The Summer Session was first established by the Regents in 1900 as a separate division of the University. Courses in the summer had been given since 1894 under the direction of a committee from the Faculty of Literature, Science, and the Arts, but the Regents had assumed no real responsibility for this work and the fact that the chairman and all the members of the committee, save one, were of the rank of instructor indicates the minor place it assumed in university affairs. With a reorganization in 1900 under the chairmanship of Professor John O. Reed, '85, of the Department of Physics, a new life was given to the School. From that time it grew rapidly, until in the summer of 1919 it had an enrolment of almost 2,000, including students in the Law School, Medical School, Engineering College, and a summer library course, though the majority, of course, were enrolled in the Literary College. When Professor Reed became Dean of the Literary Department in 1907, Professor John R. Effinger, '91, became Dean of the Summer Session. After the death of his predecessor, he in turn became Dean of the Literary College, and Edward H. Kraus, Syracuse, '96, Professor of Mineralogy, who had been Secretary, took his place as administrative head of the Summer Session.
A STATE UNIVERSITY AS A CENTER OF LEARNING
Michigan's position as a state university has been strongly reflected in its ideals and policies. It could not be otherwise. But this relationship, the source of its strength in many aspects, has also carried with it certain dangers. The University has a two-fold function: it must teach the youth of the State and the Nation; but to do this effectively, it must also aim to do its share in enlarging the field of knowledge by encouraging scholarship and research on the part of members of the Faculties as well as by a certain proportion of the more advanced students. It is this latter function that is too easily overlooked in the demand for the ordinary and more "practical" courses which necessarily form so large a part of the modern curriculum. Yet even the most elementary college work cannot be given properly unless the instructor is in touch with the latest developments and discoveries in his own field, and this familiarity only comes through research, on his own part or by his colleagues.
