LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 
 Gl FT OF 
 
 Sr:. 
 
inaugural Address 
 
 The College 
 
 President John Hanson Thomas Main, Ph. D. 
 
 .i.i '-.I . ; - 
 
 Tuesday, June Twelfth 
 Nineteen Hundred and Six 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 The College 
 Its Ideals and Its Problems 
 
 President John Hanson Thomas Main, Ph. D* 
 
 IOWA COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Tuesday, June Twelfth 
 Nineteen Hundred and Six 
 
 OF 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
2,0 
 
 Register Print 
 Crinnell. Iowa 
 
3lta 
 
 The We are gathering the fruits today from 
 Gifts of the seed that was planted sixty years ago. 
 the Fathers it is a rich harvest, and it is only the be- 
 ginning of richer harvests yet to come. It is fitting 
 that we turn our thoughts for a moment to the work 
 of the pioneer fathers who planted, that upon them 
 we may bestow the tribute of praise and love which 
 is their due. Their gifts were small, but they multi- 
 plied the value of their small gifts many fold, because 
 with them they gave themselves also. Their money 
 was reinforced by faith, devotion and love. They 
 understood the value and meaning of education, and 
 all they did in organizing and developing Iowa Col- 
 lege was directed by high ideals hence their gifts 
 had in them the elements of unlimited growth. The 
 Iowa College of their day was a prophecy of the Col- 
 lege of our day; the College of our day is the prophecy 
 of a greater College yet to come. Greater in size it 
 will be, but not in the spirit of devotion; greater in 
 
 (3) 
 
 162884 
 
its range of view and in its comprehensive grasp of 
 world problems it ought to be; but greater probably 
 it can not be in its spirit of sympathy with human 
 need. Iowa College will carry on its ideals to a fuller 
 fruition and will adjust them to the complex demands 
 of the present day. However large and powerful the 
 College may become, there can be no greater work 
 than this for it to do. 
 
 The The College had its founding first in the 
 College hearts of the fathers, and it has grown for 
 Ideals the most part by the small contributions of 
 poor men who had large ideals. It has accumulated a 
 spiritual endowment through the devotion of these 
 men which is priceless and which nothing can take 
 away nothing but the failure on our part to see and 
 to give, to hope and work, as they did who placed 
 the College in our keeping. They hand down to us a 
 challenge to service; they give to us the ideals of 
 growth. The largest asset the College can have is 
 its ideals. However large its property, its income, 
 and its pay roll, the ideals it incorporates are its 
 most precious possessions. These give value to all 
 other possessions. They give life. They make of an 
 institution composed of bricks and mortar and ma- 
 terial things, a living soul. 
 
 What are some of the ideals which we in- 
 herit? I venture to name genuineness as 
 (4) 
 
the first. From the opening day until this day there 
 has been a conscious and continuous striving to elim- 
 inate from the College and from all the details of its 
 work every suggestion of the superficial. There has 
 never been an effort made to secure numbers at the 
 expense of thoroughness; there has never been any 
 sacrifice of standards; there has never been a waiving 
 of ideals. The spirit of the institution would not tol- 
 erate it. The men who founded Iowa College were 
 educated men, graduated from the best New Eng- 
 land colleges. They had no knowledge of anything 
 but the best in education, and their ambition was to 
 create for Iowa a college similar to those they knew. 
 They were sturdy men, cultured men, men of strong 
 initiative. They held to their ideals. Hence they 
 gave an individuality and a spirit of genuineness to 
 the College, which is an integral part of its life. 
 
 Fearlessness is the ideal I should mention 
 Fearlessness , T , ,, ,, 
 
 second. It comes from the fathers. 
 
 They were sure that the truth would prevail, and 
 they have given to the College as a part of its endow- 
 ment, a fearless spirit in the search of it. "Know 
 the truth; the truth shall make you free," has been 
 an implicit thought in all of its activities, and as a 
 result there has been the largest possible freedom in 
 classroom and in laboratory. One illustration will 
 suffice. The theory of evolution was studied in the 
 
 (5) 
 
classroom when it was first proposed and when the 
 leading spirits among college authorities both 
 here and elsewhere firmly believed that the theory 
 could not be proven true. But these men wanted to 
 know, and felt sure, as do those who hold their places 
 today, that in the truth, whatever it is, there is safety. 
 It is an axiom here that a serious search for the truth 
 is the privilege and duty of college leaders. In no 
 other way can they vindicate their claim to the posi- 
 tions which they hold. 
 
 Regard for The third ideal of the College centers in 
 Human Needs its concern for human needs. The Col- 
 lege was founded for young men; it was not con- 
 templated that it should be open to young women. 
 The means were not at hand to found a college for 
 women; money was not available to send them to 
 eastern institutions, hence Iowa College admitted 
 women, and so, without any formal action, it became 
 a co-educational institution. This incident illustrates 
 perfectly the spirit of service and helpfulness which 
 has belonged to the College from the beginning. 
 Age-long traditions and ingrained prejudices are not 
 to weigh against human needs. The business of the 
 College is first of all to help men and women and to 
 put them into adjustment with life and the activities 
 of life. There is nothing iconoclastic in this sugges- 
 tion. It does not mean an over emphasis on the pres- 
 
 (6) 
 
ent. It does not mean the commercializing of educa- 
 tion. It means simply this, that all contributions 
 from every source that have to do with the growth of 
 the race and our understanding of its growth are to 
 be made tributary to the education of the present. 
 Education should make man a citizen of the world. 
 To attain this end Iowa College has always felt, and 
 feels now more strongly than ever, that it must pre- 
 serve as an element of culture, the rich contributions 
 of the past to history, literature, philosophy, and art, 
 and make them vital elements in the busy and exact- 
 ing life of the present age. 
 
 The The fourth ideal is the comprehending 
 
 Comprehending ideal. It is the ideal which gives the 
 
 Ideal consciousness to the College that it 
 
 looks upward for its supreme leadership. There is 
 a parable in Plato's "Republic" which tells of men 
 chained in a cave with their faces turned inward so 
 that all the things they knew were the shadows cast 
 upon the wall in front of them the shadows made by 
 objects going before the opening of the cave. One 
 of these men was finally released. He went out into 
 the open. He looked and beheld the sun. He saw 
 the things that were makingthe shadows; and learned 
 for the first time what was shadow and what was 
 reality. It is the ultimate business of education to 
 take the soul from the narrow, downward, inward 
 
 (7) 
 
look, and turn it around that its eye may see the 
 truth, may see things as they are. This is the 
 thought that centers in the motto of the College, 
 "Christo Duce." It is not a motto chosen in a per- 
 functory way. It grew out of experience the ex- 
 perience of the pioneers who adopted it. It sees the 
 justification and the reason for all things, not in the 
 things themselves, but in their relationship to what 
 is fundamental and supreme in human life. Human 
 life centers somewhere. No culture is complete that 
 does not turn the soul's eye to that center. The eye 
 of the world is turning to Jesus Christ. The College 
 more than any other human institution is called upon 
 to give direction and interpretation to this movement. 
 "Christo Duce" is a militant motto. It typifies well 
 the spirit of the men who determined to found a home 
 and establish right standards of culture and life in a 
 new country under adverse conditions. There is 
 nothing static about it. It is not merely -a golden 
 thought or a proverb. It is a challenge. It is for 
 those who believe in progress. It recalls the heroic 
 past of Iowa College. It has in it the spirit of march- 
 ing orders for all the years to come. It suggests the 
 bugle call and inspires with the thought of ceaseless 
 struggle and advancement under the leadership of 
 Him who said, "I am the truth." 
 
 (8) 
 
There is nothing antiquated in the ideals 
 Permanency i have mentioned; genuineness, fearless- 
 of Ideals ness, devotion to truth, service in re- 
 sponse to human need, and a forward, upward march 
 under the direction of the ideal Man. A genuine ideal 
 is endowed with both immortality and eternal youth. 
 It belongs to every age. It adjusts itself to the de- 
 mands of a complex or a simple society. It is needed 
 for use in the stage coach or in the parlor car. It be- 
 longs equally well to the modern college and to the 
 college of one hundred years ago. The problem of 
 this generation, and of every generation, is to keep 
 such ideals active under newly developing conditions. 
 The genuine ideal is never an obstruction in the way 
 of progress. It grows with life and the understand- 
 ing of life. It gives sanity and balance and vitality. 
 It sometimes happens that we identify our ideals too 
 closely with certain methods, or subjects, or courses, 
 and our ideal vanishes, so we think, if readjustments 
 are made. The true ideal abides. We do violence to our 
 ideals if we bind them inseparably with special plans 
 and arrangements. Genuine ideals are superior to 
 fixed systems. Of course they must protect the past 
 and hold it secure. They must work through systems, 
 but are not to be dominated by systems. They are 
 to be active helpers in solving the perplexing prob- 
 lems of the present and the future. There was never 
 
 (9) 
 
an age which contributed for solution so many prob- 
 lems, and which demanded so many reconstructions 
 and readjustments in social and business relations. I 
 am profoundly impressed with the thought that the 
 college must have a part a large part in solving 
 these problems, and in assisting to make the neces- 
 sary readjustments. The importance of any particu- 
 lar college in this work will be measured largely by 
 the genuineness and vigor of its ideals. 
 
 The It is hardly necessary to remind you that it 
 Classical. j s notlong, as institutions count time, since 
 Course the "classical course" was practically the 
 only college course. It served its purpose well, and 
 has vindicated again and again the claims made for it. 
 Today all the essential elements in it hold a place of 
 honor in the college curriculum. It alone met the de- 
 mands of culture for many college generations, and 
 it seemed destined to continue indefinitely undisturb- 
 ed, until modern science became active and demanded 
 a larger place. At first the claims of science were 
 not allowed. It was thought that it would be a viola- 
 tion of educational ideals to grant the recognition 
 asked. Abundant recognition has come. Whatever 
 we may say of the lack of balance in certain college 
 courses now and of the lack of consistency in them, 
 we freely admit that scientific studies belong of 
 right in the position they have achieved, and 
 
 (10) 
 
we wonder at the reluctance of the colleges to ad- 
 mit their claims. They are cultural subjects; they 
 are useful subjects. They contribute to preparation 
 for active work in the world. This, at one time, was 
 believed to be a reproach to a subject, but it is no 
 longer so regarded. Culture has to do not only with 
 subjects, as was once thought, but with man's work 
 in the world and with his place in the social and po- 
 litical organizations of his time.'' Our educational 
 fathers acted on this principle, though perhaps they 
 were not fully conscious of it. It is true also that 
 in our discussions of the general subject of culture 
 and training we sometimes forget that one of the 
 functions of the literary course of the former days 
 was to prepare for the law and the ministry. It in- 
 volved a cultural function and useful function. It is 
 well to remember this in present day discussions. 
 Culture and usefulness in the truest sense are 
 identical. 
 
 The This reference to educational history is 
 
 Expansion of typical of the method of development in 
 
 the College the college curriculum and is made to 
 
 Curriculum suggest that other subjects many have 
 
 done so already will in time make the same appeal 
 
 that the sciences have made. In fact, there is active 
 
 demand now for larger opportunity in college courses 
 
 and for more specific adjustments with possible 
 
 (11) 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
courses in technical and professional schools. Such 
 adjustments many of them certainly are possible 
 without impairing the integrity of genuine culture 
 ideals, and there is no doubt that developments along 
 the line of a more practically correlated work between 
 the institutions of different grades and types will take 
 place more freely as material resources make it pos- 
 sible. Law, medicine, engineering, politics, the pul- 
 pit, business, all have their claim upon the college. 
 There is a cultural basis for any work an educated 
 man is likely to aspire to. A part of the business of 
 education is to give capacity to see things in their 
 right relations, to interpret with sympathy what has 
 been, to understand current movements and tenden- 
 cies, and, if need be, to make one's self an integral 
 part of them. The active center of educational in- 
 terest is and always will be in things that are con- 
 temporaneous. There is no educational heterodoxy 
 in these statements, and nothing in them or in their 
 realization, in fact, to impair the integrity of a re- 
 spectable educational ideal. We study the past and 
 do it necessarily, because the present and its in- 
 terests grow out of the past. We study the remote 
 because we shall never see the present in true per- 
 spective without it. The world keeps its unity as it 
 grows, and man with all his penetration will never un- 
 cover a law or a principle that will challenge its unity. 
 
 (12) 
 
The race also preserves its unity as it grows. Edu- 
 cation gets its direction from nature and from the 
 race. The center of interest is always the present, 
 the infinitely complex present, the resultant of all 
 influences and forces that have been dominant in the 
 past. 
 
 The scope of education and the scope of culture 
 enlarges with enlarging knowledge and the growing 
 capacity and wisdom of the race. Hence it will al- 
 ways be the immediate duty of every growing insti- 
 tution not only to preserve its ideals and to hold fast 
 what is good, but to do so without neglecting the 
 present and the insistent demands it is making upon 
 education and educated men. The two-fold duty of 
 the College at this point is to preserve its unity, 
 given by ideals persistent and true, and to give ade- 
 quate recognition to the multiplying and reasonable 
 expectations of society. The highest function of a 
 college as a center of culture is to preserve and create 
 unity, to incorporate in that unity all the past and 
 present that is essential to put men into harmonious 
 adjustment with the life and thought of the time in 
 which they must do their work; to unify the varied and 
 practical interests of life in relation to cultural ideals 
 this the college must do or it fails to attain the end 
 of its existence. Culture has a larger meaning than 
 is usually given it. Culture is not confined to the 
 
 (13) 
 
remote, the useless, the theoretical. It has many 
 values; among them is a vocational value. A college 
 course is narrow, too narrow, if it does not give op- 
 portunity for the development of a vocational interest 
 along with the cultural motive. A free elective 
 system loses what may be its chief value if it neglects 
 to develop the peculiar enthusiasm that goes along 
 with personal interest. Personal interest is not 
 necessarily vocational interest, but it is quite likely 
 to be; and no harm is done if it turns out to be such. 
 If a college offers free electives two score or more 
 of them, all rightfully regarded as cultural subjects 
 what adequate reason is there why a lad, whose 
 cultural interest or motive has led him to study 
 Greek literature or American politics, should not 
 turn later in his course to histology, mechanics, 
 Biblical interpretation, or sociology? These subjects 
 are cultural; they may become vocational, to some 
 extent, in the enlarging purpose of the upper-class- 
 man. The college ought to give direction to the 
 various possibilities at this stage of the student's 
 advancement. It has a service to perform for so- 
 ciety, a service to which as yet it has given little or 
 no attention, in correlating cultural ideals with life 
 itself; in projecting the spirit of the college devoted 
 as it is to culture, into the practical business of life 
 with a view "to giving culture a vocational adjustment. 
 
 (U) 
 
There is a concrete, a very specific duty, for the col- 
 lege at this point, and it shirks this duty when it sur- 
 renders all subjects with vocational bearings to the 
 professional and technical schools. These subjects 
 are the very ones to establish the continuity of culture 
 a:id prove its practicability in every day service. If 
 the end of life is service, as we believe, it is the duty 
 of the college to do more than hold up an ideal of ser- 
 vice; it is its duty to open a way of approach to a 
 concrete method of realizing that ideal. 
 Culture The college has traditional warrant for re- 
 and lating the work it does to the requirements 
 Vocation o f society. The college in its early history 
 in this country was for the church. That is, its 
 chief function was to provide an educated ministry. 
 In the ministry perhaps the cultural element in edu- 
 cation and the vocational motive were more nearly 
 identified than in any other profession. But even in 
 the early days when this identification appeared al- 
 most complete the two i'deas of culture and vocation 
 were clearly enough differentiated. The two ideas 
 spring from the same source and they need to be 
 combined in any symmetrical life purpose. It is 
 a loss to education an incalculable loss if educa- 
 tion for culture is considered one thing and education 
 for vocation another. Educationally considered the 
 two must be correlated on the basis of a natural kin- 
 US) 
 
ship. It is the duty of the present-day college to 
 unite its cultural ideals with the constantly multiply- 
 ing vocational opportunities. If the college is to per- 
 petuate its connection with active life it must estab- 
 lish this union of the practical and the ideal for many 
 activities as the earlier college established it for one. 
 Culture belongs to the whole of life just as righteous- 
 ness does, and the college should insist on claims of cul- 
 ture not only in connection with subjects and vocations 
 regarded as educational, but should make an effort to 
 bring others into relation with it as social need and 
 development demand it/ The problem involved in 
 such adjustments is a complex one. It is becoming 
 more complex, but the more complex it becomes the 
 more important it is that some practical means of ad- 
 justment be established. The place for it is in the 
 Junior and Senior years, when students are beginning 
 to avail themselves freely of the elective opportuni- 
 ties offered in this part of the college course. Here 
 college ideals and interests come into relation with 
 the world's interests as expressed in a greater or less 
 number of elective subjects. It is not deemed out of 
 place for the college to give direction on a cultural 
 basis, as already suggested, to the course of a young 
 man who is to enter the ministry. It is conceded 
 that it may do the same thing for one who is looking 
 forward to the practice of medicine or law. Likewise 
 
 (16) 
 
it may contribute to the future engineer or social 
 worker on cultural lines a large percentage of his pre- 
 paration for vocational success. All of this is good. It 
 is suggestive of the enlarging scope of college work, 
 and a prophecy of the time when the college, devoted 
 to culture, may establish a functional relation to ac- 
 tive life at all possible points of contact. When this 
 time comes the essential worth of culture and the 
 essential worth of the vocational element in life will 
 be immeasurably increased. 
 
 Such a result will depend largely upon the initi- 
 ative of the college and its ability to develop a method 
 of education whereby the ideals of culture may find 
 realization in action. This cannot be done by a com- 
 plete separation of the cultural and vocational ele- 
 ments in any given subject. It may be done, in the 
 cultural atmosphere of the college, if at the proper 
 time late in the course when it is largely made up of 
 elect! ves, the vocational bearing of a subject has due 
 consideration. This would contribute to the ultimate 
 aim of culture. It would provide for the cultural ele- 
 ment in education a larger opportunity to become ac- 
 tive in the practical world. It would also provide for 
 a subject looking more or less directly to vocation, an 
 opportunity to be studied with due reference to its 
 cultural bearings. This can practically be done 
 for a subject in a place where it is possible to con- 
 
 (17) 
 
si der the two elements culture and vocation in re 
 lation. The best place for this is in the college. It will 
 prove a method also of saving the elective system 
 from falling by its own weight, and from being a 
 cause of disintegration and disorder in education 
 rather than a means of co-ordination and unity. 
 
 The Of course no such result as I have sug- 
 
 Combined gested could be achieved by a co'inbined 
 Course course, such as has been adopted in many 
 of the state universities, which surrenders the stu- 
 dent as an incoming Junior or Senior to the profes- 
 sional school, giving to it complete control of the 
 student and the methods of instruction with the 
 understanding that at the end of the first or sec- 
 ond year in the professional school, as the case 
 may require, the arts degree will be conferred. A 
 degree attained in this way is not strictly speaking 
 an arts degree. It could be an arts degree only on 
 condition that it be secured by work done in a col- 
 lege which is primarily a college of arts. There may 
 be good grounds for such a combined course, a course 
 which neglects the cultural element and emphasizes 
 the time element, but there is no satisfactory reason 
 for conferring in such a case a degree which is not won 
 in fact. The work in "arts" ceased when the student 
 was turned over to the professional school. At that 
 time his vocational work began and that element only 
 
 (18) 
 
o r ' r Y 
 
 was emphasized. An arts degree in such a combi- 
 nation does not fit. It simply involves a confession 
 of inability to deal with this important desideratum 
 which I have in mind the projection and incorpora- 
 tion of the cultural element in the vocational element 
 of education. If this is to be done successfully, as 
 undoubtedly it will, it will depend upon the initiative 
 of the college and its ability to satisfy vocational de- 
 mands on a cultural basis. This is one of the things 
 the college must do to make itself indispensable in 
 modern education. No one denies the value of col- 
 lege ideals. They are a most potent force in every 
 forward movement. They form the flying goal to- 
 ward which we are always striving. But a part, 
 and a large part, of the work of the college should 
 be to adjust the spirit of these ideals to practical 
 every- day conditions. They must become valid 
 in practical results. The college has made no sys- 
 tematic attempt to do this in the past. What it has 
 done in this direction is more the result of accident 
 than of design. It is beginning to realize its opportun- 
 ity and its obligation, and results of a more definitely 
 practical character may be expected in the future. 
 The College The charge is often made by successful 
 and men of affairs that the college unfits men 
 Business for business. There is a narrow sense in 
 which this charge is true. The college, when it does 
 
 (19) 
 
the best for an individual, gives largeness of view, de- 
 velops initiative and strengthens those qualities which 
 make one restless under those restraints arising from 
 business methods which leave little or no chance for 
 the exercise of such qualities. Too often great busi- 
 ness enterprises aim to use men as instruments 
 rather than as intelligent agents. A youth who has 
 well assimilated what the college has to bestow and 
 who is reasonably well endowed by nature will not 
 long rest content, under such conditions. He has been 
 spoiled for a business which demands the surrender 
 of his personality. There is another side of the case. 
 That same youth has been prepared for conscious ac- 
 tivity and for leadership. If he does not get adjust- 
 ment to the larger world of affairs where just such 
 qualities are needed, it is because there is some fault 
 in him or in his college training. The fault may be 
 in both. 
 
 Today I am interested only in calling attention to 
 the obligation of the college at this point. The college 
 has not done enough to bring into practical action the 
 larger possibilities of initiative developed by its train- 
 ing. It has too often graduated the youth without giv- 
 ing him any point of contact with practical life. This 
 is by no means to be considered a fatal objection to col- 
 lege training in general, but it is an objection that 
 deserves consideration and treatment. It is not 
 
 (20) 
 
deemed out of place for the college to give some di- 
 rection on a cultural basis to the course of the young 
 man who is likely to enter the medical profession, 
 or the ministry, or the law. This is true because 
 there are a number of subjects in the various 
 college courses there by the demands of modern 
 culture which are essential to these professions. 
 These subjects may be grouped together, and when 
 so grouped they establish a relationship with fu- 
 ture work, which vindicates itself by the re- 
 sults. These results suggest an educational prin- 
 ciple of wide application, and lead to the question 
 why the same or similar consideration should not be 
 given to the course of one who wishes to become an 
 actuary, a banker, a foreign agent, a diplomatist or 
 a business man in the more general sense of the 
 term. The college has a contribution to make to the 
 men who expect to enter any of the callings. Its 
 contribution should be larger, and should be made 
 with definite reference to the possibility of pro- 
 jecting college ideals into business life and making 
 them effective there. The interest of the college, of 
 course, is not in the business man as such but in the 
 man going into business. Its interest is in so- 
 ciety, and its interest in society should become 
 more practical and dominating. The progress 
 of civilization and of the race is sure to depend 
 
 (21) 
 
more and more upon the standards and ideals that 
 are realized in tfie business world. Standards of life 
 in all relations are sure to follow trade. Trade which 
 involves social relationship will in the future become 
 a potent medium of communication between man and 
 man, nation and nation. It is of the utmost import- 
 ance consequently that the college give diligent heed 
 to the men who are going to make business their life 
 work. The slow awakening of the college conscious- 
 ness on this point is surprising, especially so when 
 considered in connection with the need in business 
 life for a clearer understanding of the ethical stand- 
 ards and the ideals which it is the business of the 
 college to set forth. It seems clear too clear to re- 
 quire argument that there should be opportunity in 
 every well-equipped college to study the fundamental 
 principles that should underlie all business procedure. 
 This study should be in actual relation to the prob- 
 lems of finance, commerce and politics. The abstract 
 should be made concrete. Furthermore it is the 
 duty of the college not only to offer a program of 
 correlation with life work to those who ask for it, but 
 also aggressively to propose it and show its essential 
 relation, under right conditions, to cultural education. 
 The college should not wait for a need to be thrust upon 
 it; it should be a leader of public opinion. It should 
 see a real need in advance and provide for it. There 
 
 (22) 
 
is unquestionably a need for trained service in the 
 business world. I do not mean by this that there is 
 a need for men who are keener in management and 
 more capable to deal with the problems of profit and 
 loss. There is a full proportion of these now; but 
 there is a need for men of culture, for men who 
 understand the fundamental principles of right con- 
 duct in business and social relations. There is a 
 need for such men to take the places of prominence 
 and leadership in the great movements in which 
 politics, diplomacy and trade in infinite variety of 
 form, will each have a full share. 
 A School The college of course is not to become a 
 f school of affairs any more than it is to 
 
 Affairs become aschool of theology, or engineer- 
 ing or medicine; but it must furnish an opportunity, 
 let it be remembered, not merely for instruction in a 
 subject having vocational bearings that may be done 
 in the professional school but to carry forward into 
 the vocational realm the cultural and ethical ideals L/ 
 of the college. Difficult? Yes, but it must be done. 
 It is repeatedly said that the vocational and cultural 
 motives are not to be combined. This is true for 
 lower classmen; not necessarily or wholly true for 
 upper classmen. Granted that the college should 
 not consider the possibility of vocational ends in the 
 study of the Odyssey or general physics; it does not 
 
 M 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
follow that such ends are to be completely ignored in 
 studying embryology or theoretical and experimental 
 electricity, or finance. The combination is essential 
 for a larger and more adequate interpretation of life 
 and the business of life. What is essential therein 
 is cultural in the largest sense and the college must 
 provide it. The college, of course, is the only 
 institution that can undertake such a work and carry 
 it forward to a successful accomplishment. 
 
 There is no greater work for the college I mean 
 the college as distinct from the university than this; 
 to make some practical provision whereby genuine 
 ideals of life, such as the college stands for, may 
 have consideration in direct relation to the princi- 
 ples of business procedure with the view of giving 
 these ideals a larger place and a more dominant in- 
 fluence in the world. There is without question a 
 means of adjustment and correlation between college 
 ideals that are true ideals and true and valid business 
 principles. The college must work toward the achieve- 
 ment of such an adjustment. The college is crit- 
 icised because of its remoteness in method and prac- 
 tice from business life. There is too much warrant 
 for the criticism. The grounds for it need to be re- 
 moved. Iowa College is doing a good work in pre- 
 paring men for social service and for professional 
 service, in many different relations. One practical 
 
 (24) 
 
element in social service and social advancement is 
 trained men for business who have appreciation of 
 right social and ethical ideals. To train men of this 
 type is sure to become a recognized function of the 
 college. There will be men to train as soon as the 
 college gives notice of its intention and ability to do 
 the work. Iowa College in a general way has already 
 done much that is contributory to the results to be 
 desired. It will do more, and do it with more posi 
 tive results, when it groups its subjects, with such 
 additions as are necessary, with a view to preparing 
 men for administration and for business and public 
 affairs. Development along this line, comparatively 
 considered, would entail no great expense. The li- 
 brary and recitation rooms are the laboratories for 
 such work; teachers and books added thereto com- 
 plete the equipment. You are to understand that I 
 have no thought in mind in this connection regarding 
 commercial or professional courses, but a grouping 
 for upper classmen of subjects drawn chiefly from 
 the departments of economics, political science and 
 sociology. There is here already the nucleus for a 
 department of affairs. There needs to be simply a 
 a grouping of subjects looking forward to active par- 
 ticipation in business life. The necessary adjust- 
 ments can easily be made. Iowa College ought not 
 to be slow to recognize its opportunity and improve it. 
 
 (25) 
 
The The genuine college, under present-day 
 College conditions, can not be a narrow or a local 
 Not institution. There was a time when it 
 Local might be such when relationships were 
 narrow, when newspapers were few, when inter com- 
 munication was rare, and when there was no unified 
 system or method of business procedure. That time 
 is past. London, New York and the village on the 
 plains read the same news and discuss the same 
 problems at the breakfast table. There is universal 
 contact, universal sympathy and universal opportun- 
 ity. The human race is coming to be one family, and 
 the world is growing very small. It is not an idle 
 dream, perhaps, to suggest that not far in the future 
 one may sit at his breakfast table with telephone re- 
 ceiver at his right hand and talk with his friend in 
 Berlin or Hong Kong, "whije the wheat cakes are 
 coming in." Things quite as astounding as this have 
 come to pass during the last decade, and we may be 
 sure that we are seeing only the beginnings of mate- 
 rial progress, of correlation and fellowship. I am 
 not interested in these things now except as they em- 
 phasize the fact that the college can not remain local. 
 It can not maintain a theory of monastic seclusion in 
 its system of study. It can not hold to a definition 
 of culture which was valid fifty years ago. Culture 
 is not a static thing. It advances with the race, and 
 
 (26) 
 
must adjust itself continually to the enlarging view 
 of the race. Hence the college, a home of culture 
 and ideals, must respond to the spirit of the age if it 
 is to be an effective ag^nt and helper in working out 
 the complicated problems of society. It belongs to 
 a fellowship extending from one end of the country 
 to the other, and reaches with its influence the 
 ends of the earth It will be measured in the educa- 
 tional world, and to some extent in the business 
 world, not by the estimate placed upon it by the com- 
 munity in which it is located, but by the resultant 
 estimate, drawn from many institutions of recognized 
 standing* and from the influence it exerts on the com- 
 munity at large. The distance of five hundred or a 
 thousand miles does not remove one college from the 
 educational community of another college. Hence it 
 is necessary for the college that wishes security and 
 permanency to provide for the nationalizing of its 
 standards. 
 
 The The problem of this college and of every 
 Standard of college that hopes for a permanent fu- 
 Efficiency ture, is to achieve the maximum stand- 
 ard of educational efficiency. This is the national 
 standard, and it is used in aU educational measure- 
 ments in the details of equipment, men and their 
 salaries, books, buildings, general opportunities, re- 
 quirements for admission and graduation. Iowa 
 
 (27) 
 
College has known this fact from the beginning and 
 has always kept it in mind; but it needs to put spe- 
 cial emphasis upon it now, ecause now the growth 
 of many educational institutions, from the material 
 point of view, is extraordinarily rapid. Rapidity of 
 growth in a few institutions puts to a temporary dis- 
 advantage those which must be content with a more 
 leisurely accumulation of funds. 
 Growth Now The typical college of one hundred or 
 and Then even fifty years ago grew under con- 
 ditions very different from those which obtain now. 
 The college then had the time necessary for normal 
 growth and development. It grew slowly in response 
 to the demands of a homogeneous society, itself mov- 
 ing slowly. It had small material resources, but 
 there was none that had any notable advantage in 
 this respect. It had few books and no trained librari- 
 an, but this was true of all. No opportunity was of- 
 fered for precocious development. All grew alike 
 under similar conditions of environment and main- 
 tenance and with similar traditions and ideals. There 
 was a certain uniformity of opportunity which pres- 
 ent-day conditions render impossible even though de- 
 sirable. The important point is this, that all colleges 
 with the real spirit of life in them, grew together with 
 equality of opportunity and with the assurance of 
 permanency before any particular one, close neigh- 
 
 (28) 
 
bor to the others, had secured in financial or other 
 respects an ascendency conspicuous enough to occa- 
 sion unfavorable comparisons, or to create a destruc- 
 tive competition. Colleges of the present that are 
 endowed with the same traditions and ideals that 
 characterized the colleges founded in the earlier days, 
 would grow into security and permanency as they 
 have done under educational conditions similar 
 to those of that time. But the college, just as the in- 
 dividual, must be in adjustment with the movement 
 and the life of its age. Hence the college of the pres- 
 ent must grow more rapidly, must have a-more rapid 
 accumulation of funds, must keep in touch with a 
 larger environment and must maintain a standard 
 that will be accepted as a national standard. 
 
 The Among the influences that have operated 
 
 State most strongly to modify educational con- 
 University ditions, particularly in the middle west, 
 are those that have sprung from the state university. 
 The state university is a development of the past 
 fifty years. Within that time it has become the most 
 characteristic educational institution in the Middle 
 West. It has established new standards and intro- 
 duced new elements of vast advantage to the educa- 
 tional system. It has reduced the price of education 
 and enlarged its scope. It has made an appeal to 
 thousands who under former conditions would never 
 
 (29) 
 
have yielded to college influences. It has made edu- 
 cation democratic in the largest sense. These results 
 have been achieved, partly at least, because this in- 
 stitution was the child of the state and responsible 
 directly to the people of the state; and because 
 further there was a certain degree of adequacy in the 
 funds furnished, and the assurance of stability and 
 permanence from the very beginning. Neighbor to 
 this institution was founded at the same time, or a 
 little earlier, the college of the New England type. 
 That it has not suffered total eclipse, is due to the 
 tremendous power of the educational ideal for which 
 it stands. 
 
 Private Another influence has had an important 
 Foundations bearing on the problem. Recent years 
 have witnessed private foundations of unparalleled 
 magnitude, which have contributed much to the mod- 
 ification of existing standards and types, and to the 
 formation of new ones. It is not true that state in- 
 stitutions and private foundations of extraordinary 
 size, are a law unto themselves and have no relation 
 to smaller institutions. They modify profoundly the 
 whole educational system, and modify it permanently. 
 The college is a part of this system, and must reckon 
 with the influences operative in it. Amherst or Wil- 
 liams could grow together with Harvard and cultivate 
 a certain amount of neighborly indifference. The 
 
 (30) 
 
reason is apparent and has already been outlined. 
 But a vigorous state, or private foundation providing 
 for an institution to be "made to order," and provid- 
 ing for its rapid growth, introduces into education a 
 problem, involving for the typical college complica- 
 tions and warnings, of which our educational fathers 
 never dreamed. For the college of today there is a 
 standard of excellence already set which it must sat- 
 isfy. It must prove at once, measured by this stand- 
 ard, its right to public support and confidence and 
 respect. This standard is a composite one a national 
 one and is the resultant from the three dominant 
 types to which reference has been made: the New 
 England college, the state university and the private- 
 ly endowed university. Other influences have been 
 at work, particularly that of the school of technology, 
 and have contributed to the severity of the present 
 educational demands, but for the purposes of this 
 paper they do not require separate notice. 
 
 The The standard thus established involves 
 
 College the known elements from which are to 
 Standard be determined the values that any col- 
 lege whatsoever must have to be sure of permanency, 
 and an appreciable influence upon the life of this age. 
 These values, briefly stated, are as follows: 
 
 1. A recognition of the elements of democracy 
 
 in education, not only as it relates to persons but 
 
 as it relates to subjects. 
 (31) 
 
2. Adequate material equipment, especially in 
 books, apparatus, and buildings. 
 
 3. A corps of teachers large enough and of 
 the right quality to create an atmosphere of 
 genuine culture and Christian service. They 
 must have native ability, training and experience 
 and therewith the spiritual endowment of per- 
 sonality that they may be not merely specialists 
 in their departments, but masters of life in their 
 every day intercourse with young people. 
 
 In these propositions the aim has been merely 
 to state the elements which the development of past 
 years has made imperative at once in any genuine 
 college for today. Consciously or unconsciously the 
 general public is forming its opinion of colleges in 
 accordance with the demands these propositions in- 
 volve. The educated public, with the same proposi- 
 tions in mind, is daily becoming more critical in its 
 judgments. The result is that many arguments have 
 been eliminated from the general discussion of the 
 problems of education which were effectively used by 
 those who have plead for the college the "small 
 college" in the past. 
 
 The "The small college" has been used as the 
 Small subject of many an appreciation in which 
 College chief emphasis has been given to the 
 qualifying word small. Closer personal relations with 
 students and faculty and larger opportunity for in- 
 dividual initiative, these and other reasons have 
 
 (32) 
 
been assigned for the educational superiority of the 
 small college. The arguments are defective because 
 they lose sight of the prime factor that size does not 
 indicate quality. There is no essential reason why a 
 college should be ranked high because it is small; no 
 reason why it should be ranked high because it is 
 large. The question of size is irrelevant, or at any 
 rate only incidental. The essentials that mean most 
 are, within certain reasonable limits, independent of 
 size. The question for the college the small college 
 or the large college is, does it meet those essentials. 
 If it does, then it is certain to survive. If it does not, 
 it has no right to survive. A demonstration that 
 the small college is making a distinct contribution to 
 the life of the people and is therefore necessary, will 
 be of no avail for any particular small college that 
 does not meet the manifest requirements of the age. 
 
 What is a The term "small" has given rise to 
 Small College? much confusion. A college is relative- 
 ly small in the nature of things. A large college in 
 the sense in which the term is used in America is out 
 of harmony with educational history and tradition. 
 A large Oxford college is composed of a maximum of 
 three hundred residents. A college of three hun- 
 dred in America is called small. The college should 
 be large enough to be an intellectual and social cen- 
 ter. But there are conditions conceivable where this 
 
 (33) 
 
result may be fully realized in a group of one hun- 
 dred. It is equally true that there are conditions 
 which might render such a result impossible in a 
 crowd of one thousand or more. The college implies 
 unity, fellowship and a certain degree of identity of 
 interest. Without these elements a college in the 
 true and desirable sense of the term does not exist. 
 These elements are more easily realized perhaps in a 
 smaller body of students, though they are not impos- 
 sible by any means in what might be called a larger 
 body. Iowa College is a college; it is an independent 
 college; it does not aspire to be called a small college; 
 it does not aspire for the mere sake oi' numbers to be 
 called a large college; but it aims to maintain the tra- 
 ditions that center about the name. Iowa College 
 viewed simply as a college is large already; as to num- 
 bers it is small when compared with the composite 
 institutions called universities. 
 
 The Three criteria which have grown out of ex- 
 Three isting educational conditions, have been 
 Criteria mentioned as normal units of measure- 
 ments in determining college values. In discussing 
 the enlargement of the scope of the work, I have 
 touched upon the question of democracy, and I shall 
 not pursue it further, except to say that institutions 
 must adjust themselves to the demands of life; they 
 must adjust themselves within reasonable limits to 
 
 (34) 
 
the requirements of a democratic society. There is 
 no doubt that liberal culture in the fine old sense of 
 the term has yet a service to perform in the more 
 active and practical life of the twentieth century, 
 which requires only judicious and appreciative direc- 
 tion to give it large effect. But the spirit of democ- 
 racy must run through the curriculum. Many sub- 
 jects have been admitted into the curriculum. Others 
 are coming in. Ail are claiming that they are and of 
 right ought to be free and equal in privilege with every 
 other subject regardless of age-long traditions. The 
 youth are coming, too, from the highways and the 
 hedges, with the strength of nature in their bodies 
 and their minds, asking for admission to the college 
 and through the college for admission to active part- 
 nership in the work of the world. The college must 
 deal fairly with subjects and with people; it must 
 create an educational democracy. If it is not able to 
 keep dominant the spirit of culture in connection 
 with the spirit of democracy, because it is too 
 poor -and too narrow, or because of incapacity in 
 any direction, it will hardly be able to meet natural 
 expectations and win a vigorous and a secure per- 
 petuity. 
 
 The The second criterion adequacy of 
 
 Personnel equipment requires no discussion at 
 
 of the this time, hence I pass to the third cri- 
 
 Teaching Force terion named which has reference to 
 
 (35) 
 
the personnel of the teaching force. If it is permis- 
 sible to measure and compare criteria in a case where 
 all the values are essential, we are justified in saying 
 that this criterion embraces what is most important 
 in college organization. The opportunity implied in 
 the multiplication of courses, the accumulation of 
 books, additions to apparatus and equipment, are all 
 essential things but their value depends entirely up- 
 on the instructors who use them. This value is large 
 or small as the instructor is large or small. After 
 all the most difficult problem the college has to face 
 is the problem of securing teachers who will give 
 value, full value, to the books, the apparatus, and the 
 opportunities it offers. 
 
 Garfield's ^ e laugh as a matter of course at Gar- 
 Remark field's definition of a college, but there is 
 a principle implied in President Garfield's remark 
 which is of universal application. It is simply this, 
 that the man gives the value. A log and a man con- 
 ceivably are a better college than a physical labora- 
 tory without a man. Values must have incarnation, 
 and it requires the right sort of teaching ability to 
 achieve this end. A college that wishes to hold its 
 ground on its merits, needs as its teachers men with 
 something more than training. That is taken for 
 granted. It needs men who have those ele- 
 ments of personality which will give the largest 
 
 (36) 
 
possible living value to dead equipment. They 
 must perform the miracle again and again of 
 making dry bones live. Such teachers are not avail- 
 able on demand at any chance time. Such men and 
 women, without doubt, consider other things beside 
 money in accepting a call, but I want to suggest this 
 warning, that a man with adequate training and ex- 
 perience and with the right appreciation of the dig- 
 nity and worth of his calling, is more likely to be se- 
 cured if a comfortable living is assured him, and a 
 reasonable amount of leisure with necessary books 
 and apparatus. And what is more important, he is 
 more likely to be retained under such favoring cir- 
 cumstances after he is secured. However much we 
 may dislike the implication, it is a fact that, generally 
 speaking, one thousand dollar positions command one 
 thousand dollar men, and that the scale of worth as 
 measured by college requirements, increases with the 
 scale of wage. It is unreasonable for colleges to ex- 
 pect to hold twenty-five hundred dollar men in one 
 thousand dollar positions, and right at that point is 
 the crucial element in the problem. These men must 
 be kept, speaking generally again, or the college 
 any college will lose rank as an educational institu- 
 tion. College education at the present day is not 
 pitched on an eight hundred or one thousand dollar 
 scale. It is pitched higher and the inevitable result 
 
 (37) 
 
\ 
 
 for the institution not up to the requirement, on the 
 material side of the case, is not only lack of adjust- 
 ment with the reasonable demands of the people in- 
 terested in college work, but loss of reputation and 
 influence in the educational world. Too often it hap- 
 pens that a college is obliged to yield to the pressure 
 of local influences that are in no way related to edu- 
 cational conditions. The genuine college, in the na- 
 ture of the case, is not a local institution. It is meas- 
 ured by general and national standards, and there is 
 no surer way to destroy its efficiency and permanency 
 than to apply to it in management and organization, 
 a treatment that does not harmonize with accepted 
 standards, and which manifestly can not win general 
 recognition. 
 
 The Unifying Three criteria have been named for 
 Element determining the character of a col- 
 Fourth Criterion lege. They are tangible criteria. 
 They may be measured approximately and estimated. 
 They involve what is essential to the college in its 
 more external elements; but it needs to be added that 
 the three criteria might be satisfied, that all of the 
 elements under each head might be present in good 
 proportion, without making in fact the peculiar insti- 
 tution which we call the college. As separate and 
 unrelated things they do not make a college, for the 
 college involves implicitly the idea of unity, fellow- 
 OS) 
 
ship, interrelation and identity of purpose between 
 subjects that are de par tmen tally distinct. The aim 
 of college education will be always to unify man's in- 
 terests, to help him to see things in their entirety, to 
 put him into conscious adjustment with the rest of 
 the universe. Trained men working in separate de- 
 partments, each caring only for his own special inter- 
 ests even though the conditions are favorable to large 
 results, can not create the genuine college. If there 
 is to be a college there must be a complete integration 
 of interests that externally seems diverse, and the 
 most cordial departmental relationships; and this 
 condition will be realized only when all aims center 
 in the individual student rather than in the subject 
 or the departments. The college hence must center 
 its interests in the man, must make him the object of 
 its devotion and enthusiasm, and must send him forth 
 conscious of his relationship with the world and 
 ready in some sense for practical and effective con- 
 tact with the concrete problems of life. This result 
 cannot be achieved by departmental isolation: the ab- 
 sence of such a result should at once invalidate the 
 claim of any institution to be called a college. There 
 should of course be special opportunities under spe- 
 ' cial conditions, as already suggested in this paper , 
 but these are not to be at variance with the general 
 purpose and aims of the college, but in correlation 
 
 (39) 
 
therewith, and are to have their justification in the 
 contribution they offer to the identification of the col- 
 lege and its ideals with practical life and its needs. 
 With these suggestions in view a fourth criterion 
 should be added to the other three which may be 
 called the spirit of unity the spirit which brings to- 
 gether all the complex and diverse elements in col- 
 lege education and makes them tributary to one pur- 
 pose This purpose is the development of the indi- 
 vidual man by giving a broad and liberal view of 
 things, by giving him a way of approach to an active 
 life, and by fostering in him the elements of genuine 
 character. "This pre-eminently is the function of the 
 college. It is a function in its entirety that differen- 
 tiates it clearly from the secondary school on the one 
 hand and from the professional and graduate school 
 on the other. It furnishes a reason sufficient to estab- 
 lish conclusively the claims of the college to perpetuity, 
 and this it will secure if the college itself aims to a 
 full consciousness of the obligations resting upon it. 
 The College The college of the twentieth century must 
 in the meet twentieth century requirements. 
 Twentieth The problem of college authorities is this: 
 Century to see to it that the proper adjustment is 
 made between the college of this century and its edu- 
 cational and personal environment. The college like 
 any other human institution is needed because it re- 
 
 (40) 
 
spends to a need. Thisdoesnotmeanthatthe college is 
 to forget the past and negiect the future, giving heed 
 only to the present. It is to correlate the three, and 
 give them in due proportion validity in each individ- 
 ual so that a genuine and symmetrical development is 
 achieved. The college is an institution of a past age 
 if it gives its allegiance primarily to an antiquated 
 system, however good it may have been and however 
 good it may be now intrinsically. A system that has 
 vitality in it grows, and needs readjustment with 
 every new day. The principles on which the system 
 is based may be eternal. The ideals which have se- 
 cured partial realization through it may be eternal, 
 and as essential today as ever. But a duty, a funda- 
 mental duty, for educators is to foster and perpetuate 
 the permanent ideals of the race, and to keep active 
 the abiding principles, arnid the multifarious demands 
 of modern education and the increasing perplexities 
 of modern social conditions. 
 
 The Con- The college that can stand the test of the 
 elusion criteria named has its own life to live and 
 its ow r n lessons to teach. It stands on an equality 
 with representative educational institutions. It may 
 be independent, courageous and. perfectly sure of its 
 future. Of course there are personal and incidental 
 reasons why one parent would prefer a city institu- 
 tion, another an institution in a small town. For 
 
 (41) 
 
similar reasons one will prefer an eastern, another a 
 western college; one a large and another a small col- 
 lege. But the college, the real college, with material 
 equipment and with men; with traditions and ideals, 
 has nothing to fear from such incidental causes. It 
 will have its problems, of course, but they will be the 
 problems of living and growth. If it meets, as it 
 ought, the needs of the generation and grows with 
 those needs, every generation will contribute to its 
 prosperity and security. 
 
 Having discussed briefly some of the duties and 
 problems of the college, I want to say finally that I 
 believe profoundly in Iowa College. I believe in its 
 ideals, and in their permanency. I believe in its 
 aims, and in the possibility of their realization. I be- 
 lieve that the spirit of life is in its ideals and that 
 they will constantly renew themselves in the enlarg- 
 ing life of the coming century. 
 
 And now I ask you alumni, trustees, students, 
 friends to renew your faith, your courage, your en- 
 thusiasm, so that working in harmony together we 
 shall make of Iowa College what its noble past 
 demands, and what its future expects.