The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-06-10
Leads all Carolina laes News and Circulation

setting forth the University as it is to-
day and of declaring it's needs for fine
and honest service in the strange, new
century awaiting it and us, and our chill
dren. l believe that this University is
the highest achievement of the best brain
and impulses of the best people of all
classes of the State of North Carolina.
1t is the child of civic virtue and DEM
ocratic necessity, and it has been for
ever true to its parentage. Four dis
tinctive traits of individual character
mark it's life.
1. It's freedom from academic aloof
ness. This University has managed to
see from the first the relation of cul-
ture and training to social service, and
has touched and awakened the life about
it in all of its concerns, in the field, in
the factory, in war, in peace, at the TO-
rum, in the teachers study. 1t has been
sensitive to new needs as they arose,
sympathetic and patient with the newt
able popular Indifference to higher edu-
cation, and gentle and dignified always
TO strange hostilities and antagonisms.
Though but little over one per cent
of the population of the area which 1T
serves has received training here during
the wonderful eighty years of separa-
ton and stiffness between 1900 and 1880.
yet | am able to submit this broad record
of University achievement. OF the United
States Senators from this State, forty
four per cent went from this University;
of the members of Congress forty per
cent; of the Governors of the State, fifty
eight per cent; of the Lieutenant Gov
,1;, Of 1n Il
ers of the House of Representatives fifty
per cent; of the State officers, twenty
two per cent: of the Judges of the Supe-
rior court, thirty eight per cent; of the
judges of the Supreme Court. fifty-two
per cent. And not only in public life but
in the professions of teaching, of agricul-
ture, of industrial and mechanical en-
deavor. while it is not possible to ex-
press its influence in percentages it is
true to say that the formative influences
in each of these great departments of
society have come from this institution.
in war one might silently point to that
long roll inscribed on those tablets.
"Of those whose faith and truth
On wars red touchstone rang true metal
Yet it can be said accurately that forty
Der cent of the total enrolment of this
University from 1925 to 1867 were in the
Confederate army. The average enroll
ment of the New England colleges in the
Federal army was twenty three per
cent, and of Yale University the highest
of them all, % per cent. Since the re-
opening of the institution in 1873 2,S96
students have matriculated here; five
hundred and sxty-two have graduated
here and entered the various professions
of life. There is no arithmetic that can
calculate the good these men have done,
or can estimate the loss to the State
if this army of trained men had not
been sent out into its life Ninety
three per cent of these matriculates have
come from this State and | dare say that
there has been no new movement for
good in which they have not been active.
Fifty per cent of these matriculates have
been the sons of men who never knew
the advantages of college training Thus
while old family stocks have been kept
strong and fit, new material has been
sent out to become the heads of cultured
homes and to bear testimony to their
communities. In such ways is developed
the true aristocracy of republics-char-
acter enriched by learning.
2 The University has managed to ac-
complish greater results on smaller
means than any American institution. It's
income from the State today is twenty
five thousand dollars annually. It's in
come from all sources is fOrty-eight thou
sand dollars. Its faculty numbers thirty
five members. It's enrolment of students
is five hundred and twelve; including
summer school, 673. 1t maintains a con-
tinuous session and summer school for
teachers Compare this with other South
ern institutions and you will find that
this is the smallest income with which
such results are accomplished anywhere
in this State or in the Southern States.
g. The spirit of freedom and toleration
and equality in it's life. Three -fourths
of the students here are the sons of
poor men. or are here as the result
Of money borrowed or earned. All sects,
parties and conditions meet and mingle
here on equal footing and love the
place with an equal love- | have seen
men fighting in unity of purpose for this
place who did not agree with each other
on any other public question in heaven
above or the earth beneath and some
of them could not agree with themselves
over Sunday. North Carolina owes much
of the dignity and the freedom from ran
cor of it's public life to the manly spirit
of respect for motives engendered here
A. The passionate but diSOrganiZed af-
fection of it's alumni. | know of no
place in which the genius loci eXerts
such wonerful influence as it does in
this quiet village. The old alumnus
thinks of Chapel Hill as Hastings did
of his home and would like to die here.
The middle aged man in the strife of life
holds the place in his mind as he does
the lighted lamp and the gentle faces
gathered about his hearthstone. The
young boy whose feet have just faded
from it's doors thinks of it as the sailor
man upon the sea thinks of mis- home
The University of North, Carolina is ar
honest, faithful force, deriving its in
spirations not from traditions and re-
cords but from the knowledge that il
must have hand in the forceful strug-
gle for deeper wisdom and heightened
power in all forms of life. Is it fit tC
live or die? Is it fit to expand or con
tract to grow or to stagnate? Is it ii
to become a great University, or to be-
come small college? Do North Carolin
ians need it as Virginians need their
great school. or Texans theirs. or Lou
isianians theirs? Has it not earned