Cornell University - Cornellian Yearbook (Ithaca, NY)

Page 13 text:

IO atm Qlnruellian jrrrnuab wbtpplf judas f NJ4.-f .fer I-IE modern University has produced a new E, 9 type of teacher. The old-time American col- f f' fi - lege, with its life sheltered from contact with F '- the world of action, nurtured many noble W2 characters, but it was a prison to most X X N students with virile and practical tempera- l I '32 Kg ' J rf! X584 - ment. The combination of scientific ardor -14 with a capacity for practical affairs has long A, been possible in professors of the political sciences in German Universities, only of late in America has the academic career been made congenial to men of that stamp. A generation ago, at the very period of Cornell's founda- tion, the universities began to reflect all phases of the worthy thought and aspiration of the living world. The talents and common-sense that we love to think of as peculiarly American, are no longer repelled from the halls of philosophy. The new type of scholar and teacher, in turn, is transforming American higher education. This, in brief, is the logic of the presence in University life today of Jeremiah Whipple Jenks. QBorn in St. Clair, Michigan, he graduated from the University of that state as A.B. in 1878, and as A.M. in 1879. The pursuit of business, the study of law, followed by admission to the Michigan bar, and teaching in a small college, occupied him for a few years, but another work more and more was attracting him. After two years of resident study in Germany, he obtained, in 1885, the degree of Doc- tor of Philosophy in political sciences at the University of Halle. 4 1LHe had to await an opening in his chosen work. Some years of teaching in subjects not closely related to his special interests, pre- ceded the development at Knox College of a field for his social studies. Between 1889 and 1891, at Indiana University, his name as a teacher of economics and politics was made, and at the end of that period he had to choose among several calls to larger universities. 1LThe then newly established chair of Political and Social Institu- tions in Cornell University gave him the opportunity to develop more fully the ideal of study and teaching that had inspired him for years. In his own words: Students of economics must be made to feel and

Page 12 text:

ZUJI QIUL'IIEIIf?tII 9 M A Y I Friday Latest date for presenting Theses for Advanced Degrees 1 Friday Woodford Prize Competition 22 Friday Eighty-six Memorial Prize Competition 30 Saturday Decoration Day I U N E 3 Wednesday Commencement of Medical College in New York City II Thursday Instruction ends I4 Sunday Baccalaureate Sermon 16 Tuesday Class Day I7 Wednesday Alumni Day and Annual Meeting of the Trustees 18 Thursday Thirty-fourth Annual Commencement 1?-Dunxunrr ,ff 1903 I U N E 24 Wednesday Summer Term tof ten weeksb in Entomology and Invertebrate Zoology and in Palaeontology and Stratigraphic Geology begins I U L Y 6 Monday Summer Session begins A U G U S T I 5 Saturday SEPTEMBER 1 Tuesday SEPTEMBER OCTO NOVE DECE JANU I5 Tuesday 22 Tuesday 2 3 Wednesday 24 Thursday 25 Friday B E R I Thursday M B E R 26 Thursday M B E R 1 Tuesday 23 Wednesday A R Y 2 Saturday 5 Tuesday 9 Saturday II Monday 29 Friday Summer Session ends Summer Term in Entomology and Geology ends jtiwt Germ if 1903-1904 Entrance Examinations begin Academic Year begins. Matriculation of New Students. Uni- versity Scholarship Examinations begin Matriculation of New Students Registration of Matriculated Students Instruction begins in all departments of the University at Ithaca. President's Annual Address to the Students at I2 M. Registration of Students in the Medical College in New York City Thanksgiving Day Latest date for announcing subjects of Theses for Advanced Degrees Christmas Recess begins Registration in the College of Agriculture for Winter Course in Agriculture and Dairy Husbandry Work resumed Ninety-four Memorial Prize Competition Founder's Day First Term closes

Page 14 text:

E112 Q1f01IIIEIIfEIII II to know that the principles of economics are really a statement of the principles upon which actual business is done, and that it is of prime importance that they come into immediate contact with business conditions and business men. We can not understand economics un- less we hold close to the actual facts of business life. And of the study of politics he said: It should be kept close to the conditions of the world of real things. The student should see what the motives are that are influencing the voter, and what the forces are that are shaping the aiairs of state. fLThe courses now given by him represent the three lines of study which, as a professor in Cornell, he has consistently pursued during the past twelve years. The course on Modern Questions in Interna- tional Politics, varying from year to year in accordance with current events, fittingly becomes at this time a study of colonial government. Fresh from a visit to the Orient he seeks the lessons of experience for the guidance of our own eastern dependencies. In The Principles of Politics are traced the growth of political philosophy and that of political societies. The course in Economic Legislation, perhaps the most characteristic one he gives, stood unique in University cur- ricula until imitated by his own students in their teaching. In it are taken up the economic issues that are of immediate interest in the state and nation, and in the light of the widest experience and in view of the existing difficulties, students are trained to frame bills that deal with the questions in a practical way. 11This group of courses is but the development of the thought with which he began his teaching. That, taken together, they are without a close parallel in any other university, is due to the ex- ceptional requirements they make of the teacher. No other man to- day teaching political science in an American university has had such close and continued contact with the world of practical affairs. A few facts will indicate the nature and range of the preparation he has had outside of books and classrooms. His training in economics inthe best I ever had, says heb began with the three years spent in actual business before he studied the subject in college at all. With the study of law began his familiarity with the work of state legis- latures, his knowledge of the methods of practical politics, and his wide acquaintance with men in American public life. Of the four years he has spent in foreign lands, two have been given entirely to a first-hand study, under exceptionally favorable conditions, of men, institutions and legislation in Europe and Asia. His counsels have influenced tax