University of Arizona - Desert Yearbook (Tucson, AZ)

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appeals to popular sentiment and gratifies the demands of human nature, can it expect to succeed: and that the institution that is most willing to recognize and best prepared to m.cct these demands, is the one that will live and prosper and accomplish i»s purpose. It is a clear case of natural selection, a survival of the fittest. Any institution that depends on the public both for its support and its material, would show a lack of wisdom and business ability if it did not make itself as attractive as possible, and do all in its pbwer to win public regard and create in its friends a feeling of pride and devotion. But this can be done only by taking into account the whole of man’s nature and meeting its various demands. That the cap and gown appeal strongly to the aesthetic taste cannot be doubted. The fact that they arc so universally worn, and that the largest, most prosperous and most renowned of our educational institutions are loudest in their praise would seem to be sufficient evidence that they have a practical utility, for it is hard to believe that the foremost men of our time would encourage and perpetuate the custom if it were only a dead and worthless form. 4. Again, the friends of the university should favor the adoption of the cap and gown because the action indicates to the public that the principle educational institution in the territory, the school to which the people of the territory intrust the training of their boys and girls, does not believe in the popular heresy that ‘ anything is good enough for Arizona. It is virtually saying that nothing is good enough for Arizona that is not good enough for any other section of our country: and that as it is it is the duty of each individual to be self-respecting and to honor and be guided by the rules and regulations, the customs and ideas that society has found useful and necessary in its various associations, so it is much more the duty of our educational institutions, since they have intrusted to them the transmission of a large body of our knowledge and social tradition, and the training and guidance of the boys and girls to whom each generation looks for its leaders in every department of life, to comport themselves with proper dignity and not only to place themselves in line with the best institutions in the land, but to respect and be guided by. whatever customs and methods have been found to be educationally and socially useful, and that indicate to the people that they have a proper conception of their importance and are worthy of confidence and respect.

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ment of our political and religious institutions, so the cap ar.d gown, by a like law of association, awakens our interest in and calls our attention to the gradual development of our educational institutions and ideas. They tend to produce what Prof. Giddings calls a “consciousness of kind.' and in doing this they emphasize and strengthen the bond that binds the present to the past, making our educational life of today a part of a grand, developing whole. It is an encouraging fact that “in connection with the prevalent modernism of our bare American life, there is perpetuated a round of formularies and customs that keep us somewhat in sympathy with the mediaevalism out of which we have come. We have little enough reverence at best, so we are glad to note an increasing interest in the life of other days—in the manners and customs, the laws and institutions, the art and literature upon which our modern civilization has been built up. 3. In the third place, the cap and gown appeals to our sentiment and satisfies a demand of our nature. People, today, young and old alike, are impressed by scenic displays—something that appeals to their sentiments and awakens their interest and these things are just as legitimate in the field of education as in politics or fraternal orders, or religious ceremonies. It seems to the writer that “the mind is so constructed by the Creator that the senses, the sciences and the sentiments should cooperate in human advancement. and that we lose much from life unless we develop it as a symmetrical whole. In speaking of the unattractiveness of most of our religious services, and in making a plea for a revival of ceremonials in the services of the church, a well known clergyman says: It is a question, indeed, whether our administration of religion may not learn something from educational usages, and conceal its barrenness by draperies, processions, music and art. and so express the religious emotions and aesthetic demands which are as much Cod-given qualities as logic or social affection. We are getting behind the creeds of the reformation why not get back of the desolation wrought in worship, architecture and ceremonialism by the puritans and clothe liberal thought and devotion in the variety and richness of expression that belongs to all the powerful emotions of our nature. We find no difficulty in patriotic demonstration. and should be equally at home in the proper embodiment of faith and knowledge. This is a tacit acknowledge that even religion, the most powerful factor in social control, is cold and barren and unattractive when robbed of these external qualities which appeal directly to the sentiments and stir the emotions: and I think we are justified in saying that, no matter what its character may be. only so far as an institution, which depends on the public for support

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BY ORDER or THE REGENTS. fiCOHGIANA COl.TON, 'Co nIGHT was beginning to brood over the University. The rr.ain building looked grave and silent, as though resting from the toils of the day and preparing for success on the morrow. The copper twilight wrapped the cactus garden in gloom, while the flagpole, bare and gaunt, seemed to stand like a sentinel guarding the campus. Now and then a light appeared in South Hall, but most of the rooms seemed lifeless, and probably their occupants were holding kangaroo court in some back room, for occasionally there was a shout and a clash of music, showing that there were boys somewhere around. North Hall stood silent and looked as dignified as it is possible for a dormitory to look, which is'nt but half a dormitory, after all. Inside, things did not seem as calm and peaceful. Down stairs all was silent, save the creak of a rocker in the matron's room; but the upper hall echoed with a confusion of excited voices from the transom over Carrie Westfall's door. It was a girl's mass meeting. Within, the girls were