Oregon State University - Beaver Yearbook (Corvallis, OR)

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adoption of the rigorous measures necessary to the prevention of disease. Artificial watercourses have perfected the drainage system that natural situation had begun. The city's network of pipe lines distribute throughout the municipal area health-giving streams that have risen from the snows and springs high up on Mount Chintimini. The college is delightfully situated in a region of romantic attractions. The campus area, touched by the magic hand of art, has become transformed into an idyllic landscape. The devotee of beauty pays homage to the triumphs of artistic genius as he strolls along drives bordered by stately firs, passes among a profusion of sweet-scented shrubbery, and lingers among the charms of blooming roses. The widespreading boughs of trvsting tree, the cool comfort of the stone seats in the shelter of the grove, sylvan retreats along enchanted streams, invite to recreation and reverie. From a vantage ground the eye sweeps around the great curve of a placid river and travels on over charming field, farm and valley to the blue barrier of mountain range away to the east. The far-reaching effects of the formative influences of college life upon the character and subsequent career of youth compel the exercise of scrupulous care in the choice of the social and moral influences by which they arc to be surrounded during their college career. Taking counsel of this maxim, college and municipal authorities, seconded by citizens and churchmen, have, through wise and intelligent co-operation, raised a social standard, maintained civic and moral order, and fortified strongly against the encroachments of demoralizing influences. An aggressive, metropolitan spirit prompts the fostering of such business ventures as are of a meritorious character; and through its pervasive, transforming influence the old order has changed, having given place to the new. Streets have been paved; rubbish and garbage have been swept from the alleys; ramshackle buildings have been displaced by structures of modern architecture; areas of restricted house-building have been scured; the refinements of urban life have been introduced. The effectual execution of such a mighty purpose and plan compels the maintenance of an extensive establishment. Such an establishment the munificence of the state has provided. The institution has been given a competent and secure settlement in the sovereign allotment of the public domain. A generous bestowal of land grants and money subsidies by the State and the Frderal Government is the basis in fact of an institution of public instruction which Oregon has bequeathed as the highest of gifts to its citizens-to-be. A new college regime, characterized by a vigorous, aggressive administration, has appreciably broadened the scope of the institution and enhanced the efficiency of its service. Broadened scope and enhanced efficiency of service, resulting in an enlarged student attendance, have naturally enough been accompanied by an increase of fiscal demands. Money has been 18

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The concurrent operation of all the agencies and appliances centering in the schools, departments and affiliations of the institution generates a momentum mighty in the driving of many wheels in the state's industrial machinery. The genius that conceived and perfected the mechanism of the plan is the pervading, energizing, shaping, directing intelligence sensibly felt in the execution of the plan. The happy subservience of many wills to a great dominant purpose is effected by an administration that combines clear foresight, penetrating insight and tactful oversight. The secret of successful control here lies far beyond the mere assertion of force. Authority is not summed up in a code of rules and regulations with pains and penalties for cowing underlings into submission. The conception of administration is ministration, a rendering of helpful service to those who come under the tutelage of the institution; and withal the engendering of such confidence in the student as shall prompt him to a cheerful compliance with lawful authority and to a zestful performance of the tasks that constitute his allotment. How consequential environment is in the development of student life has had countless iterations; so many, in fact, that the statement would he trite, were it not for the poignancy of the truth involved. The ideal community in which to maintain an institution that gathers to itself a large and varied patronage is that which combines such advantages as material resources, commercial prosperity, salubrious climate, aesthetic enjoyment, wholesome moral atmosphere and refined social standards. These favoring conditions arc present in high degree in the student life of the Oregon Agricultural College. The city, a trade center and the seat of a progressive, prosperous county, is situated at the confluence of rivers and the intersection of railroads, in the heart of a fertile agricultural section. Steamboat transportation on the Willamette River and rail transportation over intersecting lines facilitate shipping, and render access easy to the seat of the college from every locality of Oregon. The circumjacent farming communities abound in opportunities for observing the results of up-to-date methods in scientific farming and for noting data in agricultural experiments. The far-famed climate that has made Western Oregon the destination of myriads of home-seekers and pleasure-seekers is dispensed in all its tonic salubrity. The vast area of ocean air proximate and the sweep of the ocean current exercise an ameliorating influence on the rigors of latitude. Westerlies from the sea subdue the heat of Summer, and southwesterlies from the sea moderate the cold of Winter. Appreciating the efficacy of sound hygienic conditions as a means of conserving the physical welfare of the community, the guardians of public health have in no wise hesitated at the 17

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 l m wisely spent in procuring the services of men of repute in Eastern universities as lecturers and as experts in scientific and practical research. In the biennial period just passed building accommodations indispensable to the conduct of the work of the school have been added. An armory, affording an area of 45.000 square feet, has been built for the accommodation of in-door military manoeuvres. By the erection of the main structure of Central Agricultural Hall. 65 recitation rooms, laboratories and lecture rooms, with offices, have been added, giving 38,000 square feet of floor space. By the construction of the new greenhouse, in its five extensions, with office, laboratory and heating plant, 8000 square feet have been added to the conservatory area. The expenditure of $31,188 in the erection of the central heat, light and power plant has solved the problem of economically supplying adrquate heat to the group of three large buildings on the campus. The acquiring of valuable land plats, adjacent to and within the college tract, will enable the institution to extend its athletic arena and to perfect an artistic landscape scheme. Indispensable as arc subsidies, acreage, buildings and appliances in the educative processes by which men and woinii are prepared for the world of practical affairs, not less indispensable, not less vital, to this end arc the spiritual forces that so mightily, if insensibly, affect penson-alitv and stimulate it to the attainment of dominance in the realm of matter and of mind. Reading and study make a full man; practice in verbal expression makes a polished man; but it is conference—actual contact of man with man outside the classroom and the textbook— that makes a man ready and resourceful. Iron sharpeneth iron; so doth the countenance of a man his friend.” The impinging, so to speak, of mind upon mind, the clash of will with will, the contact of personality with personality, at the same time reveals to one the defects of one's character and supplies the requisites for strengthening and refining that character. An invaluable asset is the element contributed to scholarship and character by participation in college community affairs. The men and women who have been most successful in their vocations after completing a college course have been those who were most active and influential in student activities while in college. The representative alumnus—the type of what a few years of scholastic training and participation in college activities will produce—finds, on taking an inventory of his gains at (he end of his college career, that among his assets arc certain types of literary and artistic skill, a fund of useful information, manly virtues, social affinities, practical ideals as to scholarship, self-composure, command of expression, resourcefulness, spirit of deference to the rights of others, appreciation of the value of community interests, orderliness, gallantry, ability to command, broad-minded tolerance, knowledge of organization affairs, tact and skill in dealing with men. Such arc some of the values that have enriched his character and personality as a result of his having devoted energy in promoting the enterprises of the clubs, fraternities, literary ocietics, the military establishment, and the student organization. In possession of such prerequisites, the finished collegian steps across the threshold of academic life into the world’s arena qualified for gaining the mastery in an unceasing struggle wherein only the fittest survive. 19