University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

Page 13 text:

Its cornerstone laid in 1793 and formally opened on January 15, 1795, Old East is the oldest building on a state-supported campus in the United States. It is ironic, of course, that the seeds of discord which nearly wrecked the University are pres- ent in that proud boast. For in its subservience to tne state, the University of North Carolina is seemingly controlled by those very forces of ignorance which it seeks to eliminate. Yet, the very presence of Old East is testimony to the ability of an insti- tution to transcend its opponents and rise triumphant; that one edifice has been in existence for over 170 years, while those in the nineteenth century who feared atheistic, sinful science, and in the twentieth who feared atheistic Communism, have passed away. The spirit of Carolina has grown and will grow; it is evi- denced in its inception in Old East and in its growth to the present in Morrison. But there is still something else that re- mains and will remain even when these buildings have fallen — that is the student, the universal student, the University stu- dent. Whether he be a Carolina Gentleman or scholar, whether a he or a she, the student will always be here. And is it not in the student, in the development of the human mind, that excel- lence in the University and in the world is achieved? And in- deed, regardless of the blindness prevalent in the states, it is only through the student that freedom can prevail.