Oregon State University - Beaver Yearbook (Corvallis, OR)

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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

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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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PRESIDENT KERR .- man of noble word and deed. Planting in youthful minds the seed To yield a future harvest great Tor both the nation and the state. 1I.I.IAM Jasper Kerr is now closing his fourth year as chief executive of the ■ Oregon Agricultural College. His absolute devotion to the one great purpose of developing the institution to its highest possible usefulness to the individual, to every citizen of the State of Oregon, and more broadly, to the nation, has given the college a remarkable impetus in the period of his presidency. It has won for him not only the love and admiration of the students who come into immediate contact with him at the college, but also the respect and hearty co-operation of a large number of the biggest men in Oregon, and a very definite recognition from the great educational and scientific organizations of America. The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations honored him with the highest office in its gift, the presidency, for 1910-1911, and the year previous he held the vice-presidency of the same association. I.ast year he was also vice-president of the National Education Association and a member of its National Council of Education. He is a member of the advisory board of the United States Agricultural and Industrial Exposition Company, of the organization committee of the International League for Highway Improvement, of the state committee for Oregon in the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, and last year was on the executive committee of the International Dry Farming Congress. He also holds membership, with an active interest, in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Geographic Society, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Mathematical Society, and the Oregon Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kerr came to O. A. C. from the presidency of the Agricultural College of Utah in the Summer of 1907, after the resignation of President Gatch, and his success as an administrator is best demonstrated by a comparison of the institution of today with what it was when the present senior class entered as freshmen. The enrollment of students has grown in this time from 833 the year before his appointment to 1777 at the present time. The main agricultural hall, the agronomy building, Waldo Hall (the girls’ dormitory), the mechanic arts building, the armory (one of the best in the country), the new heating plant, Shepard Hall (a student club and Y. M. C. A. building), new greenhouses, barns and poultry plant structures—all have been added to the campus buildings since he came. The growth of the student body, in consequence of the increased advantages offered in curriculum, equipment and instructional force, however, has so far outstripped the growth in buildings that the legislature this year was impressed with the imperative need of a school of mines building, more dormitories, a foundry, an auditorium, a stock pavilion, a building for the instruction in dairying, and another to house the department of horticulture, which is one of the finest in the United States. And President Kerr is still a young man, with at least a quarter of a century of his best effort yet to give to the college. He was born November 17, 1863, and educated first in the University of Utah, which he left in'85, and then at Cornell, where he had a year's graduate study and three summers of special work. Twenty-one years ago lie wrote his first essay on agricultural education, a subject to which he has since devoted his keenest study. He was first mathematics instructor at Brigham Young College, and then, after serving as professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Utah, was recalled to Brigham Young College as president in '94, where he remained six years. The Utah Agricultural College called him as its chief executive, and kept him seven years, until Oregon claimed him from Utah. If O. A. C. continues to grow under his administration the next twenty-five years as it has the past forty-five months, there may be grounds for a serious consideration of Prof. Hetzel’s suggestion in a recent convocation address that the capital, or at least the educational center of the country, be moved from the far east to Corvallis. 20