The professional departments have had a marked influence upon the University's standing as a center of learning. This is particularly true of the Medical School, which naturally emphasized the value of scholarly training and investigation from the first. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that it was the impetus given by the Medical Faculty which was responsible for the high reputation the University enjoyed from the first, particularly in the sciences. To this fortunate development the two recruits from the Literary Faculty, Dr. Sager, who had been Professor of Botany and Zoölogy, and Dr. Douglas, who served as Professor of Chemistry in both departments, contributed especially, though the influence of the other members of the Medical Faculty, more interested perhaps in the strictly professional aspects of their work, cannot be overlooked. These men were alive to the value of original investigation, their field offered too many opportunities to be neglected by scholars of their caliber, and it was therefore in the Medical School that the first research laboratories were developed. As the numbers in the Medical Department and its prestige increased, this influence grew, so that it may be said that for many years the strongest impulse toward research and the highest scholarship, particularly in the new fields of science, came from the men of the Medical Faculty. Nor has this influence ever weakened, though the eventual establishment of advanced courses and the recognition of research in all departments has tended to make it less conspicuous than in the early days.
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF HILL AUDITORIUM]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MAIN READING ROOM IN THE NEW LIBRARY]
With the Law Department it was somewhat different. The old-fashioned conception of the law as a formal body of doctrine, fixed and unchangeable, tended in itself to limit original effort, though Judge Cooley's great work, with its high scholarship and profound learning, added greatly to the reputation of the University. Of recent years, however, there has been a change in the attitude towards the teaching of law. It has come to be recognized that our law is a changing and developing force, and that the adaptation of fundamental legal principles to the advancing demands of modern society, both through legislation and through judicial decision, furnishes a field for research and investigation which demands the highest type of scholarship and training. The modern law student seeks the principles of his science through a careful study of the cases themselves, and no longer accepts a dogmatic statement of the law as laid down in textbook and lecture. This change in the legal curriculum, which is little less than revolutionary, is really based upon scholarship and research on the part of every student, and is reflected in the preoccupation of every law student in his work. Gone are the days when the Law Department was the resort of those who could not succeed in the other departments.