University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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The University in the Past Year |OT many years ago, an enthusiastic alumnus, revisiting his Alma Mater upon the occasion of some University celebration, declared that he was sanguine enough to believe that the time would soon come when there would be a thousand students at Berkeley. The sanguine alumnus is not appreciably older than he was when he uttered that startling prophecy, and there are over two thousand students at Berkeley. Our population during the decade has gone forward by leaps and bounds. The biggest bound forward was six years ago, when the increase over the preceding year was 37.9 per cent. Then there were smaller leaps. People said that the limit of expansion had been reached, and that the University could look forward to a period of rest and recuperation. Last year the gain was only 3.1 per cent. But this year, for some unaccountable reason, it jumped again to nearly 17 per cent. With President Wheeler ' s coming, there was a formal recasting of certain essen- tial principles of internal administration. The center of gravity, hitherto shifting from point to point with the changing currents in and about the institution, has been localized. Apart from this vital step, there has been slight change in the University ' s internal regulation or in its external aspect. The curriculum has been made a little freer, or, rather, the now familiar group elective system has been given a little clearer definition. Laboratory charges have been cut one-half. The diploma-fee deposit has been abolished. The enlargement of Harmon Gymnasium, this spring, to more than double its former dimensions, gives the University something like an adequate auditorium. Additions have been built to the chemical laboratories and to the Students ' Observatory. To the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, in San Francisco, has been added the Mary Frances Searles Art Gallery, generously provided by Edward F. Searles, Esq., as a memorial to his wife. No new separate structures have been erected. The year has seen the completion of the Phoebe A. Hearst Architectural Competi- tion. On September 7, 1899, a little less than three years after the meeting of the Board of Regents at which Mrs. Hearst first publicly proposed the international com- petition, the awards were made, and, at Mrs. Hearst ' s invitation, a brilliant company met in the exhibition rooms in the Ferry Building to see the successful plans. As one glances through the volume containing the final report of the Trustees and the photographs of the drawings, one realizes anew the far-reaching and the permanent character of the undertaking. It would seem impossible for the University of Cali- fornia ever to be the home of the mean or the small. The distinguished architect to whom the first prize was awarded, M. Benard, visited the University in December, and made an exhaustive study of the relations and needs of the several departments, with a view to actual building at an early date. The year will be remembered, also, as the year that Mrs. Hearst came to Berke- ley. Her coming has meant a world of good to the University ' s social and aesthetic life. The benefit is not limited to the present generation of students. The expanded 12

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moment we were won. Then the dignitaries had their turn, and he received the sym- bols of his office under the autumn sky. But every undergradute has grown to know his privilege oi being for that time the first claimant on the President. As we know him better our loyalty passes all former bounds. Of the greatness of his heart many may have still to learn who think they already know. The briefest sketch would be incomplete without mention of the President ' s wife, Miss Amey Webb, who was, of Providence. As the President holds all the devotion which can belong both to man and to office, so her quiet interest and her kindly pres- ence have won to her all that personality can add to the difference which belongs to her own presiding office as the First Lady of the University. A word remains, too, for Benjamin Ide, Junior a most uncompromising supporter of the BLUE AND GOLD. His devotion has even mastered the intricacies of Osky-Wow-wow, and his growing knowledge has an item of information about Stanford that Dey got beat.

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and enriched ideals of our common academic humanity, so to speak, may rightly be inventoried as permanent improvements. On October 2, 1899, President Wheeler came to Berkeley and qnietly took up the duties of his new office. On the morning of the 3d, he met and addressed the students of the University for the first time. On the evening of the 3d he was received by the Academic Council at Stiles HalL On the 25th, down on the old cinder track, in the presence of a multitude of people, he was formally inaugurated. The occasion was graced by the presence and participation of our former President Oilman, now Presi- dent of the Johns Hopkins University, and of President Jordan. All of those ripe October days were days of promise for California. Who could doubt that the larger view of things, in this western democracy of ours, was fast coming into its own? The keynote of the President ' s first public address the address to the students on Octo- ber 3d was loyilty. To this sentiment the response of the students was immediate, and was as irresistible in its fine contagion as that other memorable response when their clarion-tongued We will! rang out over the campus. Some of the most important functions of a university in these times are extra- mural. Time has justified these activities, not so much by the amount of light fur- nished to the uninstructed, as by the power and self-knowledge that have come to the universities through contact with the world of things as they are. In spite of urgent calls at home, there has been no contraction of our influence abroad. Extension courses, farmers ' and teachers ' institutes, irrigation and forestry conventions, college settlements, are some of the fields in which our University, in common with other universities, is at once teacher and investigator. By the end of the year our Depart- ment of University Extension in Agriculture will have held, during its 1899-1900 series, at least eighty meetings, each meeting consisting usually of several sessions. At least forty counties of the State have been reached. President Wheeler and Professor Plehn have taken the initiative in behalf of a Commercial Museum in San Francisco, designed to foster the growing trade relations of the State, and to serve as a laboratory and museum for our College of Commerce. Professor Leuschner ' s suggestion, looking toward a uniformity of standard for the higher degrees in Europe and America, led to the notable meeting of university presidents in Chicago, February 27th and 28th, and to the formation of the Association of American Universities a movement de- clared by an eminent authority to be one of the supremely important educational movements of the century. President Eliot was elected President of the Association, and President Wheeler. Vice-President. The rare advantages of Berkeley as a place for summer residence and study can- not and do not fail of appreciation. A broadening of the scope of the summer school, last year, resulted at once in a surprisingly large registration of attendants. The regular University student is privileged to attend these sessions and to get what credit he can. In this way the much agitated question of a regular summer term is working itself out. JAMES SUTTON. 13