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

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THE UNIVERSITY AND THE STATE of her settlement has contributed its share to the Spirit of California and can be seen in the University as well as in the other enterprises of the State. But the romance of California is not all in her history. It is also born of the beauty and variety of the State. The charm of Greece rests on the mountains and the olive groves of California ; the blue sky of Italy rouses the same delight here as in the home of Virgil and of Dante ; California is a land of the sunshine and the ocean and draws from them the sense of breadth and beauty that has aroused poets and painters in all ages of the past. This romance of California, a romance of history and of beauty, has led to a develop- ment of art and literature in the growing State and must lead to further developments hereafter. The students of the University feel in Berkeley that they inherit this Spirit of romance and the influence it spreads in literature and in art. The very existence of the Greek Theatre and the endeavors of the students to give worthy performances there show that the Spirit of Cali- fornia is embodied there as elsewhere in the State. Broad hospitality, deep romantic feeling, and the qualities that go with them have produced a California character that is as distinct as the California atmosphere. The habit of living out of doors close to nature, intimacy with great spaces and great heights, the absence of overwhelming traditions and narrow-minded prejudices, have given the Californians, both men and women, a more reckless courage and a greater sense of daring than other people. But with this has come a gaiety of heart that comes not from ancestry or sur- roundings, but from the spirit that California has engendered. The gay courage of the people of San Francisco after the great fire of 1906 roused the admiration of the world and gave an opportunity for all civilized peoples to show their appreciation of California. The California Spirit was as evident among the students at the University as it was upon the other side of the Bay. Those of us who lived through those days remember how the students got KEARNEY FARM 22

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THE UNIVERSITY AND THE STATE THE ALBATROSS never-dying enthusiasm for Ireland and its distinc- t i v e qualities. Germans n both Xorth and South. Protestant and Catholic. ndinavians with their fair hair and blue eye:-. Frenchmen with their pride in being the interpreters of new idea-. Italians with the memories of their long primacy in things intellec- tual.- Spaniards who feel at home in a land so full of Spanish names and Spanish traditions. and with them mingled yet older and more ancient peoples, whose traditions antedate those of European civilization, such as Armenians and Syrians and Hindus and Chinese and Japanese. To all of these races California has been a kindly foster mother and all of them find a welcome in her State University. The California Spirit is cosmopolitan : it welcomes all religions and all races. It has grown out of a boundless hospitality, and it receives its broad and tolerant character from the mingling within its borders of all who would come to make their home under its shelter. First and foremost, then, the Spirit of California is broad, tolerant and hospitable. But the Spirit of California is not only broad, it is also pre-eminently romantic. Other States of America, other countries of the world, are pre- eminently industrial or commercial, military or naval, religious or political, but California is above all the land of romance. This romance is in part his- toric. The first explorations of her coast, the first settlements of Spanish soldiers in her presidios and of Spanish friars in her missions, have given to her the glamor of an age not represented in the early history of other Ameri- can States. The rush of immigration in the days of gold brought to the land of sleepy memories of Spanish civilization an heroic race of pioneers. And since that time the flood of immigration into the United States has only sent the strongest and the most daring to its westernmost limits. The students of the University of California represent all these different stocks, and there is hardly a family without the tradition of some heroic ancestor, who made his way hither far from his native land amidst peril and hardship. The romance 21

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THE UNIVERSITY AND THE STATE AT HARVARD together to aid the refugees who came over from San Francisco. We shall ever bear in mind the camps on California Field and on the old baseball grounds, the hos- pital in Hearst Hall, the ready ervice of meals in the circles by the bridge, but most of all we remember not only the helpfulne:- of the students, both men and women, but their cheerfulness. Though they lost their extravaganza and the other delights of (. ' immencejnent Week, they held together and carried out such parts of their annual ceremonies as they could with unabated cheerfulness and good humor. The Spirit of California, which is the Spirit of the University of California, can not be analyzed and divided into its component parts, and only certain of its most marked characteristics can be alluded to in such a brief paper as this. What I desired to impress upon the Freshmen in the speech that I have more than half forgotten was that they should inherit this Spirit of tolerance and romance and gay courage, and that they should hold to it as the particular characteristic not only of the State of California but of its University. It is hard to live up to high ideals, but we can be aided if we know that such ideals xist, and we can do our best to make them real as well as ideal. The Uni- versity of California is not only an institution of learning, it is not only a place of education for the children of the State; it is the place where the Spirit of California should be most steadily cultivated and where the genera- tions to come after us should learn the breadth of thought, the love of beauty, and the kindliness of courage, which have been characteristic of Californians in the past and must be characteristic of Californians of the future. HENRY MORSE STEPHENS. 23