University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

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A Bird's-Eye View of the University Grounds FROM THE EXHIBIT PREPARED FOR THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION

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intellectual tone of the University. When Booth and Wakeley graduated, daily morning prayers were held-with the devotion to be expected in colleges when young men assemble at uncomfortable hours in uncomfortable rooms. In the fifty years, from 1854 to 1904, the number of students taking work of collegiate grade in the institution has increased a hundred times, the number of instructors thirty times. There are twenty times as many buildings, much more than twenty times as much space being given to purposes of instruction. Two hundred times as many books are at 'hand. All the enormous and complex mechanical equipment of technical schools has been provided-with- out luxury or waste, but with sensible liberality. And the soul of the University has grown with its body. In 1854 it was a small college, Htting a few young men for pursuits regarded as elite. Except through them and their careers, the University was in no contact with the life of Wisconsin. Now it is a part of practically every noble activity in the commonwealth. It has improved and is improving the agriculture of the State. It has advanced engineering ..-'-f- 3-Q... ' THE NEW STATE H1STORlCAL LIBRARY BUILDING practice, and its professors are directly consulted on engineering questions. The influence of University methods of investigation is seen in certain branches of legislation. The specialist is consulted now as to a multitude of matters, where but a few years ago he would have been scoffed at. The schools have been bettered by relations with the University. In a thousand ways beyond analysis the University is a part of our civilization. At the same time, the duty of maintaining the highest tradition of the past, and of contributing to the advance of the present is not only not neglected but is performed with brilliant success. The University is the natural enemy of commonness. 5 To specify with exactness all that has been achieved is beyond the power of my words. ln itself all this is no more wonderful or more encouraging than the tale of human progress everywhere. But it has been achieved within the period of active life for a single man. Several names might be chosen to illustrate this pointy but one will suffice. Among the Freshmen at the time of the first commencement was one W. F. Vilas. He shared in the narrow but sound discipline of the time. After the reorganization in 1866 he was instructor 19

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in law. During the great advance'of the University he has been a regent. His active asso- ciation with the University begins at the beginning. He has seen it all. Indeed the actual development of the University covers a much shorter time than a half century. In 1866 the University of to-day was in a sense grounded, but not before 1880 did it begin to be what it is nowg not until after 1890 was the Engineering School well organized, or the instruction in economics and history developed. Little over twenty-tive years, therefore, have seen the real growth of the University. Much has been attained, the University of Wisconsin has only begun. This State, some eight times the size of Massachusetts, now supports about an equal population and produces a somewhat smaller amount of wealth annually. I suppose it is not expecting anything very remotely distant to look forward to the time when Wisconsin shall be ten times as densely populated as at present, and shalllproduce annually ten times as much wealth. We have a right to look forward to doing some such work as Harvard University and the Institute of Technology and the New England Conservatory of Music combined. Or if we compare Wisconsin with Saxony, a tenth as large, with a population half as large again, we should be in the same class with the University of Leipzic, the Freiberg School of Mines, the Dresden Conservatory. This is no longer a college. But it is only an inchoate University. It does some university work, but not what the future will demand of the chief educational institution of Wisconsin. Already society has become an organism of great complexity, in which the function of the individual is extremely differentiated. But the process has not gone very far yet. New professions will be createdg new and finer conceptions of old ones will be devel- oped. The University should lead not follow. It must Ht for the profession of to-morrow, provide the science of to-morrow, provide the ideas of to-morrow. Thus the provision for pure scientific research demands an increase proportional to the increase of the provision for technical instruction and research. Still more, the greater complexity of rights and duties in a complex society will require a higher level and a broader preparation for the legal profession than at present. The State of Wisconsin will and must demand and reward a higher education of its teachers, and the University must contribute to giving this education. The quality of the preparation for the University and of the work done within it are not what they should be. Students half know what they profess to be prepared in. They half learn what they think they learn. They lack disinterested intellectual curiosity. Before the University of Wisconsin is fully entitled to that proud name on the same level with the great foundations of the world, a severer discipline must be enforced in the schools of the State, by teachers of better scholarship than at present, and a nobler zeal must be shown by students for knowledge apart from the obvious professional usefulness of their acquirements. These ends can come only through and advance throughout the Stateg an advance propor- tional to that which has made our present achievement possible. Our next jubilee should be as notable for advance as this one. There is as much to do. The students of to-day, the alumni of to-morrow, must sow the seeds of a noble dissatisfaction with all that has been doneg for in these matters not to advance is to retreat. H. B. LATHROP. 121