Timeline - December 10, 1856
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.
