Ohio State University - Makio Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

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iv GYMNASIUM AND ARMORY HALL.

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tional colleges have had to purchase all that they enjoy, but the state universities were born free, and to this fact, though perhaps but dimly recognized, they owe a large part of the attraction that they exert upon the open-minded young people of their several states. The Ohio State University shares with other kindred institutions this great advantage and is bound to profit by it for time to come. 2. The State University is rich, lt has already a noble income, and this income is established on a basis that makes it certain to increase with the growing wealth of the state. This fact is in itself a pledge of the future. After all is said, such institutions must be judged and gauged by their revenues. It goes without saying that they must be free and in earnest, but what they can do for their students is measured at last by the amount of money they have to spend in instruction and equipment. Abundant income is absolutely essential to abundant strength and vitality in a modern university, particularly in one that undertakes to keep abreast of physical and biological science. The 340 acres of land which the University owns within the corporate limits of Columbus, is already a great source of wealth to the institution, and cannot fail to become a source of much greater wealth as the decades go by. It is easy also to see that they may be made to yield a magnificent addition to our revenues at no distant day. 3. The third ground on which we may venture to predict a great future for the State University is the fzrzmrc and zzwomz! rgf Me .rcrwke tha! 1? z's1'e1zdarz'1zg Me slafc. The value of this service, present and prospective, is, after all, the best pledge of its future. Ohio has already begun to recognize the returns she is receiving from her endowment of the University, and as time goes on, these returns are certain to become larger and more varied and the beneficence of the state will increase in like proportion. In its service to the state, we will not emphasize the courses lead- ing to the usual academic degrees or to the professions of law and medicine, and yet, it is quite likely that in the future as in the past, the most serviceable friends of the University will be drawn from these very divisions. 30

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Its unique and most characteristic services unquestionably lie in the domain of natural science, as, for example, in chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, agriculture, horticulture and the like. The progress in-these subjects is so rapid that only an institution endowed like the State University can provide the specialization of research and instruc- tion by which the results attained can be made available to the popular service. At the same time, the new knowledge is so important and practical and contributes so directly to the relief of man's estate, that the people of Ohio are bound to hold in appreciation and honor the agencies by which it is brought home to them. livery student of the institution can rest assured that a great future, commensurate with the greatness of the state, awaits alma zmzlar. She commands the elements that command success. gfxe G. S. cu. and the State. O the States that have been carved out of the great Northwest Territory, a public school system, in all that the words imply, seems both natural and necessary. 'l'heir great charter provided that public education should be forever fostered as one of the corner-stones of every free State, and as a condition precedent of all sound and wholesome public life. Beginning with the so-called com- mon schools, those of the rural districts, in both constitution and special statute these States have been true to the trust and have loyally followed the injunction, till in each of these imperial commonwealths of to day, Huxley's educational ladder is in place, with every round in reach of the child of the humblest citizen. Not all of this growth and plan and purpose has been at all times clearly and intelligently perceived by all citizens 3 but the great undercurrent of popular thought has been that the treasures of the past, economic wisdom, adminis- trative skill, all that history and philosophy and literature and art have to offer-all these are to be placed freely within the reach of all. ln self-defense and because it so sadly needs large-minded and well- trained citizens, the State has made the pathway to knowledge and consequent power broad and safe and easy of access to all alike. 33