Education: The Colleges

And still they came, the undergraduate ants in streaming lines from railroad stations, trolley stops, subway kiosks and country roads. Into their hills they scuttled and out again, back and forth to the bookstore, the stadium, the lecture hall, the soda fountain, the library, the bootlegger’s, the chapel. (I ¶ At Yale University, not as many entered Battell Chapel as formerly in the drowsy, blink-eyed crack of dawn (8 a. m.). Unmoved by years of protest against enforced religious observance, but compelled by the physical limitations of their spiritual edifice, the Yale authorities had decreed that only freshmen would be required to attend daily services hereafter. The three upper classes would alternate their weekdays of devotion, would worship alternate Sundays. Dean Frederick S. Jones expressed the belief that friends of Yale would hasten to donate a new and bigger chapel if assured that the student body would welcome it. In line with the general congestion of Yale’s historic quadrangle, Dean Jones further suggested, “as a bare possibility”, the erection of a 20-story skyscraper, similar to the University of Pittsburgh’s much-discussed “Cathedral of Learning” (TIME, Nov. 17). Placed in the middle of the old campus, this structure would have rapid elevator service, class rooms, living quarters, swimming pools, libraries, dining rooms.

¶ Building was also in the mind of President Thomas D. Boyd on the opening day at Louisiana State University. In his spick and span office in the University’s new $5,000,000 “plant” south of Baton Rouge, he conferred with railway officials upon the building of a three-track spur to the entrance of the football arena.

¶ The University of Denver took up her tasks with a feeling of gratitude and relief. Her Chancellor, Dr. Heber R. Harper, had declined an offer to become President of Boston University, with the words: “I am convinced that I ought not to leave the work I have begun here”.

¶ Entrants to New York University packed a Presbyterian Church to hear words from Elbert H. Gary, steel magnate and famed author of rules for a successful life. Business success was the burden of his message. Be agreeable, said he, approachable, popularize yourself and your business. “Adopt and apply the standards of propriety. . . . Honesty is best. . . . Abraham Lincoln. . . . Marshall Field. . . . J. Pierpont Morgan. . . . The average man likes to hear himself talk too much. It is well to let the other man talk half of the time.”

¶ At Union College (Schenectady, N. Y.), President Charles Alexander Richmond said: “We hear of the revolt of youth. … It must be perfectly evident that we are becoming more and more dependent upon things, upon conveniences —falsely socalled. Motor cars are used to such a degree that millions of human legs have become almost atrophied. Students have to be transported across the campus lest they should arrive at their classes in a state of physical exhaustion. I was at an institution of learning some months ago where the boys turned on the victrola to dress by. A young man who cannot put on his shirt without being entertained can hardly be said to possess independent intellectual resources.”

¶ At Brown University (Providence, R. I.), President William H. P. Faunce addressed the student body for the first time since a serious illness last February: “Last, week the doctor pummeled and poked me all over and then said: ‘Well if you were one of the four hundred freshmen I am examining I would pass you at once as physically fit to enter Brown’. Te be told you are as good as a freshman is, under some circumstances, extremely gratifying”.

¶ At Bates College (Lewiston, Me.), President Clifton D. Gray said: “We believe in scholarship but we are not interested in sending out into the world emaciated, pale-faced neurasthenic high brows. . . . We believe in athletics but we are not interested in … a few giants . . . We believe in college life, as it is called . . . but we are not interested if this side of college produces only sleek, well-fed bipeds of the genus homo (by courtesy) sapiens, whose most obvious contribution, to a waiting and anxious world is their ability to serve as models of the youth so familiar with ready-made clothing advertisements.”

¶ At the University of Wisconsin, Prof. Rasmus Björn Anderson, linguist, insurance man, rubber manufacturer, onetime (1885-9) U. S. Minister to Denmark, editor of Amerika (weekly), whose resolute chin is now overgrown with the white hairs of nearly 80 years, refused to accept the Cross of St. Olaf from King Haakon of Norway (his native land) just as he had refused in 1889 to accept the Cross of Danneborg from Haakon’s father, King Christian, offered for his researches in Norwegian literature. Said Prof. Anderson: “Decorations and medals are humbug.”

¶ The opening of Columbia University* was marked by another attack upon legislative invasion of the people’s liberties. Echoing sentiments against Prohibition expressed by his chief, President Butler, at last year’s opening ceremonies, Prof. Young B. Smith of the Law College let fly: “There are many agitators in our midst who have been seized with a desire to compel all human beings to conform to a type, whether it be fundamentalist, teetotaler or 100% American. This will to standardize men they have attempted to justify on the grounds of efficiency, humanity and religion.”

¶ Smith College (Northampton, Mass.), opened her gates, but had to scrutinize closely those who entered. There was room for only 550 of the 1,400 young women who sought freshmanhood. Next year the scrutiny will have to be doubly close. Already some 2,200 have applied for examination.

* These exercises were not, as erroneously reported in TIME last week, marked by the perennial eloquence of President Nicholas Murray Butler. His shoulder, “lamed by golf, inflamed by ocean,” kept him away from the ceremony, recuperating at Southampton, L. I. TIME’S report was based upon an optimistic, seemingly reliable prediction issued at the University, and upon acquaintance with Dr. Butler’s impatience with obstacles, however great, between himself and his duty.