Utah State University - Buzzer Yearbook (Logan, UT)

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The Greatest American College T is doubtful if any large number of people could agree upon the designation of the greatest American college. It might be easier to name the greatest college in America, which would eliminate the necessity of appraising the distinctive American qualities of the institution. Vet I believe that the citizens of our country desire some important things of their institutions which are not expected of Oxford or Cambridge for instance. It may be that there is no greatest American college. It may be that snobbery coming from wealth has stripped from the great colleges of New England their right to represent the striving and the idealism of our people. The middle west in the midst of its corn and hogs and its altruism may more nearly be approaching the American ideal. I he Pacific Coast with three great seats of learning may come even nearer. W ould it be strange if many years from now, let us say in 1930 or 1973. the greatest American college should be somewhere in the Rocky Mountains? I venture the assertion that this area of few but line people comes as near as any region in America embodying w hat might be called old fashioned patriotism and American standards of personal and social integrity. If such a college should emerge I wonder what would be it outstanding attributes. Would its campus resound with the din of jazz orchestras and the standardized chatter of moving throngs of peculiar collegians? W ould there be the usual studied ennui in regard to learning? Would its athletic fields be crowded and its libraries comparatively deserted? Would it be predominately jocular or would it be serious? Would a student rate in the community according to the horsepower of his car or the horsepower of his intellect? W ould morals be a matter of light banter or would morality be an achievement diligently sought? Would the students love truth or would they seek merely to utilize truth? I hope that America will produce a college where life is a serious, but not necessarily a solemn, business; where learning is revered as a truly magnificent assemblage, though pitifully small as yet. of truth; where both athletic fields and libraries are crowded: where cleanliness is not considered, and is not. Pharisaical; where intellectual and moral power, vigorously assertive, replace mere comeliness of mind and morals: where smartness gives way to keen purpose: where wholesome living and hard thinking permit the realization of God not as a philosophic abstraction but as a reality. Ulmer George Peterson. President. t 26 1

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WIIIOM IVINS President of the Hoard of Trustees f 2 )

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I)R. 1:1.MI R GliORGI: PETbKSON President of the College