University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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intentions, is always trying to boom his university without knowing what he is booming, what he ought to boom, to what end he is booming, and who feels very sad perhaps because his university pours out showers of blessing without stage thunder and lightning for the gallery gods of the world. Rational and discriminating, the university spirit is guided by the historic sense which no genuine university student is without. As university men and women we are aware of the past in the present; we are conscious, dimly though it be, of walking in the ways of predecessors. From the acts of the Regents to the first uncertain steps of a freshman, from the ceremonies of matriculation to the sym- bolic rites of Class Day, nowhere does tradition entirely release its hold ; nowhere is there a safe path to the new except through the old. Until a certain well- known structure shall possess the inherited emotional value a Yale man associates with his fence, we shall always in the depths of our hearts prefer to sit on some- thing else. We realize, too, that this continuity of life is our very own. The University of California is not Harvard, nor Yale, nor Michigan. Neither is it an applied definition. It came into existence with an individuality of its own, acquired a strength of its own, and slowly matured a character of its own, and all this in and through a vital union with a commonwealth of its own, a union so vital that without it neither University nor State can attain to full stature. Our past, our present, our future, all are indissolubly connected with what our State is, has been, and will be. It is from this point of view we need to catch a glimpse of ourselves if our university spirit is to have any meaning and purposeful direction. And a professor from elsewhere must do more than catch a glimpse. As long as he thinks, and feels, and talks, and acts like an alien his usefulness is sadly impaired, no matter how yellow his jacket or how gorgeous his feathers. We cannot, however, know ourselves as a collective personality with a soul of our own, without realizing that our faces are set toward a goal common to other universities, although the paths leading thither differ and will differ as long as men and communities are not alike. One university may lay special stress on training those that are born men to that which is human ; another may make the distribution of the inherited treasures of knowledge its chief function; a third may aim chiefly at teaching how to get at the truth and how to add to it, still, according to the best that has been thought and said concerning universities, each is only emphasizing one aspect of the same organized university idea, and perhaps must do so if it is to be true to its day and generation. To be instructed by that idea is therefore as essential to the university spirit as knowledge of what citizenship means is to the civic spirit. The very name that we bear should always make it impossible for us to follow every new tin horn that toots among us or to go through the motions of university men and women in stupid, provincial self-satisfaction. To strive for clear and coherent university ideas is one of the duties we owe to ourselves as individuals and as citizens of our University, of our country, and of the world. For this end the California Union was founded. As was recently suggested, something similar to the Oxford Union wtiuld doubtless advance us in the same direction if wisely adapted to our conditions. The good services rendered by our university papers and maga- 12

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University Spirit. University is not merely a group of buildings, present or to come, on a certain beautiful spot opposite the Golden Gate. Nor is it wholly a mechanism made up of offices, statutes, curricula, class combinations and other forms for work and play and suffering. We i do not get beyond an outside view even by thinking of it as an aggre- gate of men and women, or as the sum-total of their activities. In order to know what the University of California really is, we need to regard it as a system of ideas that we university people are thi nking more or less clearly, coherently and unanimously, which we are converting, each in his own way, into motives, ideals, and aspirations, and which we are daily embodying with varying degrees of success in our conduct, and in the products of our brains and hands. In a very real sense then the University has existence here and now only in and through the common or social thinking, feeling, willing, that result from the action and reaction of mind upon mind within our own particular university community. Without at least one student and one professor the University would cease to exist. It is, accordingly, not simply a figure of speech when we ascribe personality to the University and speak of a university spirit. Obviously, too, as long as this university spirit is true to itself it is always at one with the high interests to which it owes its existence. Puerilities are not one of its manifestations ; though ever youthful, it is a grown-up spirit. It is not a spirit of license ; the University points to self-control as the corner-stone of liberty. It is not snobbish ; the University makes fine manhood and womanhood the sole criterion of worth. It excludes study for revenue only, because such study is antagonistic to the search after truth and the up-building of character. That the wretch who spreads lies or unverified rumor as university news has no share in this spirit is patent without argument, howl he ever so loudly at a foot-ball game. It is a corporate spirit involving loyalty, service, self-sacrifice, and reaching outward far beyond the pale of the University. It is as wide as humanity, for, as a university, we know nothing of political divisions, or of race, or station, or sex. The truest patriotism enters into it, for as an American university our country ' s welfare is our own. The feeling of oneness with our whole State is inseparable from it, for, as the University of Cali- fornia, our loftiest ambition can only be to incarnate the higher life of the State in our teaching, our study, and our actions, and to minister to that life so uplift- ingly and so abundantly as to make our land of sunshine a province of the kingdom of reason and righteousness. But, as already intimated, the ethical ideals of the University are rational and the in-dwelling university spirit is a rational spirit. Unless a rooter ' s mouth-piece is connected somewhere and somehow with a thinking head-piece there is nothing to prevent his exhibiting equal enthusiasm in defacing or destroying State property. Divorced from a sense of discrimination, the university spirit turns into a blind demon of mischief, as in the case of the university man, who, with the most loyal 11

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zines might be augmented by courses of lectures on the rise and progress of universities, and especially on the history of our own University and State. More- over, is it merely a fond dream that the day will come when there will be not only fraternity conventions and meetings of university presidents, but also con- gresses of students and faculties combined into one grand whole of co-workers in the same noble cause ? Winning our way steadily upward toward the highlands of personal and social ethics, discerning with ever increasing clearness of vision what we have been, are, and ought to be as the University of California, we shall gradually give to our university spirit something of the purposeful self-activity, creative self-determina- tion, and calm self-mastery, that are the marks of a mature, unified, forceful personality. That every member of our university community should ever reach this stage of social self-consciousness is of course not to be expected. Freshmen and Sophomores are doing well if they sit up and take notice of the atmosphere they breathe. Not every one can be a university expert; and the qualities for leadership in thought or action the gods have seen fit to reserve for a few. But there is a vast difference between a university despotism and a republic of university minds. Only the latter conception is worthy of university men and women. This alone is in keeping with the larger civic life of which we are a part. This alone will fit graduates of state universities for the leadership which the passing of the political hegemony from the East to the West will inevitably thrust upon them. This alone can help us to realize that greater university we are hoping and striving for, a university so great as to make even the architectural glory that is to be ours an inadequate symbol of our university spirit. ALEXIS F. LAXGE. -.