Opening Convocation

September 23, 1919

by S. Avery

THE PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY DURING THE PAST DECADE.

For many years it has been a tradition in the University of Nebraska that the Chancellor give an opening address at the beginning of the school year. Ten years ago for the first time I endeavored to fulfill this service to the University. This effort has been repeated up to the present time except last year when I was absent in military service. It seems to me therefore not inappropriate at this time when after a successful war we are planning for a still more glorious period of peace to review the development of the University during these ten years to recall the achievements of the period that we may gain courage for the future and to gather from this scrutiny thoughts which may help us in our work together in the years to come. Owing to the natural forgetfulness of mankind we are inclined as the years go on to lose sight of the toil of the many and to attribute all achievements to single individuals or single groups of individuals. In the case of an educational institution this is perhaps a less accurate way of thinking than it would be

in almost any other organization. The advancement of the Uniersity of Nebraska has been due very largely to the fact that we have here felt strongly the growth of the movement for higher education supported by the state a movement which had its incipiency in the University of Michigan many years ago and is finding its highest development in the great central section of our country and the Pacific Coast. A scrutiny then of the development of Nebraska will consist largely in giving the details of how this tremendous movement has shaped itself locally how it has been guided and what results have come from it. We recognize frankly that Nebraska hs not been alone in this development. Other states have surpassed it. Larger and richer states have given greater sums but no larger and richer state probably has given a greater proportion of its wealth to the support of the University. Smaller and poorer states have given a greater proportion of their wealth to their own institutions but none of them a greater sum than Nebraska. The average then of ability to support and willingness to support has been undoubtedly as high in the state of Nebraska as in any state of the Union. In following up the comparison with other states of the Union there are doubt less states where some group of men have supported some particular University activity with greater enthusiasm than the corresponding group in Nebraska. Possibly we might find a state where the manufacturing interests had rallied more strongly to the College of Engineering. Possibly we might find a state where the physicians had rallied more strongly than in Nebraska to the College of

Medicine. Possibly a state where the. farmers had more generally leaned upon the Agricultural College. But I think there is no state in which the average is higher where the institution as a whole maintains to a greater extent the confidence of all the people with out regard to special interests or occupational distinctions. In a word I believe there is no state where there is a more general or more altruistic support of an intitution on the part of the people than the state of Nebraska. Students pass through the University in a few years Boards of Regents change executive officers come and go even alumni may follow different leaders faculties slowly and gradually change but the constant and con tinuing support and regard of a great democratic people some highly educated some not highly educated but nearly all in telligent mostly neither very rich nor very poor is the securest support for the progress of an institution and this support on the average constantly increasing never receding has been the greatest factor in the upbuilding of the institution. Eastern educators conservative by temperament and occasionally disturbed by the growth and strength of western in stitutions as compared with their own always find some reassurance in the thought that a state institution must always be more or less "mixed up in politics". In a sense they are right. An institution cannot be indifferent to the wishes of its supporters. No one is so childish as to assume that the great donors give their money to the educational institutions of the east and then fail to scrutinize its expenditure. Was it not Goldwin Smith who once remarked that

the place for the honor was in the marble sacrophagus? Neither does the taxpayer forget his interests. It is right that he should not but no institution has been freer from embarrassment on the part of demagogues and cheap politicians and few have received more cordial non-partisan support from enlightened broad-minded public men. I know of no institution anywhere that has been able to conduct its business with legislators state officers public school officials in a word with all with whom it has had official relations more nearly on the basis of "friendly relations with all and entangling alliances with none" than the University of Nebraska. Through the wisdom of the founders of the state and the Board of Regents was made elective by the people for relatively long terms of office. No small part of the development of the institution has been due to the character of the men selected by the people for this important trust. There have been differences of opinion within and without the institution in regard to policies and complete harmony has not always prevailed. Some controversies have arisen mistakes have been made but the following facts stand out clearly. In probably no other way could a group of more worthy men been selected. The experience of the past ten years shows that not one of the Regents was ever actuated by other motive than a sense of his duty as he saw it. That not one of them took an official action for his aggrandizement either social financial or political all were actuated by a high minded desire to render the best possible service to the state and to the University. In view of the record of the Board of Regents the state will in the future I believe

very carefully weigh any proposals for changes in the fundamental government of the University supported as these proposals must be by the less happy experience of sister states. Plausible plans for the reorganization of our educational institutions will probably weigh less with the people when such matters are under consideration than the record of solid achievements of our constitutional board elected by the people and co-ordinated except in some specific limitations with the other branches of state government. I wish to turn now to the material advancement of the Uni versity in the past ten years. The original campus of eleven acres when I gave my first address had just received its first expansion. Part of the present athletic field had come into the possession of the University. Since that time the expansion has gone until now the land owned or about to be owned by the University includ ing the streets to be vacated amounts to over forty acres. The most recent expansion is the purchase of two half blocks of land north of the present athletic field to extend this field and pro vide adequate room for the new gymnasium. This expansion will permit the University to expand its present athletic field north ward and provide a standard field for track and other athletic sports. The ground to the east and north of the old campus of ten years ago is being rapidly cleared of buildings and will soon be properly parked so as to form one of the beauty spots of the state. Four commodious buildings have been erected on the newly acquired ground. A member of the Commission of French scholars

who visited the University last spring told me that he had seen no laboratories where everything was designed for comfort and utilitiy and nothing spent for show and general ostentatiousness to a greater extent than Bessey Hall and the chemical laboratory. The praise of this scholar and soldier was exceedingly gratifying. The new Teachers College building will enable the professors who have been with us many years as well as the newly acquired professors of national reputation to extend theirk work and influence both in the formally organized Teachers College and in the Graduate College of the University. The Teachers College High School will become in equipment and arrangement a model teachers' training high school and is a happy fulfillment of the dreams of those who worked for better things under the unfavorable surroundings incident to the quarters in the basement of the Temple. The new building for social sciences would receivie honorable mention in any treatise on recent college architecture. It is a noble building that will be appreciated more fully when the surrounding frame structures are removed and the approaches are properly treated. These buildings have been developed according to a consistent plan worked out by eminent University architects whose work at Harvard Chicago Northwestern and other institutions ranks with that of the best in the country. To the early portion of this decade belong the law building and the com pletion of the laboratory for mechanical engineering. These [?] the [?] period [?] before the ex pansion of the campus was determined upon and consequently they could not form a part of the recent harmonious symmetrical development. They however are substantial worthy buildings. These six modern

fireproof buildings represent a present value twice as great as al the buildings that existed on this campus prior to that date. The development of the separate Farm campus has fully kept pace with the development in the city. The harmonious architeture here also prevails although it is of a different type. The new dairy building and the agricultural engineering building compare favorably with any similar structures in the world. The new animal pathology group under the direction of one of the most distinguished vererinarians of the country is developing into a harmonious whole. The plant industry building is an excellent serviceable structure although it belongs to the earlier years of the period before the symmetrical development of the agricultural campus had been fully worked out. These buildings with the barns power house serum plant and other additions represent also a value twice as great as all the buildings that existed prior to their erection. In the matter of land too the agricultural activities have expanded. About 180 acres have been added within easy distance and a splendid fruit farm of 80 acres has been acquired in the loess hills fruit belt along the Missouri River. Most notable of all perhaps has ben the expansion of the Medical College work at Omaha. Ten years ago it was a decadent institution under private financial management camouflaged by an agreement under which the Regents named the oficers and granted the degrees but assumed no control of the physical plant and internal financial affairs. About the only redeeming feature of the sithation was the splended service of a corps of fine highly trained physicians.

and surgeons of Omaha and civinity many of them men of international reputation who constituted the faculty and trained students to become admirable physicians under conditions that were physically and financially discouraging. The dream of these men has now become a reality. Two fine laboratory buildings and a hospital that serves the indigent poor of every count in the state a beautifully located campus and delightful grounds comprise the physical plant. Here as elsewhere unostentatious pleasing permanent architecture prevails. A brief survey of the development of the University's activities in the western part of the state will convince any unprejudiced person that the legislators and the Regents have been sympathetic to the needs of this great and rapidly developing portion of our commonwealth. We now feel confident that people can live and prosper that as high civilization and as great culture can be developed on the so-called arid plains as anywhere in the state if certain fundamental facts are taken into consideration but that any attempt to transport agricultural methods from regions of ample rainfall without a careful consideration of local conditions are bound to end in failures. Farming can be made as profitable there as anywhere if extended over greater time and greater space. A larger acreage the use of tractors proper blending of farming with stock raising an ability ot conduct operations on the basis of ten year averages rather than dependence on an immediate crop these words tell the story that ends with success and not failure.

The farm at North Platte acquired 18 years ago has been exceedingly valuable in determining just those conditions both agricultural and economic under which the so-called arid portion of the state can be successfully handled. The decade that I am reviewing can claim only the erection of buildings and development of the equipment on the plant all of which has practically come during this period. The experiment station work at North Platte has been supplemented by a school as Curtis which will endeavor to do in a teaching way what the Station is doing in an experimental way and it is believed that the graduates of this school having the great advantage of being educated in the environment in which they will work will be an important factor in developing the less less developed western sections of the state. The farm of 467 acres and buildings and improvements valued at $200,000 with an increasing faculty and student body represent this phase of the University's educational development in western Nebraska. For twenty years I have made occasional visits to the best irrigated lands in the country. I used to wonder whether there could be duplicated in the North Platte valley some of the garden spots of Colorao Utah and Idaho. Those who have visited that wonderful section recently will begin to wonder whether as the years revolve these older cases in the so-called American Desert can keep pace with this newer development within the borders of our own state. The development due primarily to the fostering care of the federal government and the inherent energy and intelligence of the people has been supplemented by the work of the state at the experiment

station lying equally distant from Mitchell and Scottsbluff a station just ten years old conducted cooperatively by the University and the federal government. It is doubtful if any expenditure of the state's money has produced such large returns in wealth to the state as this experiment station. As the work in so-called dry farming at North Platte has been supplemented by the school at Curtis so this station is to be supplemented by a School of Irrigation at Scottsbluff. It is designed to make this first a school for practical irrigators to serve the needs of the section second a branch of the Engineering College whereby engineers who may take the lead in irrigation enter prises can receive practical training in field work in preparing for their future profession. Finally the experiment station at Valentine exactly ten years old designed to serve the sandhill country with commodious buildings and ample land has been working faithfully to solve problems that arise in that section. If the final verdict of this experiment station located as it is in that wonderful cattle country shall be to advocate the doctrine that there the methods of nature are to be assisted but not reconstructed that the natural vegetation of the range is to be protected that the advice to people about to drive the plow through the sandy soil is to be simply "don't" the negative results will be worth many times the cost. I am not forecasting what the verdict will be. I do not wish to generalize at long range. I am merely pointing out the fact that this station developed in these ten years with its large farm and ample equipment should be an important factor in answering certain fundamental questions.

In the preceding remarks I have purposely confined myself to the physical plants except where circumstances were such that the hearers might not understand the purpose of the physical plant. I now wish to turn your attention more especially to the development in the use that has been made of these increased facilities during the ten years of the University's progress. It seems incredible as one looks back that ten years ago there was no Engineering College, no Agricultural College, though, of course, much work in these subjects was given in the old industrial college. The Teachers College had just been organized by act of the Regents but had not been ratified by the Legislature. The Medical College, as I have pointed out, was physically and financially a private institution. Colleges of pharmacy, business administration, and dentistry had not been organized, although mych of the work now included in these colleges was cared for in the College of Arts and Sciences or the Industrial College of the University. In some cases, legislative enactment causing the establishment of a vollege has merely recognized and reorganized work previously in existence, but in each case it has resulted in the strengthening and the emphasizing of the work previously given. It may not be out of place to add that much of this reorganization was done by the Legislature on the insistent demand of large groups of taxpayers. Sometimes the addition of a college has been temporarily a source of financial embarrassment to the administration of the University. Nevertheless it all marks the growth of the University, partly coming from the impetus of the University itself, partly due to the progress of education , and partly

due to the specific wish of the people for expansion in certain directions. Statistics of registration are frequently misleading and I hesitate to quote them. No institutions make exactly the same com parison at different dates. No two institutions compile their statistics in just the same way. The statistics in the catalog of ten years ago for the College of Arts and Sciences included the students in economics now registered in the College of Business Administration and the students in the scientific courses in Pharmacy and Dentistry and distributed among these colleges. Making allowances for differences in classification, in ten years the number of students in the College of Arts and Sciences has increased approximately three fold. The same reservations must be made with regard to the number of the faculty, since in accordance with the laws of the state and the by-laws of the Regents a professor may belogn to several faculties. In the College of Arts and Sciences the number of instructors of professorial rank has increased from 70 to over 100. Of these 70, approximately 20 have been lost through death, through calls to commercial life, and comparatively few through calls to other in stitutions. In spite of the enormous industrial development of the times and the founding of new colleges, the College of Arts and Sciences, for a long time almost synonymous with the University it self, still maintains first rank in the University both in the number of students, teachers, and general influence throughout the state.

The University itself has amost forgotten that the School of Agriculture is older than the College of Agriculture. The School was well established ten years ago. It has greatly prospered during this time and appreciates sending, as it does, a large majority of its graduates back to the farm. In the past ten years the work of the School of Agriculture for women has been expanded. But inasmuch as I am trying to present the development of ten years rather than to picture the institution as a whole, i will turn from this to the College which perhaps shows the greatest development of any portion of the in stitution. Beginning with about 100 students enrolled in agriculture in the old industrial college, the enrollment before our young men were taken for the army had increased to practically 600. The number of the faculty increased from 26 to 83, including some 15 Extension workers. Through the fostering legislation of Congress supported by the State Legislature, the Extension Department has reached every portion of the state. In my own work in the Research Council at Washington I found that in agricultural matters any information or opinion from the Uni versity of Nebraska College of Agriculture was received with con sideration and respect equal to that shown similar information from any other source. While the war depleted the Agricultural College, it swelled the registration in the College of Engineering so that last year the number of students registered was nearly double that of normal regis tration. The enormous industrial expansion in the country due to war conditions has caused the faculty to be increased from 9 of ten years ago to 23 at present. Through the ten years development many of the men connected with the engineering faculty and former students

have received recognition both in industrial concerns and from other universities. It would hardly be possible to mention by name those who have gained distinction in any of the colleges without making too long a list. Ten years ago the decline in the number of students in the Medical College threatened its extinction. During the past year the total number registered in Omaha was 181. The faculty has increased sufficiently to cover all the needs of the College. Recognition for scientific medical service connected with the war has come to pro fessors and graduates. The new Colleges of Pharmacy and Dentistry are enjoying increased registration, have greatly strengthened faculties, and are turning out more and more students every year to supply the needs of the state. More and more one finds in going about the state graduates of these colleges who are worthily and successfully serving their local communities. The same statement may be made in regard to the graduates of the Law College. Statistics are not at hand, but at one time I was authoritatively informed that nearly half of the county attorneys of the state of Nebraska were graduates of the University College of Law. The total registration in the entire institution, making due allowances for differences in methods of enumeration during that last year before the war was approximately twice that of the registration of ten years ago. The registration of last year, in cluding the student soldiers, not having full admission and those sent by the government for special training, was nearly two

and one-half times as many as during the year 1908-09 in spite of the fact that war conditions had largely cut into the normal attendance of the student body. During the last ten years 4033 students have received degrees which is just approximately half of the total number of degrees given by the institution since its founding fifty-one years ago. The total list of the instructors in the infant school could have been easily accomodated at the dining table of an averaged sized American family. Ten years ago there were on the faculty about 150 of professorial rank that is above the status of instructor. There is today approximately an increase over that figure of one hundred for we now have listed on the faculty about 250 men and women of professorial standing. Material growth and advancement, although interesting and important, are, or course, in a sense only the external evidence of progress. There are other matters of even greater moment, some of which are not easily handled in a half hour resume of ten years of history. Ten years ago conditional entrance to the institution could be obtained on 22 points. Now it is possible to obtain conditional entrance only on the presentation of 28 points. Ten years ago the medical work was struggling to maintain a five year course above high school graduation. The course in the School of Agriculture has been increased one year, as has also the course in the College of Law. It is a far cry from present day standards to the announcement in one of the catalogs published in Chancellor Canfield's time that anyone who

had completed all the work offered in the district school could come to the University and find a welcome. I refer not to the admirable consolidated rural high schools that are springing up with which we seek the most sympathetic relations, but to the old time one teacher, one room schools. I think I can say that a very considerable part of better requirements for the standards of admission have come in the past ten years. In this period student activities, student enterprises involving the expenditure of money, have been brought under systematic control. The office of executive dean keeps accurate account of the current records of the students where ten years ago no records whatever were kept aside from the notebooks of the individual professors. The work of the Dean of Women has been systematized and extended. The end of the decade under consideration witnesses a re-organization of the University along lines that are new to us, but are successfully applied in some other institutions one professor represented the entire staff of his department. Naturally when help was required younger and less eminent persons were secured as assistants. These naturally grew in teaching power and prestige so that ultimately there came to be several professors in the department. To make a distinction between the chief and his associates, some twelce years ago the University adopted the title of head professor, a sort of super-professor as it were in the department. About five years ago the title was dropped and the words, "head of department" placed in parenthesis. Now by action of the Regents the heads are abolished and chairmen are appointed. The chairmanship is not a title, neither

is it to be regarded as necessarily a permanent position. It does not imply necessarily either rank or salary. It merely means the selection of a person in the department most competent to conduct with the dean and through him with the University administration the affairs of the department. When this announcement was made last spring a humorous professor remarked "I must look around now and see what soviet I belong to". The remark was creditable to the professor's sense of humor but the suggestion will not bear analysis. Anyone who has been in military service knows that very much of the technical work of the army is done in conference of officers. In these councils a Captain may in his capacity as chairman be for the purpose under consideration superior in authority to a Colonel representing some other group. If then we were to make any com parisonat all with unacademic organizations it is the thought of the University authorities that the affairs of the department shall be considered and presented not by a single departmental proprieter but a council consisting of all the officers of instruction in the department and that the chairman will be so far as possible the person who through strength and standing not by anyone's fiat is qualified to be the leader of the group in the conduct of departmental business. The most eminent scholar in the department is frequently not the best leader and organizer. The discoverer of new truths may not be the best man to organize the presentation of that vast body of truth that has accumulated through the ages. The new organization is designed to make greater flexibility in the department to engage the several professors in the work for which they are best fitted to give

all a greater opportunity for self expression and above all to secure closer cooperation and team work. Carried out in the spirit in which it is intended the committee work of the departments should tend to promote free and cordial cooperation of scholars and should avoid academic tyranny on the one hand and academic anarchy on the other. I do not wish to be considered as speaking slightingly of the older conditions. Every year for the past quartet of a century has brought some advancement. The early times were the pioneer days of the institution a time of tremendously vigorous virile life and thought. Many of the great men of the faculty and alumni originated in the earlier period. I merely mention that during the past ten years a great work has been done in developing and systematizing the efforts of the preceding years in orystallizing as it were into an orderly institution the progress that was made through the collective efforts of a long list of distinguished University builders. The remarks on which I am now entering must be either too long or too short. Too long if I should attempt to enumerate by name professors and alumni who have made notable contributions to literature science art industry. Too short if I mention the work of the University in general terms making no specific references. I prefer to accept the latter alternative. In nearly every line of intellectual activity not only in the undergraduate college but in the Graduate College under its admirable leadership great progress has been made. Contributions to the public have resulted in

widely different activities as the writing of profoundly philosophical essays to the proper crating of gun carriages to be sent to our boys in France. But no resume of the work of the University for the past ten yeears would be complete without some reference to the part that it took in the gigantic struggle that ended on the 11th day of last November. Three thousand stars in the service flag of which 100 are gold testify to the services and sacrifice of the institution. The country is only just beginning to realize what part of the colleges took in the winning of the war. With the staff officers at Washington at the Cosmos Club as has been well said one could almost hold a faculty meeting any time and hear a discussion of any academic subject by men in uniform only it would have been a joint faculty for many colleges. Meeting casually any officer in uniform in Washington I often asked "what is your college" and I think I never received the reply "I am not a college man". This condition of course prevailed more at the capitol than in the camps. Nevertheless complete statistics of the war will show that the emergency officers were very largely men of college training. They will further show that among the rank and file the college man formed a worth part. From General Pershing the second commandant whom I personally knew in the University of Nebraska to the youngest freshman to wear the uniform Nebraska men played a part in the great drama of which wemay always be proud. I wish to close this resume of ten years of growth of progress and of service with an attempt to peer into thefuture. No one of course can see more than how the stage is set for the play. But the stage is it seems to me arranged for a program such

as we have not heretofore seen. We have a new world with new ideals new difficulties and new things to challenge the best that is in us. We have a nation best fitted of any nation in the world to accept the new responsibilities. We have a state less contaminated than many others with the poisons emanating from Eurpoean conditions. We have a University strongly developed enjoying the confidence of the taxpayer and patron. There would seem to be every opportunity for a great program in the coming years if we all worthily play our parts.