Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-10-09
STATE UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT HOLDEN TO The
FRESHMEN.
An Admirable and Very Practical
Address for All of Our Col
lego Students.

man class at the opening OF the college
year the present week:
have asked the freshman class to meet
me to-day for various reasons. l think il
quite important that we should begin oul
official connect On, which is to last during
four of the most important years Of your
life and of my life, with clear conceptions
of what We are mere for, and of what We
mean to do with the opportunities be.
fore US.
Your entrance into the University marks
a very great change in the conditions OF
your life. In all the public and private
schools from which you have come, your
individual liberty was far less than the lib
erty which you will nave here, which we
wish you to have, and TO which | welcome
you. l wish you to have it fully-and to
use it like men who deserve 1t.
| conceive the University to be some
thing like this Here is q corps of teachers
who are learned in their special arts and
sciences. They have been brought here
from all parts of the United States, and
they have studied in all parts of the world.
We have many names among u ProfeS-
sors which are honored the whole world
over. The State of California maintains us
here and provides US with laboratories, OBJ
servatories, libraries, with every appliance
for teaching and for original research, IN
order that you, the youth of the State, may
fit yourselves to be truly useful citizens
within the State. To put it in a concrete
form This year over 100000 will be spent
in merely maintaining the colleges at
Berkeley. We shall have go students,
more or less. That is the State is at an ex
pense of 800 for each student here. With
this money wisely spent, the State opens to
you every avenue that leads to private
or public honor. It gives you high privi-
leges and it asks something in return,
There is never a right, that does not carry
with it, implicitly, its corresponding duty.
Your rights are to enter here into a COM
pany of scholars, and to make every use OF
the University that you are able to. While
you are students the little pin that you
wear with the University initials, tells
every one who sees it, that you have special
privileges-that you are q candidate for AGA
demic honors, thatpresumably you will win
them and deserve them, and you are to be
treated with the respect which is paid to
learning everywhere.
Now, what are your duties? You need
to consider exactly why the State has pro-
vided these facilities and why it maintains
this University. The theory on which
America is built is, that learning for its
young men and women makes good citi-
zens, who in their turn will support and
bnild up society.
The State asks nothing more of you
than to become good citizens, useful,
courteous, cooperative in all the relations
of life" You are bound in honor to neg
lect nothing that will make you such. This
is the lowest view that your duty will per-
nit you to take of your relations to the
State. Il must fit myself to return as q
citizen what has been conferred me as a
student" This is the lowest permissible
view.
But I go further andI speak to you in the
nan of learning itself and for its own
sake. l tell you that you are bound to re-
turn to learning what she confers on you.
The least you can do is to return the serv-
ice of a good and useful and moral citizen,
and thus to dignity the State; but you are
further bound to dignity the name of learn
ing everywhere by your respect for it, your
cultivation of ii, and by your addition to
its stores. if so be God has given you a
special talent.
General principles like these you will all
assent to, and l do moi need to insist on
them any further. Recollect that they
form the basis of your relation and of my
relation to the University and to the State.
Let me speak of a few more special mat
tiers. In the first place want you to Gull
tiyate a high loyalty to the University. l
want you to have the true college feeling.
Seek in the first place 70 understand just
what our University is and then defend
her everywhere against every unjust accu-
sation. If she is justly blamed, join me in
~endeavoring to remove the cause for blame.
| say that | ask you to cherish q high de-
gree OF college feeling. | must tell you
that I value college. feeling far above class
feeling. Under the modern elective sys-
tenn, where sophomores and freshmen and
juniors may and do hear the same lectures
and work side by side in the same labora-
ties, clasS-feeling appears to me to be some
thing quite artificial in its nature, needing
all kinds of stimulants to keep it alive.
CIass-feeling, so-called, only runs high in
the smaller colleges any institution which
offers university instruction, can hardly
give it unless its body of students are men
enough to see how much high class-feeling
initiates against high scholarship.
How is It in life? You will forget, soon
after your graduation. that such and such
a man was a freshman when you were a
Junior, and you will only recollect that he
is of your college and your friend and
brother.
IN aLDleIlCS Il - me COlIcBS liilc dhu
the University team that l should like to
see developed and strengthened, and not
the class organization. | should like you
to take and hold the Championship in all
fair and manly sports by all fair and manly
means. To do this you will have to culti-
vate union and not dis-union.
l want to point out to you a thing which
you may never have thought Of. The
University of California is directly de-
pendent on the good will of the people of
this State for its prosperous existence. That
good will depends upon our good name.
and that good name is in your keeping in
great measure. ! am the representative OF
the University, and in several important
WAYS | am called to be its spokesman. You
must see to it that l am no required to ex-
plain or excuse any thoughtless action
which neither you nor I really respect and
approve. Anything that is upright and
manly and fair and courteous, | Will de-
fend for yen. | believe IN college Gus
toms, but I want ar intelligent basis for
them.
There is one custom / am going TO ask
Won TO change, or rather | am going to ask
Won to substitute an intelligent for an I'M
Intelligent form OF it. If it is very import
ant 10 decide whether the class of 1890 Is to
carry walking sticks or to wear a special
kind of hat in 1886, let these weighty ques-
tons be decided as they are decided in large
colleges and elsewhere, and let US put down
the present method.
If o want to know how this is done
send your class-president to me and | will
tell him. But 1 want q change made here.
Another thing I wish to say to you.
When o elect your class president do it
with the understanding that he IS your
spokesman. When you, as a class, have a
favor 10 ask, or q grievance that wants re
dress, instruct your president and let him
come to me with it. have always time
for that, and | wish to hear what yen have
TO saw. | have lived long enough in the
world TO know that most grievances come
from an imperfect understanding. Before
Won decide that you are il-treated take the
pains to find out exactly what is the posi-
ton of the authorities. 1t is time enough
10 feel ill-used when you discover some
| hopeless difference OF opinion between
yourselves and your faculties: especially
| ask YOU to cultivate courtesy IN all your re
l%ations. Be respectful 10 your Professors,
| thew are learned men-be courteous to al