Volume XIII

INAUGURATION ADDRESS

OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF MINNESOTA

THE history of public education in Ameriica is a story of achievement. To the student of education, it reads like romance. No adequate account of it has ever been written. Some day some one who knows how to wield a master's pen will attempt it, and the greatest epic of civilization will be produced. To recount the struggles of a free people to establish a system of popular education, which in its infancy bore the stigma of poverty and charity, but in latter days is the expression of the hopes and ambitions, of the faiths and aspirations of the proud descendants of that people, is a task worthy of the noblest and most gifted mind. To recount the struggles of a people to preserve and to perpetuate the principles of freedom of worship, the right of assembly, a trial by one's peers, and the opportunity for fair discussion is to retell the story of American education, for through it and only through it, can we insure an intelligent and wise application of these inalienable principles. Both the sanctity and the meaning of our political institutions rest in the final analysis upon the kinds of schools we maintain.

This school system of ours did not spring into existence full grown. It is the product of evolution. Its roots lie far back in the past. From the beginning it has been regarded as society's most sensitive agent for saving time and labor and also as a highly specialized instrument consciously organized to provide training in citizenship. Thomas Jefferson clearly recognized the importance of this latter consideration. When he declared that a free government can not endure without public education, he gave a mightly impetus to its cause. Successful public schools every

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where became radiant points of imitation. The right of sovereignty changed from groups that voluntarily taxed themselves to groups that compulsorily taxed themselves.

From then until now, decade after decade, the common schools have advanced with uncertain and halting steps. Could we have looked into the future then as we can examine history now, we should have known that the future of the schools was secure, as their foundations were rooted in the idealism of a people who cherished not merely the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, but also the privilege of educating their children in accordance with the principles of freedom and equality of opportunity. These are not principles to be exercised without discretion. They are something to be achieved. The right of free worship and equality of political opportunity have almost, if not quite, been realized in this country. But there are other types of liberty for which many are struggling that have not yet been commonly accepted. They are still in the process of formulation. Even intellectual liberty, that is the right to discover truth and to tell the whole truth in order that the truth may make us free, is not universally received and not always treated with the cordiality that it deserves, and yet it is the only stimulus to science and the only true basis of progress.

The fundamental tenets of popular education in America have never contemplated aristocratic forms of education, the cultivation of class interests, nor the protection of special privileges. On the contrary, since the middle of the nineteenth century, the common schools -the product of that proud, new tradition that all the property shall be taxed for the education of all the children-have been universally regarded as the servant of every one, not the servant of a few.

Almost contemporaneous with the establishment of a system of common schools, our forefathers began to enact compulsory education laws, fixing the upper age limit in some instances as high as fourteen. Apparently these pioneers held that the level of trained intelligence needed by all the people for the solution of the problems of that day and generation should be graduation from the common schools. It was generally recognized that life was comparatively simple, and its problems easy of solution. On the other hand, there rested deep in the hearts of the common people, the firm conviction that a certain amount of general training was necessary to insure mutual understanding and social intercourse. These pioneers understood that a common education is one of the first requirements of neighborliness, that it tends to loosen the bonds of selfishness and makes it easier for men to live together, to work and to play together.

That enormous progress has been made in general education in America is shown by the fact that in 1840 the total amount of education received by the average citizen during his entire lifetime was 208 days. According to present standards, this nation, educationally speaking, was in 1840, a low second grade nation. By 1870, the total amount of schooling received by the average citizen had been increased to 582 days. We had reached a new level-the level of a high third grade. Today the average citizen receives a little over 1,200 days of schooling. We are now a high sixth, or a low seventh grade nation.

Why this change? Because the problems of each succeeding generation have been more difficult than those of the preceding generation. Furthermore, the problems have grown more political, social and spiritual in character. Our forefathers two generations ago understood that social and political problems are not altogether economic, but that they are also intellectual and spiritual. To them a carpenter was not a carpenter merely, but a citizen as well. The working man has long suspected that the man who knows possesses some secret influence or power that is being denied

the worker. Some thought that power was money, and consequently sought higher wages. Others thought it was political prestige and consequently sought political preferment. But most of them have learned that the secret lies in education. As a result the doors of the schools have been opened to the children of men on every economic level. Every time any class has secured greater political rights, it has demanded more education, and it has always secured it. The constant shifting of education to lower economic levels epitomizes the struggle of the race for human freedom. It is this struggle of the masses to secure an education, combined with their ability to profit by and to use it intelligently that gives us confidence in the ultimate outcome and integrity of democracy. Every one recognizes that such education is expensive, but the expense is insignificant in comparison with the enormous gain society receives from it.

The period during which the common school system was developed throughout the nation was the period between 1840 and 1855. From 1840 to 1870, much of the secondary education was provided in private schools, generally known as seminaries or academies. Gradually since then these private schools have been superseded by the public high school. This change came partly because the whole social organism was increasing in complexity and its problems in intricacy and variety. The population was growing rapidly. Thousands upon thousands of foreigners were passing through the immigration gates. Lines of communications were multiplying. Newspapers and books were more easily available. Acute political, social and industrial issues arising out of the civil war and our industrial expansion remained unsolved. The dark days of reconstruction dragged on. Although there seemed to be good ground for discouragement, the men of that day did not regard the situation as hopeless. Their idealism did not become distorted, nor did they lose faith in their institutions. They did what every generation of patriots has done they made way for liberty by providing more education. Highschool education, available to the children of

all men, became their goal. They sacrificed that the next generation might have a better intellectual equipment than they had had. Right in the midst of this period of great economic and spiritual depression the University of Minnesota was founded.

Such is the history of all human progress. Each succeeding generation profits by the sacrifices of the preceding generations. These sacrifices always point to the direction of greater service to mankind. All too frequently do we forget that there is human ethics in human progress, that the comforts we enjoy, the satisfactions we have, the privileges we possess, all came because men who received but a few days of schooling during their lifetime were willing to pay a heavy price for us. There is a moral in this for the present generation which I shall not press.

Long before the high school became an integral part of the established school system many of the states created universities, which, in the course of time, articulated with the public schools, and became a part of them. There are still a few skeptics who maintain that a state university should be separate and independent of the public schools. They would locate it on some Mount Olympus or sequester it in some secret place far from the sordid marts of trade, or the buzzing confusion of social and political worlds. Scholarship, according to their opinion, should not be contaminated by contact with the activities of every-day life. A wall with a wide and deep moat should separate the university from the high school, and only the very elect, the superlatively gifted, should be permitted to cross the bridge and to enter the gate. This is the philosophy of other days. The philosophy of to-day points to a system of state supported public education, beginning with the lowest primary grade and extending to the senior year of the university, equally open to all who are competent to profit by it. This philosophy is the foundation rock upon which the entire superstructure of our democratic society is built.

The most important task of the university is that of securing a high-minded, rightminded faculty. What members of the faculty think and believe, what they feel and express to a greater or less extent, transfers across and finds expression in the life and thought of the student body. Both individually and collectively the faculty should be imbued with an impelling desire to search for and to discover truth. It should be dominated by a reverence for the truth, a high respect for facts, and saturated with human purposes and common human feelings.

A university is a community of scholars; it breathes the spirit of the social order; it is constantly engaged in an attempt to understand the meaning of the age; it inculcates the craft spirit of the profession; it molds character. Every member of a university is a locus of influence. The individual professor still has limitless opportunities to make an impression upon his students. He must play his part; he must accept and express in his daily life the sacred obligation of his profession if the university in every respect would serve its true purpose. He must assist by every act in building that subtile, pervasive and irresistible force which can best be described by the term "the institutionality of the university." Its constituent elements are the attitudes, the standards, the ideals and the traditions of the institution.

A university is not an aggregation of individuals merely; it has its social mind, to which every individual contributes. The social mind of a university is not lifeless and inert; it is a powerful dynamic touching the life of faculty and student at every turn. Every stimulus that beats in upon the consciousness of an individual, influences him for good or ill. Consequently, none but the best influences should prevail in a university. The development of a genuinely wholesome institutionality through the personnel of a highminded faculty, and the associated life of students, faculty in class rooms, libraries, laboratories, commons, union buildings, auditoriums, stadiums, is the supremely important problem