University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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achievements, that a young man dreamsare going to behis.dwindle suddenly even before school days are over. The ambitions that are spurious reveal themselves as self-pride and selfconfi-dence as a boy learns day by day in classes how much human effort has already gone before him, how huge the problems of civilization are, and how humble must be the spirit of the person who would, in the face of a splendid past, do great things in the dim future. This seems like a melancholy gain, but it is a gain, and college gives it. To see your own powers and abilities and worth in proper perspetfive with the rest of the world must be progress. Specialized training cannot help the scientist in those moments when he is not a scientist and is, instead, a perplexed human being Struggling with defeat, or lack of faith, or fear of his task, or lack of friends. University education, that sees its task as the delicate adjust-ment of a person to the world he must inhabit, that can help give courage and understanding to people who need it, and cm give the ability to enjoy life, is genuine educition. Pittsburgh has been praised as the workshop of the world, but it is not certain that it has always been a happy workshop. Industry, thoughtless of people, is a terrible mechanism that breeds poverty and discontent and bad living. There has always been inhuman concern with merchandise for its own sake, and the progress of such industry has always been towards ruin, the whole world over. To give to Pittsburgh industry men and women who are not wholly lost to the meaning of life beyond the fatfory is a great work - Pitt's to accomplish. That task is a gift, to which the Githedral of Learning dedicates itself with every line of its reaching beauty. The fogs and smoke of Pittsburgh will take the newGithedral and make it theirown; they will soften its sharp lines and fuse it with the ground of this city as no builder can. The new building will take the eyes of Pittsburgh from ugliness to beauty, from flat commonplaces to valuable achievement. The town will give to the school; the school will give to the town. That is the true “give and take that ought to occur when a university is erected. In a like manner, in things of the spirit, the Githedral of Learning will tike into its rooms native strength and honesty and ambition and will give out those good things broadened by years of sincere study, widened into a more understanding sympathy for the people who live here, and will give Pittsburgh the ability to realize its own ideals.

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Living men and women are the reasons for industries; industries are never, honorably, the shapers of men and women. The Cathedral is concerned alone with the people, those who want to know more of the world around them and their probable place in that world. The relation of the school to the city lies only in their mutual relation to human beings.The mill and the boy; the boy and the school — that is the connection. And the vital problem is: how will the University relate itself to the boy who must some day find his life's work in Pittsburgh industry? The answer is no easy task. First of all, the University must be more than a gigantic vocational training school turning out graduate oil engineers and chemists and factory managers. That course of Study, getting men ready for specific jobs and a specific salary, is poor stuff if it does nothing for the Student except to make his hands more nimble and his mind more full of related farts. The province of the University is to give that training — to help a young man to make his own way after he leaves school. But this education in the facts of a chosen vocation is not the only thing that a university must do, nor is it the most vital of a university's obligations to its young men and women. A man is not a chemist or a doctor or a teacher all day long. There are hours when the business of his profession is left behind and he has time to read a book or to tike a walk or to talk to someone worth the trouble. And then a man must know more than his profession; he must be able to understand ordinary men and women; he must be able to see new places and look at Strange things with a simple delight in the mere fart that he is alive, and the day is full of sunshine, and the path through the woods is a good path and the sticky mud by the creek is somehow pleasant to feel underfoot. There are winter evenings when legal briefs and chemical formula: and lists of dates are no help to fill in the hours before bed, when a man may read if he has been t.iught to find pleasure in books. Then, if a man will, old Scrooge drags his crabbed feet through the fog of a London Christmas Eve; young Henry Esmond walks the green terrace with the Countess; Tom Sawyer dips his tinned heels in the water of the Mississippi wharves; and the Three Musketeers swagger through sunny France. But there are serious things a man cannot solve through his vocational training alone, and these, too, a great university helps make easier when they come. The [ 4l

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QCHOOL spirit, or Pitt spirit, is a rather dubious thing to write about if only for the reason that here at Pitt the quality is a rather dubious thing itself. The subject, too, is worn thin; it has been much mulled over and talked about; it has been alternately praised for its presence at the la St football game or decried for its absence, till Students are likely to resent even the mention of the phrase “school spirit and to be utterly unaware of its broad and general relationship to the University as a whole. As a matter of fact, a “spirit of any sort is an ambiguous and elusive thing, and even such a seemingly unghoStlike” one as a school spirit is no exception. Pitt spirit, whatever it is, cum be hedged in by no definitions. The only definite statement that can be made about it is that it either exists or it doesn't. And as far as most Students are concerned, it doesn't, and for them the matter ends there. Perhaps this isn't fair. People are aware that a sort of Pitt spirit, mild and somewhat weary, does exist. One goes to a pep” meeting, is exhorted at, accepts all exhortations meekly, resolves to show some spirit, yells, a bit sheepishly, and leaves the meeting wondering what it was all about, yet feeling virtuous and self-righteous beciuse one's duty has been done. Or, perhaps one Struggles out of a football game, battered and hoarse, but proud to be battered and more than proud to be hoarse, for these conditions are the outward and concrete signs of the elusive spirit. Inwardly, if the proper side has come out victorious, there is a glow, a desire to slap the no less battered shoulder of one's neighbor, and to exchange colorful, if somewhat hoarse, greetings. In fact, it is a fine thing to do one’s duty, since after all one is more comfortable for having done it; and it is a most interesting thing to be hoarse, but being hoarse for the glory of the football team is not only interesting but also noble. Thus, in a small way, one cm assume an heroic attitude and say, “I did my bit to win the game,” and feel entirely happy. These remarks are not intended to disparage football games, or the feeling that pervades during them. No amount of talking or writing about school spirit will make people who attend the games stop their shouting. They enjoy shouting too much. But too often, Pitt spirit is measured by the amount of noise a body of Students can make at a given athletic event. If the noise is a big one, the school has a satisfactory spirit; if the noise is but a mere echo, then the school spirit, in the words of the public, “leaves much to be desired. All this is true enough, but it is only part of the whole truth. Real Pitt spirit ought to be inclusive. And right here, the proper question is “What ought it to include?” This is not so easy to answer; at least after the Statement made above that a spirit of any sort is an elusive thing, one would be wiser, perhaps, not to attempt an answer. A constructive bit of criticism on Pitt spirit might, among other things, say that, with a good school spirit, such a thing as [26!