The strength of President Tappan's policy is shown in the group of men he appointed to Professorships--leaders as well as scholars. Among the first was Alexander Winchell, Wesleyan, '47, whose versatility was shown by the range of his teaching as well as by his long list of published works. He came to Michigan in 1853 as Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering, but within two years was transferred to the chair of Geology, Zoölogy, and Botany, which he held until his resignation in 1873 to accept the Chancellorship of Syracuse University. He returned to Michigan in 1879 as Professor of Geology and Paleontology, and ended his days in Ann Arbor in 1891. With a personality vigorous and powerful, if somewhat unyielding, he was always a factor in faculty affairs, though he was not so happy in his relations with the students as some of his colleagues and therefore does not figure so prominently in their reminiscences. He has been described as a sober, earnest, eloquent, sometimes shrewd and witty but very absent-minded, scholar whose "beautiful and even eloquent language led many to an admiration and love for sciences." His work on the Michigan Geological Survey of which he was twice director, and his life-long effort for the reconciliation of science with religion, brought wide recognition to the University.
A totally different personality was Dr. Henry Simmons Frieze, Brown, '41, who came to Michigan the next year as Professor of Latin Language and Literature, in place of Dr. Haven, who assumed the Professorship of History and English Literature. No name on Michigan's long Faculty roll has been more honored than his. He brought to the University not only well-grounded ideals of true scholarship, but also a broad culture, not too common in those days, and an inspiring interest in literature and art which left a deep impression. It was such spirits as Dr. Tappan, Dr. Frieze, and Andrew D. White, who was also of that early company, that set for the University standards in academic life and ideals which have never been lost, and which enabled Michigan to take her place with such extraordinarily little delay as one of the country's great educational forces. Unhampered by the formalism and traditions of the Eastern universities of that time, these men found here an opportunity for the establishment of the progressive methods of the better European universities. The services of Dr. Frieze as Acting President for the two years preceding President Angell's election are mentioned elsewhere. He was once more called upon to be Acting President during the year Dr. Angell was in China in 1881 and again for a few months in 1887. But these were only interludes, for his influence during his long Professorship, where he easily stood _primus inter pares_, must be the gauge of the high favor in which he was held by students and Faculty alike. Among the many facets of his genius was a remarkable ability as a musician, and the impetus he gave the musical life of Ann Arbor resulted in the organization of the Musical Society and the naming of the Frieze Memorial Organ in his honor. Andrew D. White tells us, in his "Autobiography," that he found him one of the most charming men he had ever met,--simple, modest, retiring to a fault, yet a delightful companion and a most inspiring teacher. "So passionately was he devoted to music that at times he sent his piano away from his house in order to shun temptation to abridge his professorial work, and especially was this the case when he was preparing his edition of Virgil. A more lovely spirit never abode in mortal frame. No man was ever more generally beloved in a community; none, more lamented at his death." Hardly less important was the inspiration and support Dr. Frieze gave to the study of art through his contributions to the University's art museum. This dates particularly from a gift he made of books, engravings, photographs, and copies of statues and paintings, purchased abroad in 1856 with the unexpended balance of his salary, amounting to $800. This was the real beginning of the University's art collection.