Education: At Buffalo

As they go out to their country club to play golf or polo, the well-to-do of Buffalo pass a militant group of stone buildings to which they point with constantly increasing pride as the University of Buffalo. Not many members of the country club are alumni of the University. But in the past decade the University had increasingly entered the country club’s consciousness, through the good offices of that potent Cornell alumnus-trustee, liberty-loan driver, reparations expert, friend of Owen D. Young, “double” of Governor Roosevelt, lawyer (Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell & Bass) and banker (Marine Trust)—Walter Platt Cooke.

In 1920 Mr. Cooke went among the Buffalonians and told them the University ought to be endowed. Some 24,000 citizens gave $5,177,000. This year Mr. Cooke went forth again and when his drive ended last week, some 30,000 contributors had given, despite a crushing stockmarket. more than $5,360,000.

To Buffalo the University is more a private educational necessity than was ever the gymnasium to Athens. Since its founding in 1846 as a medical school, it has been “an institution of learning where boys and girls who could not leave their homes could pursue their higher studies.” Its first chancellor, Millard Fillmore. left after two years to be Vice President (and pinch-hitting President) of the U. S. Twelve years after his death (1874). a School of Pharmacy was added to the college. Later a Law School (1887). Dental School (1892), School of Arts & Sciences (1913) were grafted on, scattered in dirty-faced downtown buildings. After the endowment drive of 1920 all the schools were gathered in the stone buildings on the road to the country club. The site used to be the county poorhouse.

The Niagara-potent, dye-making Schoellkopf family gave $1,500,000. Teachers in Buffalo’s public schools gave $23,244. Publisher Edward Hubert Butler of Buffalo’s Evening News gave $50,000. The Hoefler Ice Cream Co. gave $2,500. Driver Cooke and three other trustees gave $800,000. Out-of-town alumni sent $29,450 and 175 students at the Law School raised $2,963.50. . . . When finally the crusade was over and all the cash in hand, Driver Cooke said: “I’m very happy—and goddam tired.”

To wind things up properly Driver Cooke gave a dinner. Beside him sat Chancellor Samuel Paul Capen, son of Elmer Hewitt Capen (onetime Tufts College President), acquired with the new campus in 1922. Stirringly spoke Trustee Cooke: “You are going to be the keepers of the city’s honor in your lifetime.” Of Chancellor Capen’s predecessor he said: “Think of good old Charley Norton, serving with unflagging energy and faith for so many years! Maybe somewhere he is listening in tonight. . . .”*

Rules

Last week three attempts were made to lay down empirical formulas for the conduct of U. S. school children, pedagogs, undergraduates.

For School Children, the National Education Association provided, in its Journal, a set of ten boldface do’s and don’t’s, “beautiful ideals for children originated in Czechoslovakia.” Children were urged to love schoolmates, instruction, parents, honest people, justice, their countrymen. Lying, hatred, war, passion, stealing were to be shunned. They were to “call no man patriot who hates or has contempt for other nations. . . .”

For Pedagogs, there was a set of ethics which had been adopted by the Association, “that teachers may know what is considered proper procedure.” To the Association it is proper that “a teacher’s own life should show that education does ennoble.” It is improper to accept money for tutoring members of one’s own class, to act as agent, or accept a commission, royalty or other reward, for books or supplies, “to ‘underbid’ a rival in order to secure a position, to interfere between another teacher and a pupil in matters such as discipline or marking.” It is unbecoming for a teacher to “permit his educational work to be used for partisan politics, personal gain, or selfish propaganda.”

For Undergraduates a monograph was published at the University of South-ern California by President Rufus Bernhard von Kleinsmid and Vice President Frank Charles Teuton, so that U. of S. C. students might study more intelligently. For each of 20 university and junior college courses the book presents different techniques. In all his studies the student is admonished to concentrate, familiarize himself with inner workings of libraries, be “intellectually and socially honest, picture the situation.” An incipient journalist is warned that “the newspaper worker must husband his vitality for emergency situations as well as for strenuous physical demands of the journalistic career.”

—0netime Chancellor Charles P. Norton “practically devoted his life to the progress of the University of Buffalo.” The Chancellor Norton Medal is awarded annually to the citizen who has brought distinction to the City of Buffalo.