Newspapers / The University of North … / May 5, 1920, edition 1 / Page 1
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Thfe news in this publica tion is released for the press on receipt. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS ijl IJI Published weekly by the University of North Carolina for its Bureau of Extension. IAY 5, 1920 CHAPEL HHX, N. C. VOL VI, NO. 24 diiorial Board . H). O. Branson. L. B. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D D. Carroll, J. B. Birllitt. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914. at the Postofflce at Chapel Hill, Nt C , under the act of August 24. 1918 THE TASK OF STATE UNIVERSITIES :0MM0NWEALTH BUILDING This issue of the University ^vews Let- er carries to twenty thousand lionseholds n North Carolina tiie inspiring inaugural .ddress of President H. W. Chase—or he greater part of it. It bring.s to tlie leople of the state liis look into the days t hand and ahead, and his visions of the University as tlieir agency fi .r developing a .einocratic connnonwealth upon tlie liigh- st possible levels. As tlie mind swings forward into tlie 'ears that lie ahead, years big with des- ,iny for the South, said President Chas,e, conviction deepens that out of all tliis ireative energy, tliisconfidence and faith, here is to come something infinitely treater and finer tlian a giant essay in naterialism; that here a new civilization ,s to taae form and substance a civiliza- ;ion which blends into one harmonious ind happy wliole the best that is hontii- •rn by inheritance and tradition with the best that the new material freedom ifl'ords. The problem of achieving this ■.iv'ilization is the problem which lies at tiie iieart of Soutlierii life today. It is a problem which is to be solved, not by the mere imitation of that to wliich men have iiitherto adhered in their common life, by a faitiiful but uninspired retra cing of the old familiar lights and sliad ows, but through such a liberation of the spirits of Diet! tliat, reverent but un afraid, they shall catdi up in tlieir own hands the threads of destiny and weave them into a pattern richer and finer than Am-rica has yet seen. The challenge of the Soiitli to the Southern State University today is that she show herself worthy of l. aiiersliip in this great constructive enterprise, this tlie w’orld’s latest attenijit to evolve a lew and higher civilization. Such a challenge she can meet by no merely per- nnctory response. It is for her passion- itely and reverently to dedicate herself ind all of herself to this great task, to set iboutit, not in the spirit which would iiscipline men into obedient and un- Iiinking servants of some rigidly precon- ; •eived mechanical and authoritative, State, which holds the lives and souls of' lien as mere instruments to its calculated siids; but in the spirit of the democracy | she ter\es, that spirit wliich sets men truly free to embody in ever higher and lobler forms the best that is in their hopes and dreams and prayers. Responsible Freedom For such a full liberation of all men, in body, mind, and spirit, is the very heart of the program of democracy. It holds with Burke, that government is not for its own sake, hut a contrivance of Imniaii wisdom to provide for wliat men want, and it adds, as has been finely said from this platform, the faith tiiat “with the right to live freely, men will live rightly;” that betwwn what free and en lightened men really want and the deepest and highest iritere.sts of tlie democratic state there is no contradiction, but a full identity, ffnrest and dissension within, it would hold tliat it cannot hope periiia- nently to meet by the imjiosition of re pressive authority, hut that, true to its creed that the only control that is ulti mately worth while is self-control, it must press with new vigor its effort to set men really free, not from responsibility, but through it. It is the achievement of such a re sponsible freedom wtiicli is the common business of education and of the demo cratic State. In such a program all in stitutions of education, ot whatever grade or name, however founded or supported, find a common purpose and an aim which joins them as brothers, each to each, and makes of all their learners and teachers one great company enlisted in tlie same high cause. In such a spirit the University eagerly and reverently consecrates tlie utmost of her powers toward the upbuilding on this soil of a civilization which shall be not merely prosperous, but free, and be cause of its freedom, great and enduring; a civilization whicli shall fuse in one great creative synthesis the best in both old and new', a civilization in which more and more men shall do justly, shall love niercy, and shall walk humbly with their God. _ But the Southern State University, if It IS to prove itself worthy of leadership in {the South at this hour, must offer her vision of I The spirit of tlie years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life” ; more than her faith, however keen, that her goal is that of democracy itself. She must.think tiirongli, and embody in tangible form, her answer to the question “How in tlie South today are men most completely to be set free for this higti emprise of building the greater common wealth?” The Enrichment of Life Such a question can be answered neither by a blind reliance on the dic tates of tradition, nor by a summary re jection of the old because it is old. It is not age that matters, but value, value for tlie eiiricliment of the lives of men today. And the University must determine such value, not by abstract speculation, but by a ceaseless effort to see the life about her steadily and wliole, to interpret to herself and to all men the flow of its swift currents, and to minister to its real and abiding needs. 1 liave said its “real and abiding” needs, for the university wliich in her zeal for quick results and practical programs forgets the deep and permanent springs of life, is as unworthy of leadersliip as she that denies the value of the immediate and practical alto gether. Her eyes must sweep with level glance tlie busy, work-a-day life of men about her, as with quick sympathy she declares “Tliis is my domain”, but tliey must also lift themselves up unto the everlasting hills beyond tlie work-.shop and the market-place, into those higli places where men walk alone with their sonls and with God. For tliese, too, are her domain. Her responsibility to the swiftly de veloping material life of the South is clear. “The greatest obslacle in tlie way ; of tlie development of the South’s foreign . commerce,” said a leader of Southern industry the other day, “is the lack of men who are trained to understand its problems.” The production of sucli trained men is a responsibility whicli the tlie University gladly assumes, as it as sumes that of fitting men for the ever more complicated problems which con front Southern business and industry as a whole. She must see to it that trained workers man Southern laboratories, build South ern roads, develop her latent electric power, conserve her, forests, build her bridges and tunnel her mountains. She must insist that such men be equipped adequately and thoroughly for the work tliey are to do. But her supreme task in all this is not the relatively simple one of training men who shall he efficient at tlieir job. To rest content with this would be to ignore the whole vital prob lem which lies at the lieart of the life of the new industrial South; the problem of | whether the Southern civilization of the ; future is to center about tlie machine, or ' about the man. rommonwealth Democracy Tills problem of rightly relating indus trial efficiency to hunian freedom every I developing industrial civilization has j faced, but none has fully solved. And as now the South confronts it, slie inu-^t ' needs bring to bear upon its solution all . her sturdy respect for the individual, all her idealism and her regard for human i I and for spiritual values. To lose these is to buy industrial efficiency at too great a ^ price. But tlirough tliese to transform industry into something more than a j method of making a living or of accumu- latipg wealth, to make of it a great in strument for achieving the ideals and the aspirations of democracy itself—this is to write a chapter in Southern liistory tiiat the wliole w'orld will read. This problem is no easy one. The record of the world’s dealings with industfy is eloquent testimony to that fact. But the University must all the more see to it tliat the men whom she trains for indus try shall catch the sense of its vital sig nificance, that their minds and hearts shall be so set free that they shall see their task, not as an isolated fact, but as an essential part of the great common undertaking of the democratic common wealth, an undertaking which is based on cooperation, not on conflict, and which regards all human relationships, whether in industry or in government, as finding their complete expression just as they become means for the achievement of a more perfect freedom. The obligation of so liberating the whole man that he becomes more than an efficient specialist rests with equal force on all the University’s professional schools. Her lawyers must be trained in ON THE FRONT LINE An important social and education al development in the South is the re cent opening at the University of North Carolina of a School of Public Welfare. Thus the State of North Carolina, already in the front line in progressive social legislation, plans to place more trained social leaders in the field. President Cliase in his rec ommendation to the Board of Trus tees of the University emphasized the importance of the school in its rela tion to universal educational policy, as follows; “Nothing is more clear than that, if the citizenship of .state and nation is to grapple successfully with the ever more complex problem of modern democracy, if popular government is to work effectively in these confusing times, our educational system as a whole must stress as never before the instruction of our youth in matters of the common weal. A knowledge of tlie fundamental laws of society, of what democracy really means and what its problems are, a spirit of so cial mindedness which leads the indi vidual to look beyond himself and to think of himself in relation tohis-com- munity-—these things are more and more requisite for good citizenship. The social sciences, including econom ics, history, government, and soci ology in its various aspects, must re ceive a new and more intense empha sis in the higlier education of the fu ture. North Carolina, feeling lier way toward the solution of new social problems consequent upon the grow ing complexity of her life, with a new program of social legislation, needs and will need leaders well- trained m the fundamentals of. their task.” The school will emphasize special training in the social sciences; voca tional training for social work and public welfare; social engineering and university and research work, in which special efforts will be made to contribute to information concerning social needs and possibilities in the state. The American Bed Cross will conduct during the summer, an in stitute extending twelve weeks. Lec turers from Columbia, the New York and Pennsylvania schools of social work, and from North Oarolina itself will make up the summer faculty,— The Survey. the law, and they must also be clear that “law is'only beneficence acting by rule.” Her teachers must not only know how and what to teach, but they must go out quick in the faitti that the future of democracy is in their hands; that day by day they are laying the very founda tion-stones of the new Southern civiliza tion. Those whom slie trains for social service she would make proficient in technique, for she realizes that, here as everywhere else, good-will alone is an in efficient weapon ; but she would also seek to touch their hearts with the deep con viction that it is only he who loves man kind who is worthy to serve it, and that the social service which is permanently wortli while is that which points man the way to freedom. The Farmer-Citizen It is precisely her faith, that the deep est need of the new civilization is for men who are both efficient workers and fitted to cooperate in the constructive program of democracy through the full release of their own highest pow-ers, that sharpens the University’s sense of obligation toward the agricultural life of her State. For the technical training of the farm worker this University has no obligation ; but she has every obligation to the fanner as a man and as a citizen. Were other re sponsibility lacking, the single fact that in her present student body the sons of farmers far outnumber those of men of any other occupation would of itself im pose no light duty toward the homes from which they pome. But a further obligation rich in opportunity for service grows out of the fact that the farm is not an isolated compartment in the State’s life, but the largest cross-section of that life. As local industries develop, it matters increasingly to the farmer that in a state whose industrial life so largely centers about the manufacture of its own raw materials, this life should be just and sound; as it matters to him that the physicians, and lawyers, and teachers who serve him shall be broadly and liberally trained. All tliese vital re lationships into which agriculture must enter are matters of concern to the uni versity; while still deeper and more in timate is the concern she feels that through her tr^ay be multiplied fhe ave nues by which the farm home itself sliall come into even closer and freer touch w'ith the best that the new civilization lias, and will have, to offer, so that it may sliare, and share fully, in the life of the new South. Liberal Arts the Test The crucial test of the ability of the University to identify her mission with that of democracy is found in her achieve ment in the college of liberal arts. For in the college, if anywhere, must emerge the answer to the question whether the ideal of freedom can successfully embody itself in concrete concepls of education and of life. To fail here, under condi tions so fitted to tlie task, is to proclaim that tlie great underlying principles of democracy can nowhere be attained. Success or failure will spring ultimately from the attitude of the college itself toward what it is about and from no other factor. The heart of the matter is w'liether the college conceives its work in terms of a dull and dreary formalism, an uninspired repetition of a set of lifeless formulae, or whctlier it really passion ately believes that its task is that of lib erating men from all that is partial and limited and false, so that they shall look out upon life with eyes that see and un derstand. If such be its belief, all its work in whatever field achieves a unity of purpose wliich it is its mission to make plain, and. throirrh which it may touch with flame the mind, the heart, and the will. Science becomes both the absorb ing tale of the increasing liberation of man from the tyranny of nature and that of the liberation of his mind through its search for truth; literature, the record of the human heart as it has struggled to express its aspirations; history, the story of the march of the human will as it strives with nature and with itself for freedom. Serving the Common Good But it is not the ultimate aim of the college to develop men who are only spectators of life, however clear their vision of what in it is ephemeral and what abiding. At this hour of construc tive need the college could not more greatly sin against itself and the state than by training men who should hold themselyes aloof from the work-a day life of the world, from participation and j leadership in every fine and worthy hu- ' man cause. The University believes with her whole heart that it is the function of the college to train for citizenship and for service; and she also whole-heartedly believes that citizenship and service pro ceed from within the man himself, not I from external mandate. To this end she j would seek to develop in those who come to her a free spirit of inquiry into the ' relationships that underlie the common : life of mac, an inquiry pursued, not in ; an atmosphere of destructive criticism, but in one in which it is constantly clear that only by holding fast to the best that men have toiled and dreamed and fought for can a yet greater good be attained. To this end also, since she holds that men best learn to live as free and co-op erative citizens when to the study of what democracy is and means they add its real and constant practice, she would strive to make of her life as a whole, campus and class-room and play-ground, one great example of her faith that high ideals and fine habits of citizenship and service develop best when free men live together as members of a community whose obligations they themselves have defined and assumed. For the college of arts which is true to its faith, the University conceives that the New South has a genuine and increas ing need. For if this the South’s great adventure is to end in more than the ac cumulation of wealth, if human happi ness and freedom are indeed its goal, she must guard her institutions of learning, that they may be more than machines for the production of workers skilled in their craft. The Upbuilfliing of Man The message of the college to her sons is the message of democracy itself, that “the main enterprise of the world is the upbuilding of a man.” Nothing is more vital, at this moment when the South is caught up on the swell of her newly re leased material constructive forces, than her constant clear vision of this fact. Now, if ever, must the South cherish the ideal of liberal education, that out of her colleges, as out of a great reservoir of power, there may come in increasing numbers and with increasing strength men who have cailght the vision of what life really means. An institution whose concern is truth must find one very real test of its vigor in whether it seeks to contribute new truths to the world’s existing store. The impulse toward research springs from the same conditions which insure the vi tality of its teaching, and reacts in turn upon its whole inner-life. The supreme question here is not whether research is of practical value to the state. To that question the whole history of Western civilization gives eloquent answer. Truth must indeed be sought upon the moun tain-top, but with him whose passion to look upon her face wins him access to her high abode, she walks hand in hand down into the common haunts of men, and with her touch men’s labors lighten, their bodies strengthen, and their souls grow great. In all that men may do there is assuredly nothing more practical than the seeking of truth. The real ques tion is rather that of the spirit in which they go about their quest. Eesearch may sink to the level of mere mechanical and lifeless routine, which kills the spirit while it preserves the letter, or it may become such a liberating power that the mind which comes under its spell is caught up forever into a higher and clear er air. Men with such a vision the state must surely count among its most pre cious possessions. Frontiersmen they, pointing the way through the untrodden forest to the millions who shall possess the land they find; builders of democracy through their eternal quest for truth. With such a sense of the oneness of her mission with that of the democratic com monwealth the University becomes, if she keep faith, not an appendage to the State, but its warm throbbing heart, linked in a living union by the pulsing currents of life itself with every member of the one great whole. She is of the State, and there is no fine and worthy cause that is the State’s that is not als® hers. Teaching, research, and extension, are but three v rious channels througk which her life finds natural expression. If that life be vigorous and free, it will out of its abundance ever seek new and direct contacts with the citizenship of the state through extension which is real and vital, just as it will seek for better teach ing and more productive research. Among these varied phases of university activity there is no contradiction; all embody one spirit and one ideal, Setting Men Free And this ideal, whether it find expres sion in the college or the professional school, in teaching or extension or re search, is that of full and eager and con structive participation in the task of democracy as it sets men free to realiz® their higher selves. Such self-realization can achieve its highest expression only through that deepest of all human ex periences which attune the soul to the one Reality existent through all forms, in the abiding faith that the stair which man has builded and by which he climbs to freedom, also “slopes through the darkness up to God.” There is in all the world of education today no greater responsibility than that which rests upon the state universities of the South. Theirs is not the easy task of ministering to a fixed and static life. Theirs is a sterner and higher obligation. They must serve and guide and interpret to itself and to the world a new civiliza tion which is yet in the making. Hold ing fast to all that is best in the paf t, they must face the future confident and unafraid. Quick of vision, warm of sym pathy, and broad of understanding, they must lead on through unfamiliar scenes and along untrodden pathways. And upon her whose name is written on our hearts, oldest among her sisters and ever young, such obligation peculiar ly rests. For the State she serves thrills from mountain to sea with the currents of the new life. Day by day skies bright en and horizons broaden, as Carolina presses onward . toward a future more happy than her dreams. The state of North Carolina and her Univeisity ! Part ners in tlie supreme adventure of achiev ing in ever fuller measure that democracy for which their sons so freely gave their lives—fellow-workers in the same high cause, marching shoulder to shoulder toward the same shining goal, as they draw strength and guidance each from each!
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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May 5, 1920, edition 1
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