University of Florida - Tower / Seminole Yearbook (Gainesville, FL)

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1928-1947

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University of Florida Gaixkhvillk OrricK or mi I'uiiom April 22, 191 7 Tot The Student of the University of Florida I have been given the privilege of saying a word as I leave the University, During the nineteen years I have been here, my relationship with the student body has always been pleasant and profitable. I have enjoyed the work at the University, but no phase of it more than the contacts with the thousands of boys who have come and gone in ay tine. I can say with sincere appreciation that no untoward incident has ever narred our relations. This relationship will be cherished by oe throughout the rest of my life. Nothing can dim its luster or darken the bright spot that lives in ny heart. To the students now in the Uhiversity, I express ■y appreciation for your cooperation and hope for you the successful completion of your work here and overy good thing in life. Wherever I may be, my interest in you will continue, and I hope that each and every one will feel free to call upon oe if I can be of assistance. kost sincerely and cordially yours.

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“AN INSTITUTION IS THE lengthened tkadotc of one man, and the meant of n thing tctU done it to hart done it —Emerson With a Kait distinctly his own, a tall, dignified man strolled into the President’s office at the University of Florida, and his deep, penetrating blue eyes h'ianced at the 1928 calendar on the wall. He hung up his hat to stay awhile. On September 1, with the calendar turned to 1947, the same six-footer took his hat, said farewell, and left the President’s office. Thus a pioneer in several fields of education retired. The pages of the calendar have been turned over and over for nearly a score of years—years which summarize the progress story of John James Tigert who forged to the top of the educational world. On that day in the summer of 1928 when John Tigert came to Gainesville from the office of United States Commissioner of Education, the University of Florida was a young, struggling college among state-supported schools. In September, as he passed across the pine needles and looked at the brick and the stone and the walks and the trees, which symbolize the material measure of his service, his feeling of achievement may well have gone beyond those ivy-covered buildings that grace the campus. He has been more than a builder of a university campus. His enduring influence is imbued in the University graduates of the past two decades, and he carries with him hundreds of appreciative letters from personalities he has molded. We are here privileged to tell something about John J. and what he has done. Born February 11, 1882, on the campus of Vanderbilt University, the son of Bishop John J. Tigert, he received his preparatory training in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, and Nashville, Tennessee, and at Webb School, Bellbuckle, Tennessee. He entered Vanderbilt in 1900, when he took the entrance prize of $50 for making the highest grade in an examination in Latin and Greek—the first newspaper recognition he had received since his birth announcement. The record he made at Vanderbilt is, perhaps, unequalled at that institution. He maintained a scholastic average above 90. became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a member of the Honor Committee, President of his class, and was elected as the first Rhodes scholar of Tennessee. Besides his scholastic attainments, he was a member of the football, basketball, baseball and track teams. He was captain of the basketball and football teams, and was selected All-Southern fullback in 1901. He also won the Kentucky State tennis championship. At Oxford, he was prominent as an athlete, representing his college in rowing, tennis, and cricket, in addition to being a member of the All-Rhodes baseball team. From 1907 to 1909, Dr. Tigert held the chair of Philosophy and Psychology at Central College, Fayette, Missouri. He became President of Kentucky Wesleyan College in 1909, and in 1913 he resigned to assume the head professorship of philosophy and psychology at the University of Kentucky. Few men could be persuaded to combine the work connected with these honors and. at the same time, to coach and direct athletics, but Dr. Tigert coached both girls’ and boys basketball and football teams to championship years. During W’orld War I, Dr. Tigert served with the American Expeditionary Forces for one year in Scotland. England. France, and Germany. He lectured at the University of Beaune, France, and in the overseas school centers of the American Educational Corps, where he spoke to more than 300,000 soldiers. In 1921, he was called to Washington to fill the highest educational office in the Federal Government, as United States Commissioner of Education. During his seven years as Commissioner, he attained national distinction through his educational standards, ideas, and creations. He was one of the first to appreciate the true place of movies and the radio in education. It was one of his football teammates who said of him: Tigert, the man who says little but does much, showed that his prowess in the classroom was equalled by that on the gridiron—he really seemed at a loss as to what to do until he could get about three or four men hanging to him. then he would truly move off. Then came that day in the summer of 1928. The Florida boom had poured its population increase into the peninsula. The University was evolving from a small, provincial school into the beginnings of a real university. But the people of the state did not foresee what was ahead for the University, nor did the students nor the alumni. The drawling six-footer did. He wanted to lay the Page 8