80 to $100 a year,
with an entrance fee of $10 and an annual tax of $7.50 for the use of
the room and janitor's services. Students were allowed to leave the
Campus for their meals but were expected to be on hand from morning
prayers to 7:30 A.M., from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 noon, from 2:00 to 5:00
P.M. and from 7:00 or 8:00 to 9:00 P.M., after which no student was
permitted to