University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

Page 12 text:

The ever-expanding range of the human intellect imposes upon every center of learning an increasingly heavy burden while giving it finer tools with which to work. Our difiiculty lies not in teaching young men the easy manipulations by which they may earn their living, but in teaching them values far more substantial and lasting than those of the market place. In reporting to the Board on the state of the University, therefore, it is of greater satisfaction to me to be able to report good health than it is to be able to report great growth. The full democratization of education in the Commonwealth so eagerly sought for by Jefferson is not yet here, but it is heartening to report that this University is helping to bring it about. The slow but now final economic recovery of this state makes it possible, as it has always been necessary, to give our citizens the educa- tional opportunities that their abilities and their desires demand, without regard to their comparative wealth or position. The University of Vir- ginia is ready for this day, and this day is at hand. -from President Dardenis Report to the Board of Visitors.

Page 11 text:

oreworJ . . . This is the University of Virginia. In this Corks and Curls is contained the im- pression of the University. Here are pictures of its brick and stone, its hedges and lawns, its buildings and grounds. Here are the students which constitute its life, the fac- ulty which guides its progress. Here is the University in miniature; here is, in essence, its spirit. The University is alive. It has, as much as any animate being, a life history. In the Lawns and Ranges are preserved its youth and early days. Mr. Jefferson has left in the grace and proportion of his good work the recollection of a stateliness, an appro- priateness, a respect for honor, and a dignity of life that cannot be forgotten. His buildings are, in a sense, a representation of the high ethical code on which the exist- ence of the University was predicated. It is of supreme advantage that this code con- tinues to invest this academic body. The child is father to the man. Tested by wars and strengthened by peace, the Uni- versity has reached its manhood: a manhood of active youth, a manhood the vigor of which is to be seen in any direction in terms of physical and intellectual growth, a manhood which must never be allowed to grow old. It is our good fortune that we are here-now. All around us are signs of a youthfulness which is exciting in its vitality, a maturity which is firmly and soundly established in the past. The future of the University stretches ahead without limit, hopeful and promising. But as our fathers created for us the mature University in which we live today, so it is for us to build and to maintain for our children the University of tomorrow as we know it and as we want it. It is for us as students and graduates to take our places in the continuum of its history, to qualify ourselves for these high places by being faithful to the achievement of the past and to the promise of the future. The sum total of every action or thought which has ever been experienced on the Grounds or in the University Community is what may be called the spirit of the Uni- versity. It is a contagious spirit; caught and recorded here in Corks and Curls in so far as paper and ink and devotion can catch an intangible. But it is also and more importantly caught up in each one of us who has worked here and loved the University. We have breathed in this spirit of a living .organism, compounded of the hearts and deeds of the past and the present, until it is a part of our life. As we go out from these halls and colonnades to undertake our life 5 work, we shall carry with us the essential spirit of the University. A grand tradition is behind us, gentlemen; of this we are a part as it is a part of us. The hope and expectation of the future, as well, are ours. So long as we assimilate the vital spirit of the University and, remaining in good faith to it, show it forth in our lives, we can bear with pride and with justice the title iiGentlemen of the University of Virginia.

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COLGATE WHITEHEAD DARDEN, JR. President of the University