University of Oregon - Oregana Yearbook (Eugene, OR)

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A MOMENTS PAUSE EMILY VEAZIE 0 Us, who from day to day pursue our busy life at the University so in- tently that we scarce can see beyond the day itself, comes, sometimes, the need of a moments pause. We become day-blinded, forgetting whence we came and whither we are going. And yet, it is only as we keep clear this vision of our goal that we can hope to follow the path to its at- tainment. Let us, then, for a moment pause to learn from whence we started and how far along the way we have come. It seems, indeed, a distant day when the legislature of Oregon voted to establish a State University at Eugene. That was fifty years ago. lVIoney was appropriated for the building of Deady hall, hut difhculty in raising it almost led to the abandonment of the project. Let us give thanks to those far-seeing citizens who saved us our Uni- versity by their personal subscription to the fund. We will better enjoy our many buildings now, when we fully realize and hear in mind the strides of progress which have been made. From today and our present faculty with its thirsty schools and depart- ments, it is a long look to the time when the University boasted two profes- sors. and a principal and assistant to the preparatory department. But it is only some fortyfive years ago. Truly we have advanced. And yet, if we could see to the heart of these early days, we should find there the same spirit that today makes us continue to grow and prosper. Though commencement exercises were held in the top of Deadyi and assem- blies beneath the trees in front, students gathered to express those same ideals that we now cherish. SO let us keep carefully our heritage from the past. that we may pass it on to the future-the spirit of Oregon which calls for hner students, finer Citizens, a finer state and a more glorious nation. Trwmlty-mu?

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IN THE FUTURE COLIN DYMENT HERE is too much of measurement of American universities by acres and numbers; and so. as the writer tries to look into the future of the Uni- versity of Oregon, he does not Visualize it as having so many thousand students. Rather he sees it as an academic establishment achieving a certain type of intellectual purpose, and achieving it las is the responsibility of a state supported institutionl at as reasonable a cost as hard work and thoughtful organization without selfishness make possible. It is true that the University is attracting from both this state and neighboring states numbers of students to a far greater extent than has ever been true; and that, accordingly, unless somehow these numbers are checked, the University will become far larger than most persons expect, and that by the same token it will have to expand over much land. Never- theless, my answer to the Oregana,s question is restricted to a statement re- garding the Universityls intellectual idealism, as I now see it taking form and make conjecture as to the form it will have in days to come. The University,s success will be gauged by the quality of graduates. If these men and women think primarily of themselves, then the University will have been a failure. If they think primarily in terms of society, but are incapable of influencing their communities through their ideas, then too, in whatever degree they are so incapable, the University will have failed. But if primarily their thinking is socialized, and if they are able to help toward realization those principles of good that make for general happiness, then the University will have succeeded, and thereby will have justified its establishment and maintenance. Those who do so succeed must be exceedingly well-trained and well- disciplined. They must have the fervor, even the evangelization, to utilize their training and their discipline to ethical ends. It is a long hard road for both the University and the individuals to achieve that goal. The writer would accordingly say that the University of the future, as he conceives it, is a University the purpose of which is to have trained its graduating classes in social idealism, and so to have developed their intel- lectual capacity, that they can make science, literature, the arts, commerce, the traditional professions, and any phase of activity in which they may be engaged, produce their respective contributions toward the sum of human knowledge, which is truth; and through them hasten'that day of world- wide well-being, concerning which the philosophers have written so much and Which, mythical though it may seem at times, must, because of its place in the worlds thinking from the beginning, be an achievable thing. Trwcnty-llzrec