The growth of the University continued undiminished, and soon the need of a large auditorium became increasingly apparent, to say nothing of more offices and class rooms. The Legislature therefore voted in 1869 the sum of $75,000 for the erection of the present main section of University Hall lying between the two original wings, the first buildings of the University. This included a large auditorium, seating nearly 3,000 persons, with a chapel and the necessary offices and recitation rooms on the first floor. The tower, which was the striking feature of this building, was replaced in 1898 by the lower and much safer dome of the present time.
The ability and success with which Dr. Frieze had conducted the affairs of the University was publicly recognized by the Board of Regents at the end of his term, and it was on his advice that the invitation was once more extended to his former pupil at Brown University, Dr. James B. Angell; this time with successful results.
Dr. Angell, fresh from his work in the East as Professor of Modern Languages at Brown University, war-time editor of the _Providence Journal_, and President of the University of Vermont, came to Michigan eight years after the departure of President Tappan. The Faculty of thirty-five which greeted him was a brilliant company, though small in comparison with a roll over ten times as long when he resigned his office. The catalogue of 1871 shows 1,110 students in the University at that time; at the end of his term of office there were 5,223. The thirty-eight years of his administration not only covered a significant period in the history of American education but it was as well a critical time in the life of the University. In the years between 1871 and 1909 the University showed, once for all, that the experiment involved in its establishment, the popularization of education and the maintenance of a school system and a university by the State, was not only justified but even more, it was extraordinarily successful.
While the University might have developed much as it has without the guidance of President Angell, it may be questioned whether it would have been as effective as a leader in the new movement. The principles which underlie the state university system were stated well by the founders, who incorporated the fundamental idea of popular education in the first constitution of the State, and Michigan's first great President, Chancellor Tappan, tried his best to make them practical. But he was ahead of his time, and it was not until President Angell took the helm that there was progress towards a true University. When he came Michigan was still in many respects little more than a collection of colleges. It was the work of Dr. Angell to build, and to build well, upon foundations already laid; to harmonize, with practical idealism and diplomacy, the advanced ideals of the University with the slower progress of the Commonwealth. While it has come to be no reproach upon the fame of Dr. Tappan that he failed in just this particular, it is the great achievement of Dr. Angell that he succeeded. He made Michigan the model for all succeeding state universities.