The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1909-06-17
DOCTOR OF !A!W
FOR MERk|f,<<>2;' <2
Special Honor for Retiring
President by the Confer.
ring Of the Degree
The Prizes Awarded.

Sidney Clark prize-Geo. A. =
Warmer.
Gansl medal-Richard Wenzel. =
Winship Scholarship - Miss =
Hazel Loynes.
Herald prizes-First, Charles =
DeNoyers; second, Myrtle Bemis.
Degree Conferred.
Just after the degrees had been "
the graduating class, the board of !"
regents conferred the degree of =
Doctor of Law upon President =
Webster Merrifield, Hon. Tracy
r. Bangs of Grand Forks making =
the address in comforting the de- =
degree.
80 . = =
perhaps I shall bo pardoned for
taking advantage of this last opport-
unity to speake just q word to the
friends of the University OF North Da-
kota and in particular to my COL
leagues on the faculty. to the alumni
and alumnae and to the undergrad-
uate members of the student body,
said President Webster Merrifield at
the close Of his address to the grad
yates at the university commence
ment exercises this morning in the
gymnasium on the college campus,
and which. is the last in which ho
will participate.
1T is a far different institution
which l am leaving today from that
whose teaching staff l Joined twenty
Ave years ago. Your university to-
day is favorably known throughout
the land. 1t is no exaggeration to
say that she is whole decade ahead
of any one of the older state univer-
stiles at the close of its first quarter
Of a century Of active life.
"The growth of our state universi-
ties have been one Of the startling So
cial phenomena of our recent times.
II the citizens Of North Dakota shall
do their full duty by their state uni
versity. she will bring to this COM
monwealth at no distant day such
honor and prestige as the great state
universities of Michigan, Wisconsin
and Minnesota are bringing to their
respective commonwealth today
Greater than her mines and farms is
Michigan's great state university; for
her university incarnates, as it were,
Michigan's ideals and all the civic
and moral forces which have made
that commonwealth great in the past
and which affords the surest guaran-
tee Of her greatness in the future.
"Most of the growth of our own uni
versity has been in the last dozen
has increased from 13 to 81 members
IN
906; the number of her colleges from
2 to 6; and her total income, from
$71.042.14 during the biennial period
1S97-99, to a sum which will almost
certainly exceed $500,O00 during the
biennial period upon which we are
Just entering. With these exercises
today the university closes the first
quarter of a century CT active life; of
what the next quarter of century
shall bring of development and ex-
pansion the statistics have just
quoted afford gratifying augury.
One thing is certain; North Dakota S
real greatness will be reflected hence
forth far moro accurately in the
growth of her state university and in
the character of the graduates whom
she yearly sends out into the state
and nation at large than in her pub
lished statistics of crop yields and
assessed valuation for purposes of
taxation. We search in vain in the
scanty remains of their annual fiscal
budgets for "The glory that was
Greece, the grandeur that was Rome. !"
I can not believe that Grand Forks
and North Dakota will be so blinded
to their highest interests as to fail in
due appreciation and adequate sup
port of their state university.
Thanks Faculty Graduates.
ITO my colleagues desire again
to express my appreciation of their
staunch loyalty at all times to the
university and to myself as its work.
ing head. can never forget their
unfailing kindness, courtesy and con-
eideration. What the university is to-
day is due far more to them than to
me. / have never known body of
men more thoroughly devoted to a
great work nor further removed from
any ulterior motive of self-aggrand-
izement in the performing of it than
have been my colleagues on the uni
versity faculty, from the most in
fluential dean to the humblest instruc-
tor.
"And what have said of my COL
leagues on the faculty is also true of
the several boards of trustees under
whom | have served during the en-
tire period OF my presidency. Not
once in all that time have l dis
covered the slightest disposition on
the part of these successive boards to
promote their individual interests at
the expense Of the highest welfare of
the institution. Fortunate. indeed,
has been tho college or university
whose highest interests have uniform
ly been SO jealously guarded and pro.
NOTED by its governing boards as have