University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

Page 24 text:

Arthur Cutts Willard President Page 22 1957

Page 23 text:

■ 1 r r' fc

Page 25 text:

8 • • '. • -' • : • 5 ' SSSS President. University of Illinois fTTumniijliniiMiiiif PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE The present interest in college education in this country is greater than at any previous time. More men and women are attending our colleges and universities than ever before in our history. More men and women now hold college degrees and will receive such degrees this June than at any time in the past. In view of these facts, it has been argued that a college degree does not and cannot of itself mean as much as in an earlier day. If this be true, and I think it is, then the individual who holds such a degree must compensate for this situation by developing and exhibiting such superior qualities of character, personality, and intellectuality as will demonstrate anew the value of our college graduates to modern society. Your life here at the University, whatever may have been your success as a student, should have stimulated and developed your intellectual curiosity, your ability to appreciate the arts and letters, the sciences — both physical and social, and the sig- nificance of truth and beauty in all your relationships with the world about you. If this has been your experience, even in small measure, then you will have achieved a richer and fuller meas- ure of living, and a college education will have served to make our country a better place in which to live. 1937 Page 23