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

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Ghz jtacultp HEN a Chinese who had studied here went back to be married, cc his bride insisted on an American wedding. The courtyard was filled with chairs a la American church, and the bride came up the aisle and was given away by her father. But the Wedding March! was one of the two American marches the groom remembered-'Marching Thru Georgia'g and the other march he knew was played after the pair left the altar - 'Yankee Doodle., H 'Tm very fond of trout fishing in the Rockies. I do not care whether I catch any fish or not! But one sees the beauties of life: Howers, and mosses, and lichens, and treesg and the ducks go quacking down the streamg and once I saw a minkf' Yes, the first University color was old goldg but everyone called it 'yellow,' so it was changed. 'Maroon' was chosen because the Word had such a pretty soundg and. the committee went to l7ield's to see what the color was like. Imagine their surprise when five or six shades were found! Finally the most attractive was voted the Maroonf, These are excerpts from a chat with Mr. Judson. Miss Reynolds, Vassar '80, was offered the first fellowship in the new University of Chicago, and she has gone through all the grades in the Faculty from Fellow to full Professor. She was among the pioneer women who roomed in the Beatrice, then in Snell, with meals in the basement of the Divinity Halls, and who finally in despair boarded themselves in Snell. Later she was appointed Head of Foster, and her genuine- ness, sympathetic understanding of girls, quick sense of humor, and love for beauty, have combined to make the life in Foster unique in the annals of women's halls. One of Miss Reynolds' great interests is house furnishings, and the beauty of Ida Noyes owes much to her taste. To her also the University Settlement owes much. She was chairman of the committee who established it, and her stories of Settlement exper- iences have become a part of University tradition. She can always make early days live again by her gift of story telling. Although she is just one person leaving the University, it will seem as if a host had left. Freddy Starr, as he is affectionately called, meets us with pungent reminiscences. I-le recalls that he was given his position in the University eighteen months before it openedg that he was in the next room when President Harper gave final consent to come here, and was the first man to talk to him afterward: that he taught in Cobb when the carpenters were still in the builclingg that he walked on the plank walk to Cottage Grove Avenue, through the fields which were a wonderful display of wild onion in bloom- really lovelygn and that he took the cable line downtown. Soon, alas, Mr. Starr's official connection with the University will be a reminiscence too. The people outside think of me as forever either going away from or coming back to the University, although I have been only once to the Philippines, twice to Africa, ten times to Japan, thirty times to Mexico, and of course often to Europe. But in June Page Twmzty-farzr

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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'

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Mr. Starr leaves the University for goodg and his classes will become part of the under- graduate tradition. The vivacious head of the German department, Mr. Cutting: I came here to the Faculty in '92, when the smash, bang and roar of the World,s Fair bothered us in the classrooms. . . The first library was a sprawl, a splatter of books. I remember when I asked President Harper for books, he gave me a key and told me to take a jimmy also, down to a room on 55th and to take the books out of the boxes they were in. So I brought the books into that room next the German office and started graduate work, and our department had one of the first seminary libraries in the University. . . Yes, the insanity of not studying German in this country during the war! If I personally were fighting with a man would it not be ridiculous to ask a friend to put out my eyes because I could not bear the sight of the enemy? England and France saw the folly of such a thing, and studied German the harder.. . Three kinds of students: the happy-go-lucky - frequently but not necessarily gifted - sometimes an earthquake rouses himg the grub or grind-listens to lectures and takes notes-has information ideal, the true student, who realizes that education means io have one's self in hand, the ability to focus on the problems of immediate interest and importance and to get those problems done. Such students unfortunately are in a minority, but the professors should let them alone, and observe that a student is taught only as he teaches himself. HlVlr. Herrick, how do writing and teaching harmonize? The two are independent. They assist each other in some ways - reviewing for example is related to teaching, - and the teaching of technique is not antagonistic - but creative writing is interfered with. I write my novels away from Chicago, in York Village, Maine, and am in residence here for only one quarter or two at a timef' What is your opinion of the literary ability of the undergraduate? Always for thirty years there has been an intelligent, interested, and sometimes talented group in English 5 and 6. The groups vary according to maturity and gift, but I find teaching here delightfulg the students are on the whole friendly and interesting - the reaction of youth is always interestingf, What do you consider the function of the University?', Well, that is a rather large question. However, the University is not a place for immature studentsg it should be used not for vocational training, or to be enjoyed merely, but as a laboratory for scholarship and special investigation. Fraternities and activities are childish, they should be eliminated. The University is a great gift to the community, and it should stand for intellectual hard workf, Professor Stieglitz, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Director of Laboratories in the University, is known for his research along fundamental lines of chemistry, and as a teacher. I-Iis research has been chiefly in organic chemistry but to it he has brought broad knowledge of other branches of the subject. Lately he has become deeply interested in the improvements of drugs. I-le has met with wide recognition, receiving honorary degrees, being a member of honorary scientific Page Tcvcxzty-fm?