The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-20
THE COLLEGE YEAR.
University of Georgia Begins its one
Hundred and First Term tnder
Most Favorable Conditions.

Most Panoramic tOnuitiOhs'
Athens. Ga, Sept. 1.-THE univer-
! sitv Yesterday entered upon the second
| century of it's existence, with large
attendance and iattering prospects.
At 10 O'Clock the exercises in the
University Chapel were held. The old
building was well filled, and prior to
the beginning of exercises the members
| of the various classes made the welkin
| ring With their class and college yells.
Chancellor Hill, amid enthusiastic
cheering, addressed the students and
visitors, in part, as follows:
| Young men: 1t is my duty in be-
half of the faculty to welcome you to
the one hundred and first session of
the university Few occasions sur
pass in interest and zest the opening
of a college term, when we recount the
pleasures of vacation and give well
come to the new accessions to our
ranks.
You will observe that the faculty
has taken especial pains to oil the ma
chinery for the starting of the SEES
sion. The leaflets and schedules,
which have been printed in advance,
have been prepared to make easier
the path of entrance, and especially
of the new students.
During my vacation it has been my
pleasure TO make some studies in Amer
lean college life. / have found even
the statistics interesting. The stats
tics show that the total college pop
ties and colleges, which are
recognized by the commissioner of
| education, to be $4,000. About half
of this number are young men: and
| If they should ever be collected in one
| place one would be safe in rsking
| whatever reputation he had as proph-
| ct on the prediction that that town
would not have a dull time. In Charles
| ton during the earthquake a lady from
| Georgia was visiting in the home of
a lady who had four college students
| boarding with her. On that night the
| timbers of the house began to creak
and groan. The window panes shook
| as If they had st. Vitus' dance. The
bed and bureau and furniture up
/ stairs were waltzing across the room.
| The lady visitor started up aghast with
horror. The landlady reassuringly
said: "Oh that is nothing, my dear!
1t is only those college boys up stairs"
| Now, if four college students equal
| one earthquake, the question arises,
what would $4,000 equal? Should they
! ever be collected in one spot, then, in
| the language of the poet, who described
John Gilpin's ride, May 1 be there to
| see."
Perhaps no single fact justihes so
hopeful an augury for the future of
our American life than this; $4,000
young men enjoying the privi-
leges of higher education entering
| into the riches of the scientific, literary
aesthetic and religious inheritance be-
queathed by the past; preparing them
selves for life under the general inspir-
ations for culture; and many of them
under special inspirations such as you
have here in the feeling that you are
| treading upon the same spot and in the
| very buildings where so many of the
greatest men of Georgia fitted them
selves for their careers.
| "A boys mother goes down into the
valley of the shadow of death to give
him birth. She puts into him days of
| love and nights of care. She sends up
| from his cradle those short and fervent
prayers which only mothers know how
to utter. When, at last, he feels the
rose of youth upon his breast, she con-
sents with an agony of love, whose
depth no alummet can sound, to lose
him for a few years as boy, in order
that she may regain him a man. Is 1t
too much to expect that he will repay
| all that sacrifice and devotion by clean
and honest livingi With tremor on her
lips which conceals with a shower of
| goodbye kisses, she sends him
| forth to pit his immoratl vicissitude
against all the possibilities of evil
which are necessarily involved in a
college career. If he comes back to her
| degraded and dshonored, with a con-
scious loss of purity ranking in his
heart, with expostluating self-shame
shutting him out forever from that
hottest of holes, the sacred confidence
of mothers heart, is it, indeed, less
than tragedy?
THE best security is to be found in
reliance upon that higher power which
| rules our lives and which makes for
| righteousness. Just as the most intelli-
gent man is he who knows the extent
of his own ignorance. and by that very
knowledge is able to seek and find q
wider wisdom; so the strongest man
morally is he who knows his own
weakness, and by that very knowledge
is able to make available the resources
of divine omnipotence by that faith
which is the great grasp of the soul of
! God.