The Faculty History Project documents faculty members who have been associated with the University of Michigan since 1837. Key in this effort is to celebrate the intellectual life of the University. This Faculty History Website is intended as a component of the effort to document the extraordinary academic achievements of Michigan’s faculty in building and sustaining one of the world’s great universities. It provides access to a comprehensive database of information concerning the thousands of faculty members who have served the University of Michigan.
Find out more.
The Bentley Historical Library serves as the official archives for the University.
Memorial
The Michigan Alumnus 313
Professor Lane Passes Away
By WILFRED B. SHAW '04
General Secretary of the Alumni Association During Nineteen Years of Judge Lane's Presidency
To thousands of alumni of the University who came into personal relationship with Judge Vic tor H. Lane, 74e, '781, as students in the Law School or as fellow workers in the many other inter ests which filled his active life, his death on January 24th brought a sudden sense of personal loss.
The passing years had touched his kindly, dignified figure so lightly, and his interests in life as it is lived today were so perennial that he seemed one of those "elder statesmen," ever youthful in spirit, always at hand to sit in interested and sympa thetic judgment on the many questions which continually came to him for consideration and interpretation. Al though approaching his eightieth year — Judge Lane was seventy-eight at the time of his death —his point of view was never anything but lib eral and constructive, appreciative of the best in modern develop ments in literature and art, keenly alive to the new breezes stirring in all the various activities and where his counsels were valued.
Victor Hugo Lane came to the University from Adrian in 1897 as Fletcher Professor of Law after a profession al career of almost twenty years, nine of these as judge of the first Michigan circuit. A large proportion of the graduates of the Law School who are now practicing their profession in every state of the Union have come under the influence of his crystalline honesty, his up- right personality, physical as well as spiritual, his long experience with the actual administration of the law and his wise and tolerant judgment. (An appreciation of Judge Lane by one of his colleagues on the faculty of the Law School will appear in the issue of THE ALUMNUS of February 22.)
But it is not the members of the legal profession alone who have known him. Quietly, and with charac teristic lack of ostentation, his influence has been deep ly felt in many phases of university life, which have contributed vitally to its texture. He became President of the Alumni Associa tion in 1901 and for twenty-two years he continued in office through some of the most important and formative periods in its history.
Following short ly after me reor ganization of the Asso ciation in 1897, he led it up to and through the beginnings of the sec ond period of expan sion which characterizes the present era of activity in alumni affairs. His guiding hand initiated many first steps and his advice found the right path through more than one dark place in more recent years.
Starting with a small office in one corner of a room on the first floor of old University Hall, progressive steps car ried the Alumni Association to Alumni Memorial Hall and to a rapid expansion in per sonnel and activities. Throughout this whole period it can be said truthfully that his influence was always for progressive measures. No plan was presented that did not receive his thoughtful consideration and, if it carried within it the germ of success, it always had his approval. He was not afraid to experiment.
The same characteristics marked his similar service as President of the University Y.M.C.A. and as Chair man of the Board in Control of Athletics. Lane Hall, the present center of the activities of the Student Chris tian Association, was named in his honor, and the tribute it implies was no empty one. Judge Lane's deeply religious nature was never obtrusively emphasized, for his was the quiet, persuasive religion which shows in deeds rather than in words. But his long years of service in the Presbyterian churches of Adrian and Ann Arbor and his leadership of the Y.M.C.A. during a critical period, testify to his faith and to' the spirit of service that was his outstanding characteristic.
The same principles governed his labors for the cause of intercollegiate athletics as a member and later, Chairman of the Board in Control of Athletics. He had an important part in guiding the University's athletic policies through that first athletic era when Michigan was known from one end of the country to the other for its "point-a-minute" teams. It was not an easy task in those earlier days to uphold high standards in athletic competition. Yet there was no compromising, and the high standards which have always been main tained by the Intercollegiate College Conference can in great part be attributed to the work of Judge Lane and his predecessor, Professor Albert H. Pattengill, to whom he would have wished this tribute paid. The traditions these men set, and the influence they wielded with their associates in Conference councils, have never been lost. When Michigan withdrew from the confer ence in 1907 Judge Lane retired from the Chairman ship of the Board.
Victor Hugo Lane was born May 27, 1852, at Geneva, Ohio. His parents, Henry and Clotilda Cath erine Sawyer Lane, moved to Hudson, Michigan, in 1866, and there Judge Lane's first schooling was com pleted. In the fall of 1870 he came to the University as a student in the Engineering Department, graduating with a degree of Civil Engineer in 1874. But, after two years' experience, he felt that engineering was no t his real profession and he therefore returned once more to the University this time to study law, graduating a second time in 1878. While still a student in the Law Department he was married to Miss Ida M. Knowlton, a sister of Professor Jerome C. Knowlton who later was Dean of the Department of Law. Mrs. Lane died in 1921. Immediately upon graduation Judge Lane entered upon the practice of his profession in Hudson, Michigan, later moving to Adrian, where, in 1888, after some years in practice, he became Judge of the circuit comprising Lenawee and Hillsdale counties. Here he remained until 1897, when he became a member of the law faculty of the University.
Judge Lane was a member of the American Bar Association, the Michigan Bar Association, the Or der of the Coif, a legal honorary scholastic society; Phi Delta Phi, a legal fraternity; Tau Beta Pi, engineering honorary scholastic society; as well as the Catholepiste miad, a faculty club emphasizing academic attainment in various fields.
Judge Lane is survived by four children: Mrs. H. Lee Simpson of Detroit, Mrs. William D. McKenzie of Chicago, Victor H. Lane, Jr., of Ann Arbor, and Henry Knowlton Lane of Chicago, all of whom are alumni of the University. The end came suddenly after a period of illness culminating in an attack of pneu monia following an operation. He was buried Sunday, January 26, at Forest Hills Cemetery in Ann Arbor.
Such a record of service for the University must speak for itself. Those who knew him loved him for the man he was. The years never brought a stoop to his shoulders or lessened the quiet humor in his smile. He lived for others to an extent that only those of us who knew him can appreciate. Duty always had a first call upon him.
As one who was closely associated with him, even before his later Ann Arbor life, the writer can only express his own personal loss of a great and good friend with whom it was always a pleasure and an inspiration to work in the development of the ever-expanding activities of the Alumni Association. Few realize how much Judge Lane contributed through these long years of preparation to the greater Association of these later years. He dreamed it and helped build it.