There are obvious advantages in thus organizing 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 former students appeared, of whom 498 were graduates and 106 were non-graduates. This is approximately 3.2 percent of the total names given in that edition, and was 6 percent of the college graduates listed. There is no reason to suppose that the same percentages at least would not apply in a similar survey of the latest edition.