University of Rhode Island - Renaissance / Grist Yearbook (Kingston, RI)

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HONORABLE HOWARD EDWARDS, A M., LL.D. President of Rhode Island State Collcf c

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Governor Case’s Message Rhode Island is justly proud of the development and the achievements of its own Rhode Island State College. The success attained by graduates of this Institu- tion in all of the many occupations of life for which the College offers preliminary training has been recognized by our State. The physical expansion whereby three splendid new buildings are now rising on the campus is an indication of the present progressive spirit and a finer future development. Thanks are due to the General Assembly for its recognition of the needs of the Institution and particularly to our late Chief Executive Governor Pothier whose first State office was as Ex-officio member of the State Board of Education and who retained until the end his inter- est in the board and liberal higher education offered at your Institution. The student hotly of the Rhode Island State College is to l)e congratulated upon its fine loyalty, exemplified in many ways, including its effort to solve the problem of housing accommodations through building fraternity and sorority houses. The graduating class of 1928 exemplifies in its personnel the broader conception of education, having more honor students and more athletes than any other class has numbered among its members. It is to be congratulated also upon having an intimate contact with an earnest and sincere faculty, and especially upon the wonderful oppor- tunity to the students under the able and beloved President, Doctor Howard Edwards. Let me remind you that you have but been preparing for the greater experience in the battle of life. You have been learning how to use those weapons which it is necessary that you thoroughly understand to gain victory in the larger field into which you are now passing. Let me urge you to keep an open mind capable of growing, not stultified and stagnated but alert, active, balanced and sane. I urge you to “carry on inspired by the example of those who have gone liefore you into the busy life of the working world. The future is your opportunity to translate your knowledge into service to mankind ; you must carry the banner of Rhode Island State College forward into new and greater service. Norman S. Case Governor Providence, R. I., April 9, 1928. Nineteen

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Greetings for 1928 Surely we may rejoice as the year progresses and we see nearing comple- tion the new buildings on our campus, which the growing interest and gen- erosity of the people of our State have made jMissihle. I have no special confidence in the effectiveness of mere size or massiveness of masonry in this educational process, nor do I enviously long for the rich tracery of Gothic archways and the dreamy beauty of many-spired towers. These, indeed, have to me the sinister implications of their birth in a day when barbaric pride, pomp and privilege rested on a vast sub-stratum of human squalor, misery, and oppression. Yet we do have a right to lie glad in better facilities for work and in the simple dignity of environment for it which our new buildings will give us here. I summon our whole college community in gratefulness of heart for that which is given us, ami without envy or idle regret for that which we have not. to move forward to higher planes of intellectual and spiritual endeavor. Howard Edwards Twenty-one