University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE TO THE CLASS OF 1947 Greetings: Education is a dynamic process. There is no middle groiuid where one can stop and say I am educated. I no longer need to learn. To cease learning is to decay and the whole history of civilization may be offered in evidence of that fact. Today more than ever before does the fate of mankind hinge on his ability to learn. The free exchange of ideas, the free dissemination of knowledge among the people of the world is the one great hope of man. There must be no tariff on the intellect. On this basis and this basis alone rests the future of education and of organized society. You of the graduating class may well take pride that by her actions and her deeds your alma mater lives up to this credo. Her history has been one of constant evolution. The scope of the curriculum has grown with the years. The physical plant, generally the last phase of the campus to respond to the spur of progress, is on the threshold of a new expansion. Above all the great current of intellectual maturity that is manifested by an unprecedented demand for collegiate training on the part the yoimg people of the nation finds your college doing its part to direct its vast potential into useful and productive channels. The physical properties of the college, that have come to be symbolic of a way of life, the elms, the pond, the curved college pathways, the shaded buildings, these are the rocks on which a new and greater university will be erected. We take leave of this campus, you and I, with memories of work and pleasure indistinguishable one from the other, confident that in this calm beauty the aspirations of our society will flourish for the general welfare of mankind. HUGH POTTER BAKER, President President Hugh P. Baker al His Desk