Henry Philip Tappan

Henry Philip Tappan (April 18, 1805 – November 15, 1881) was an American philosopher, educator and

He married Julia Livingston on April 7, 1828.[6]

A throat affliction

In 1850, the state of Michigan adopted a new state constitution^[14] that created the office of President of the University of Michigan and directed the newly elected Board of Regents to select someone for the office. They sent a representative to the East to solicit recommendations, and former Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft recommended Henry Tappan. Despite this recommendation, the regents first elected Henry Barnard of Connecticut,^[15] who declined the offer.^[16] Although John Hiram Lathrop (then Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison) was also considered for the job following Barnard's refusal, Tappan was unanimously elected on August 12, 1852.^[17] His starting salary was $1,500 per year.^[3]

Tappan was proud of the fact that while he was president of the University of Michigan, faculty were hired based not on their religious connections, but on their capacities within their field of study.^[18]

Tappan was also a strong proponent of the German model of university curriculum, which emphasized research, laboratory study, elective courses, and the increased importance of science and engineering, rather than the "British model" of recitation in a core classical arts curriculum that typified most major American universities of the time. His proposed elective course included "besides other branches, Civil Engineering, Astronomy with the use of an Observatory, and the application of Chemistry and other sciences to agriculture and the industrial arts generally."^[19] Shortly after his arrival, Michigan became the second university in the country (after Harvard) to issue Bachelor of Science degrees.^[20] Tappan also had plans for a graduate program, once the undergraduate curriculum was more fully developed.^[21]

Tappan received a

Removal as president

Despite the success of the flourishing university, Tappan's aristocratic bearing and perceived tendency to magnify his own importance did not sit well with the new regents who had been elected in 1858, many of whom came from rural areas and were without advanced education—only two of the ten members were college graduates themselves. One regent, Donald McIntyre, a strict

Upon his removal, Tappan remarked, "This matter belongs to history; the pen of history is held by Almighty Justice, and I fear not the record it will make of my conduct, whether public or private, in relation to the affairs of the University."[23] He immediately left Michigan and moved his family to Europe, residing in Berlin, Paris, Bonn, Frankfurt, Basel, and Geneva.^[24]

Tappan's firing was unpopular with students and the broader community, as it came with no warning, at a time when the university was more successful than ever, for no wrongdoing other than personal friction with the regents, and from a board whose terms in office were all expiring (save one) in just a few months and who were due to be replaced with new regents (already elected) who had expressed a desire to form a better working relationship with Tappan.^[22] Henry Barnard, by then the editor of The American Journal of Education, called the dismissal an "act of savage, unmitigated barbarism" in light of Tappan's work being "without a precedent in the educational history of the country."^[25] At the suggestion of his supporters, Tappan himself wrote a lengthy response to his dismissal, generally praising the first Board of Regents and excoriating the second as incompetent, and also singling out certain faculty members for criticism.^[26]

When the new Board of Regents took office in 1864, the flood of support for Tappan led them to consider re-hiring him, but in the end they felt it would be disruptive to the university, in light of Tappan's subsequent response.^[27]

Later years

In 1874 and 1875 the Board of Regents passed resolutions commending Tappan's service to the university and inviting him to return to Ann Arbor to be honored; the latter expressly withdrew "any censure express or implied in the resolutions which severed his connection" to the university.^[28] Tappan, who had moved to Europe after his firing, expressed a desire to return, but twice deferred accepting the invitation, citing first his age^[29] and then the health of his daughter.^[30]

He never returned to Michigan and died in his villa in Vevey, Switzerland on November 15, 1881, where he is buried overlooking Lake Geneva.^[24]

Commemoration

• The Tappan Professorship of Law was created in 1879, with former Michigan governor Alpheus Felch the first to hold it.^[31]
• Tappan Hall, the oldest extant classroom building on the University of Michigan campus, was finished in 1894. It houses the History of Art Department and the Fine Art Library.
  bas relief of Tappan by Karl Bitter.^[33]
• Tappan Elementary School was built on East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, in 1885. It was sold to the University of Michigan in the 1920s and renamed East Hall.
• Tappan Junior High School was first opened in 1925 in the Burns Park area of Ann Arbor. The building was renamed Burns Park Elementary School after a new and larger junior Tappan Junior High School opened nearby in 1951. The new school is now known as
  Tappan Middle School
  and is located in East Stadium Boulevard, Ann Arbor.

• Tappan, Henry P. (1839), A Review of Edwards's "Inquiry Into the Freedom of the Will.", New York: John S. Taylor,
  ISBN 0-404-59406-9
• Tappan, Henry P. (1840), The Doctrine of the Will, Determined by an Appeal to Consciousness, New York: Wiley and Putnam,
  ISBN 0-7905-2497-X
• Tappan, Henry P. (1841), The Doctrine of the Will, Applied to Moral Agency and Responsibility, Wiley and Putnam,
  ISBN 0-7905-0162-7
• Tappan, Henry P. (1844), Elements of Logic: Together with an Introductory View of Philosophy in General, and a Preliminary View of the Reason, New York: Wiley and Putnam
• Tappan, Henry P. (1851), University Education, New York: George P. Putnam,
  ISBN 0-8007-1258-7
• Tappan, Henry P. (1852a), A Discourse, Detroit: Advertiser Power Presses,
  ISBN 0-7619-5715-4
  (Inaugural speech)
• Tappan, Henry P. (1852b), A Step from the New World to the Old, and Back Again: With Thoughts on the Good and Evil in Both, New York: D. Appleton
• Tappan, Henry P. (1855a), The Growth of Cities: A Discourse Delivered Before the New York Geographical Society, New York: R. Craighead
• Tappan, Henry P. (1855b), The Progress of Educational Development: A Discourse Delivered Before the Literary Societies of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI: E.B. Pond
• Tappan, Henry P. (1856), Elements of Logic: Together with an Introductory View of Philosophy in General, and a Preliminary View of the Reason (2nd (revised) ed.), New York: D. Appleton
• Tappan, Henry P. (1857), Public Education: An Address; Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the Capitol at Lansing, Detroit: H. Barns,
  ISBN 9781418196820
• Tappan, Henry P. (1865), A discourse on the death of Abraham Lincoln ... delivered Tuesday, May 2, 1865, in the Dorotheen-Church, Berlin, Berlin: G. Lange,
  OCLC 3838520