University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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HE University opened its doors for inspection on the first day of October, l892. ln January, I9 I 6, when the administration of the first President closed, upwards of three thousand students had taken degrees. ln February, 1923, when the administration of the second President closed, the number of alumni had reached upwards of fourteen thousand. The most of these are bachelors of arts, philosophy, or science. There are 1462 doctors of philosophy, 790 doctors of law, 426 are bachelors of divinity, 2927 have taken the degree of master. Many of the bachelors have also taken professional degrees,-as doctors of medicine in Rush Medical College, for example. The degree of bachelor in many cases is itself a professional degree, in the college of education, or in the school of commerce and administration. Thus we train for many professions. While tuition fees have been paid, it is well known that these fees by no means meet the actual cost of instruction. The remaining cost is met by the liberal endowments pro- vided by the generosity of many donors. Their recompense consists in adding to the republic a body of educated citizens whose intelligence and training should make them of especial value to the Community in which they live. ' What do the alumni owe to Alma Mater? First of all, that the primary purposes of the education which has been so freely given may be justified in the lives of those who have had it. They should be upright, cfean living, useful citizens, a credit to the degrees which they hold. Not all may become famous, not all may win wealth. All maya be honorable, high minded men or Women, with an added understanding of life and added force of reason of their years in the University. Y - They may contribute to the growth and influence of Alma Maier-not always by money contributions, but always by intelligent interest in her welfare. They should know the large things which the University is seeking - they should remember that life means change, that the life of an institution means new and varied development. They should understand and welcome the large things, they should not cling to what is really petty. It has been a great source of happiness to me to know so many of our former students, whether alumni or not, who are so well and honorably doing the world,s work. They have not forgotten the old days in the quadrangles - The city gray that ne'er shall die.', Loyal affection for Alma Mater is one of the precious things which make life worth living. I extend cordial greetings to all the University sons and daughters throughout the world, in the confidence that in years to come as in the years past the University will be near their hearts. HARRY PRATT JUDSON. Page Tzouuty-one

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University is in the eye of the law Ha corporation not for financial profit. Its products are not bricks or automobiles or steel girders, but ideas and ideals and personalities. It is interested in people, and especially in its own students. Research brings benefits to many who never heard of the University, and books are read with profit by multitudes who never come within its wallsg yet it is first of all through the students within its walls that the University makes its contribution to human betterment. But residence at a University does not of itself produce a high type of personality. Slack performance of tasks, waste of time in trivial things, shrewd evasion of University appointments and requirements, all tend to render one less rather than more fit to play one's part in life. The farm or the bank is a better school for some men, and the shop or the home for some women, than the college. The college must therefore set up stand- ards and tests and maintain them vigorously. There ought always to be side doors out of college as well as the one at the end marked Convocation. But as an institution grows in size there is a tendency to lose sight of the individual -to think in terms of hundreds and thousands, -to deal not with persons but with classes. Numbers lead to rules and standardization, and there is always a danger of over standardization in education. The student who makes A in every course may be very badly educated. Having in mind the improvement of the University of Chicago, I therefore look not only for the raising of standards in the formal sense, but for the recognition of the individual, for the recovery in some respects of the point of view of the small college, for the restoration in a measure of the idea expressed in the famous statement of President Garfield that his ideal of a college was Mark Hopkins at one end of the log and a student at the other: and I should be interested in shortening the log. Education is a great deal more than the acquisition of knowledge, and is accom- plished by other forces than those that are exerted in the class room and chapel. Students usually know one another better than the professors know them and they are a powerful force in educating one another. College life ought to teach one not only to get ideas out of books and to observe phenomena in a laboratory, but how to deal with one's fellow men, how to take hard knocks without anger, and on occasion to give just as hard, how to persuade men and how to be persuaded, and on occasion to stand like adamant against all persuasion. These elements of college life cannot be reduced to majors and minors, or recorded on the examiner's books. But there should be the opportunity for them and some guarantee should be provided that they are actually operative. I look then for the time when the University shall be a community of mutually educating individuals and groups, producing Amen and women able to think, to influence their fellows and to be influenced by them, capable of taking their part in the evolution of a better human society than now exists, and acquitting themselves well in the struggle of lifeg men and women of knowledge, and of ability to acquire knowledge, of character, of culture, and of power. ERNEST DEWITT BURTON. Page Truenty-tlzrct'