Rockford College - Recensio / Cupola Yearbook (Rockford, IL)

Page 10 text:

7 .4 f5,?a , Representatives of colleges and universities in many parts of the country and other distinguished guests attended the inauguration of President Gordon Keith Chalmers. Among them were President Mary E. YVoolley of lVlount Holyoke College, Professor Norman Foerster, Robert Frost, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, President Vlfalter Dill Scott of Northwestern University, and lWrs. Martha Hillard Klaclaeish, former principal of Rockford Female Seminary. Their presence added much to the impressiveness of the occasion. F Mrs. MacLeish, Whose administration followed that of the founder, Anna P. Sill, took up her work as principal of the seminary just fifty years ago, Qctober Io, 1884. President Chalmers is a graduate of Brown University and holds the degree master of arts from Oxford University and that of doctor of philosophy from Harvard. He comes to us from hlount Holyoke College, where both he and his wife, Roberta Teale Swartz Chalmers, were members of the department of English. Their coming serves to strengthen the bond of friendship which has long existed between Rockford and lXflount Holyoke. Wie wish to extend a hearty welcome to President and Mrs. Chalmers, with a determination to cooperate to the best of our ability in all that may serve to maintain the high ideals of Rockford College. 6

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After an invocation pronounced by Dr. John Gordon, Dr. Norman Foerster, of the State University of Iowa, addressed the college and its guests. His subject was The Individual and Society. He enjoined the college to maintain the liberal tradition it derived from Greece and Judea against the dangers of what he called materialistic emphasis of science and humanitarianism. And he hoped that though civilization has placed responsibility for human affairs upon society, the college would help to return it to the individual. Nlr. VVebb Stevens, acting in behalf of the Board of Trustees, invested Dr. Chalmers with the oflice of President of Rockford College. In Dr. Chalmers, inaugural address, The College and Alexandria, he drew a comparison between the barrenness of contemporary thought and the failure of Alexandria to create any- thing valuable. He said that today we place too much emphasis upon quantity instead of quality. The college, by its structure, by its philosophy, and by the character of its teachers, has a unique opportunity to save its members from Alexandrianism, by aiding them in the mastery of the small body of generally useful knowledge, and by encouraging them to utilize their knowledge in gracious and productive living. 5

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DR. GORDGN KEITH CHALMERS