University of Wisconsin River Falls - Meletean Yearbook (River Falls, WI)

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John M. May Ticenlv-Two

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 3DEALISM is a priceless virtue; it is an attribute of youth. We must look to the students in our institutions of learning today to keep alive our idealism and to foster those sentiments of honor and loyalty, without which our free institutions cannot endure. American schools and colleges arc the best training grounds for citizenship. The American student entertains a high type of loyalty for his institution. This is one of the splendid things connected with student life. It is a splendid thing for these institutions to have the enthusiastic loyalty of these young men and women, but the chief significance of the kindling of these sentiments lies in the profound influence upon the lives of the students themselves. It is to be hoped that the River Falls Teachers College, its student body and faculty, will always endeavor to create an institutional atmosphere, in which all the higher qualities of citizenship may develop and flourish. Education is consecrated to the betterment of mankind, not to the training of a few selected leaders. In a democracy it is highly important that this fundamental conception be kept clear. No more serious mistake could be made than that our institutions of higher learning be organized and administered in the interest of the select. Education in our country must have as its objective, the improvement of the intellectual and ethical perspective of the great mass of our citizens. We do not need holders of worlds records; we do need the intellectual and ethical elevation of all. bf • . Ticc tn-Onc

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3£%R0FESS0R J. M. MAY came to our school in 1913 as an assistant in the Do partment of Agriculture, which had been started the previous year by Mr. Wells, who was then head of the department. Mr. May is a member of the gradu-ating class of 1910 of the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan. During recent years he has been working for his master's degree at Cornell University. He is a member of Alpha Zeta, an honorary agriculture fraternity, and also the Cornell chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, a national education fraternity. Because of the decided success of Mr. May as a teacher in Nebraska and Minne-sota high schools, Mr. Crabtree, who was president of this school, selected him to come to River Falls as an instructor. Mr. Crabtree made both a wise and a fortunate choice when he chose this man for the position here, as has been evidenced by the progress and development of the Agricultural Department at River Falls since 1913. The department was moved, after lie Imd been here only one year, from the third floor of South Mall into the rooms of North Hall which are so familiar to all of us. It gained prominence at River Falls and recognition throughout this state. In 1918, five years after coming here, lie was rewarded for his devotion to the school and his constructive work by being made head of the department, whose expansion he had fostered. As we compare the two-year course of 1918 with the four-year degree granting course now offered, and the department of a few years ago with the present, which occupies a dozen very well equipped rooms in North Hall, we more thoroughly realize and appreciate the man who stands at the head of that progress. This year, through the combined efforts of the faculty of the department and President Ames, River Falls has been recognized by the State Board of Vocational Education as an institution qualified to train teachers for Smith-Hughes Agriculture Departments. Our school is now one of the two schools in the United States, other than universities, having this recognition. Because of his personal interest in the welfare of the men of his department, Mr. May succeeded in having a Smith-Hughes Agriculture Department made a pari of the River Falls High School. This make actual contact with that type of a department possible for the men of his department while they are at college. They do practice teaching in the regular agriculture classes of a Smith-Hughe School. They carry farm practice projects, supervise project work of high school boys, coach demonstration teams, and become familiar with the organization and methods of conducting a part-time school, in addition to their regular teacher training. Not only has Mr. May worked for the best interests of his department, but he has been an outstanding general asset to the school. His ability as a teacher has raised the standards of River Falls, and his intelligent guidance has contributed largely to the development of our school. The third-year class greatly appreciates the guidance and advice of Mr. May during our years here. We feel especially fortunate in having had him as our advisor, and we like him as advisor, as teacher, as man, and as friend.