Columbia University - Columbian Yearbook (New York, NY)

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DEAN J. HOVVARD VAN AMRINGE, Ph.D.. LL.D

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Go the Class of 1910 T IS HARD to believe that the year 1910 is so close at hand and yet that many of us who were in College thirty years ago, when 1910 seemed in the remote distance, are still in the University's service. Your class is far enough across the border line which divided the nine- teenth century from the twentieth, to be truly the child of the twentieth century. Your faces will naturally be turned toward the front in an effort to descry that yet unrevealed future which lies before you. You are living and studying in a time of great intellectual and moral disturbance. In a very real sense, the foundations of the deep are breaking up and there is a peaceful reconstruction of intellectual, moral and political convictions going on, quite as startling as any that has taken place under more revolutionary surroundings. Amid all this you will need to keep your balance and to learn to see straight and to think true. In any period of reconstruction the emotional interests of men and women come strongly to the front, and not infrequently they completely overwhelm, at least for the time being, the intellectual processes. As College men, you are being trained in habits of thinking, of industrious applica- tion, and of co-operation, in both academic, social and athletic life. These are habits of prime im- portance to the man of the twentieth century. He must remember that his generation and his century are not the first that the world has seen and that already many problems have been solved and a huge amount of human experience has been accumulated. These past solutions and these past experiences the wise man uses, not as an anchor to hold him fast, but as a rudder to guide him in sailing over new seas. May each member of 1910 catch here at Columbia this spirit of conservatism and progress, and may his College career remain the brightest and happiest memory in a bright and happy life. With warm regard to each and all, I am, Sincerely yours, NICI-IGLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 7

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' etter to the Class of 1910 EAR MR. EDITQR,-In complying with your polite request to say something to the students in the I9IO Columbian, I desire first to congratulate all whom you represent on having progressed so far and so favorably on the way through the labors of undergraduate life at Columbia. l-lard as that life sometimes appears to you, impatient as you sometimes get with its restrictions and exactions, eagerly as you sometimes wish to be done with it, it nevertheless yields, in a measure seldom exceeded in later years, keen enjoyments, rational pleasures of high order, noble and lasting results to willing and well directed labor. Your predecessors, many of whom have written their names large in the history of their times, had not so many and such diverse opportunities as you have, and these opportunities will be to you, as you may use them, each for himself, sources of pera manent benefit and happiness or of profound and never ending regret. You can, if you will, do much to augment the personal interest and benefit of the life to which I have referred. Of several ways in which you could render service in this regard, I have in mind at present but one-the furtherance of the government of the student community by the students themselves, through their chosen representatives, so far and as completely as that devoutly wished for consummation may be found feasible. The way to do this has been opened to you, partly by your own endeavor and that of your associates, in the creation of a Board of Student Representatives. This Board, with an approved constitution granting it large privileges and powers in matters affecting student activities, and imposing upon it, of course, corresponding obligations, was elected by the votes of the whole student body and is representative of that body. It is composed' of able men, fully alive to their grave responsibilities and solicitous of so meeting them as to compel the respect and the confidence of officers and students alike. You should encourage and support it in every practicable way, co-operate with it by taking before it all matters that concern you and ,ar-e within its jurisdiction, plead your cases before it with all the eloquence at your command, submit cheerfully to its judgments and aid in giving them effect. If you do this, as I hope and expect that you will, and the Board acts wisely in the discharge of its delicate and difficult duties-and I have every confidence in it-a good step forward will be made this year toward the government of students by themselves in all those interests and enterprises that lie outside the curriculum, add so much to the vigor, the pleasure and the enthusiasm of academic life, and play so important a part in the full develop- ment of a college or university student. I Pray accept the assurance of my best wishes and affectionate regard, and believe me Sincerely yours, J. H. VAN AMRINGE. 9