Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1916-09-22
COLLEGE OPENS.
Large Freshman Class President
Thomas Urges Better Work
Buildings Crowded,

To an audience filling the Mead Mem
orial Chapel President Thomas deliy
cred the opening address Of the College
year Thursday morning and called upor
faculty and students for more earnest
work and for reforms in the interna
life Of the college.
There we're l0s Freshmen present, 6l
men and AZ women. These were al
new students who had passed the ad
mission tests. Others have arrived
since and several are expected neXt
week. When the grades are established
the entering class will exceed that of q
year ago, which was 1919, An unusua
number of old students have returned,
The singing was led by vested stu
dent choir under the direction of Prof.
Hathaway, The Faculty occupied seats
on the platform. Many visitors were
present.
Eighty-eight men nave rooms at Hep
burn hall, nearly filling the building.
The women's residences are full, and
there is waiting list,
President Thomas address was as
follows;
At the opening of the ll7th year of
Middlebury College and at this first
student assembly in this stately and
beautiful chapel, whose dignity and
impressiveness must move US all to
serious and earnest thought, wish to
sound a note of progress in the things
which make up the inner life of COL
lege, What shall it profit US if we gain
magnificent buildings and rich endow-
ments, and boast a wide domain of
primeval forest, if we lose that spirit
of high ambition and academic earnest
ness which has been all our glory in the
great days of the past? Silas Wright
and Solomon Foote, Edward j. Phelps
and John G, SAKE, Henry Norman Hud-
son and Albert Hurd, and Stewart and
Kellogg and Brainerd and Mead and
Hepburn came not from marble halls
and from dormitories with rooms with
bath, but from great teachers, like
Nathaniel Chapman and John Hough
and Solomon Stoddard and Charles B.
Adams and George N. Boardman, and
from a resolute purpose on their own
part to master Greek tragedy, and to
know Shakespeare, and to grip the
problems of Calculus.
Since tn centennial of our college in
1900 the institution has gone forward
in all material ways by leaps and
bounds. At that time there was only
the old stone row, dignified, well-pro-
portioned, wrapt in times Incompatible
beauty, but plain in all their appoint
ments and limited in their facilities
both for student life and academic pur-
suits. In that centennial year the old
college was fanked by the Egbert Starr
Library, still the gemof all our college
structures, and year after year hall and
residence and laboratory have been
added until few of us could tell off-hand
how many college buildings we have.
1t depends upon where in our spacious
campuses you stop and what kind of
buildings you include. Including resi-
dences we have now % college build
ings, and the newest of them exceeds
both in cost and capacity all three of
the old buildings which were the only
home the college acquired for itself in
the first 100 years of its history.
In 1900 Middlebury College had l23
students. This year with the summer
session our catalogue will show we'll over
500. Then our facultynumbered 10: now
we have 32 Instructors Then our endow
ments were $4,000 We have today
half again as much. Then we offered
106 term courses: now we are giving
2l7 semester courses. Then the college
was spending less than $25, 900 annually
for its students: the last Treasurer's
report shows an expenditure of S91, 800.
We have a right to pride in this
record and it is proper we should put
the facts forcibly before the public.
The people of Vermont do not yet
realize the advance that has been made
by Middlebury College in the first six
teen years of its second century. They
do not yet appreciate the advantages
we offer: for example, that we have
one of the best series of chemical labo-
ratories to be found in America, with
more courses than are given in many
institutions which bestow ambitious
degrees in chemical engineering; nor
that our Department of Pedagogy is in
some respects the best practical normal
school for high school teachers to be
found in New England. Surprise as
we'll as admiration is expressed by every
visitor to this Mead Memorial Chapel
and by every one who examines the
facilities and equipment of Hepburn
Hall and looks off on the mountains
from its windows. They had not i'm