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Timeline - December 10, 1856

Date: December 10, 1856
Title: First Course Studies at the College
Description: President Williams, as well as other college faculty at the time designed the college's first curriculum. This would foreshadow the success of the institution for it combines a large array of subjects and research. Furthermore, each student was expected to devote a part of each day to manual labor in which he would receive a small pay. An announcement was published on December 10, 1856 and described the new curriculum of M.A.C.:

(As quoted from Michigan Agricultural College, Keith R. Widder)

- An ample Chemical Laboratory has been purchased by the Professor of Chemistry, inferior to few in the country and instruction in that Science will be thorough and practical

- Ample instruction will be given in Natural Sciences

- The course in mathematics will be comprehensive

- The application of Science to the business and arts of life will be practically illustrated in the field and the Lecture Room, especially where it bears upon Agriculture.

- Instruction in Ancient and Modern Languages is not included as an object of the Institution

- A thorough English education is deemed indispensable, including Rhetoric, History, Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Political Economy, the elements of Constitutional Law, etc. etc.

- The Farm being almost entirely in a state of nature, a very large amount of the labor of Students must at first be bestowed where it will yield little immediate profit. Had the Institution possessed a large tract of arable land, at the commencement, the earlier results would be far more profitable than they can now prove.