Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-10-20
President Benton's inaugural.

A more rhetorical note than is COM
monty expected from a college president
resounded in the inaugural address of
the new president of the university of
Vermont, DR.. Guy Potter Benton. Yet
while part of his discourse, as for ex-
ample the fervid eulogy of the college
yell, is rather overdone, the address
contains much sound advice. 1t may be
questioned whether the age at which
men attain their highest point of
efficiency is increasing, as he argues
from insufficient data, as for example
the usefulness of "the Old Fathers
who wrote the constitution. A revo-
luton always brings young men to the
fore. So far as mental or physical
powers are concerned, there is no reason
to suppose that there has been any per-
ceptible change in the brief space of a
century or two.
But it is probably true that the pro-
gress of the arts allows, or should allow,
larger proportion of those who are
past their prime to find useful employ
ment. Even in the field of physical
labor, thanks to machinery. strength
and activity are not so essential as
formerly. A larger proportion of the
population, too, as civilization increases
in complexity, is engaged in varied
crafts and professions in which the
value of skill is cumulative and post
pones for decade or for several dec
AIDES the point at which decline begins
A college president may be doing hi:
best work at 20, provided conditions dc
not happen to call for those radica
qualities for which we look to youth.
Despite the complaints that the "deac
line" is drawn at 40, DIR. Benton il
probably right in thinking that the
period of active work is on the average
growing longer rather than shorter
More people, at all events. are engaged
in those employments where knowledge
and experience are most essential thar
the verve of youth. He is of course
right in calling attention to the neeC
for more thorough and prolonged
preparation for work, as knowledge
and technic expand. We miss, however
in his address any hint that the work Of
serious preparation might well begin {
little earlier. On such a festive oc
casion even a remote allusion to painful
subjects like aorists or logarithmi,
functions might have cast gloom owe
the assembly, yet there is quite al
much need for a pronunciamiento in re
gard to the value of hard work as TO
such impassioned rhetoric on the spiri
which animates young manhood ant
womanhood. "There is no music 81
sweet to me-" declares this uni
versity president, "as the yell of tn
the college student. Ter, .quaterqu
beatusl He is likely, after so broad
hint, to get enough to satisfy even hi
robust ear
Every time boy yells for his colleg
or his university, he is drawing it
colors about him little more securely
and thus he is laying the foundation 70
that larger patriotism which, in late
years, will accenuate his love of country
Let that fossil who declaims agains
football be relegated to the museum @
the antiquities. Let dumbness strik
him who would use his voice agains
the songs and shouts of joyous colleg
men when they triumph in orator
or debate. Restrained be the arr
of the tyrant who would reach OF
hand to throttle class spirit. Blinde
be the eyes of him who would Sc
: nothing but evil in devotion t
. fraternity.
Evidently in the university of Vel
mont the fossils will hereafter be left
gather dust in the museum.-Sprinl
field Republican.