Board of Regents, feeling that at his age, he may be losing the qualifications for his position, but the board refused to accept it. By 1909, he had been in office for 38 years and this time the Regents accepted his resignation. . Angell's health began to decline while on a tour of Europe in the summer of 1911, when he suffered a stroke of paralysis in Germany following an exhausting excursion to Russia. He recovered sufficiently to return to Ann Arbor within a month, but his lingering weakness was blamed for a bout of pneumonia in September 1913. On January 24, 1916, he had a stroke that affected his eyesight, leaving him unable to read, and he grew weaker until he contracted pneumonia again. He died a few days later, April 1, 1916, and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery on April 3, with a line of university students formed on each side of the streets as his funeral cortege traveled through Ann Arbor. Legacy Angell's historic legacy is based on the transition of Michigan from a small local state college to a major national University featuring state-of-the-art research. He was a transitional figure, maintaining the small-college paternalistic interest in the welfare of individual students, and endorsing the traditional small-college mission to promote civility and character building. He introduced a broader mission including admission by merit; coeducation; teaching large classes by lecture; and an increasing emphasis on graduate studies. He introduced a broad curriculum ranging from the humanities to the social sciences, sciences and engineering, as well as traditional and modern professional fields. He appealed to the Michigan public for financial support, and provided a model that was followed by other ambitious university presidents. His moderation, natural tact, and political astuteness strengthened his leadership role, and his diverse background in foreign languages, literature, civil engineering, and newspaper work facilitated his approaches to every major interest group in the state. However, Angell was not as dynamic or innovative as the younger generation such as Charles W. Eliot, Daniel Coit Gilman, and William Rainey Harper. By 1909 he was obsolete in terms of the state-of-the-art in world-class universities, and was even accused of provincialism, inbreeding, and complacency. Notable descendants and relatives A number of James Angell's descendants and near relatives rose to prominence in their respective fields, largely also in academia: Son James Rowland Angell was president of Yale University. Son