Syracuse University

“ In 1883 he was called to Syracuse University as instructor in geology, zoology, and botany, and three years later was made professor. During the seven years of his service at Syracuse we find his lobor and interest no less diversified than at Bloomington. In addition to the subjects mentioned above, he taught analytical chemistry, mathematics for three years, and during the last year of his service, human physiology. He always had a great liking for this subject and frequently referred to this freshman class as the most interesting, enthusiastic, and enjoyable class of his experience. ”

“ NOTES. A two-weeks' Summer School of Sociology, Economics, and Politics will be held at Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y., June 27th to July 9th, when seven hours of classroom work each day—five lectures and a conference of two hours—for eleven days, will be given; with a sermon by an eminent minister on the Sunday, both dealing with the religious bearings of present-day social movements. The lecture courses will be given by John R. Commons, professor of sociology, on Social Philosophy; Charities, Inebriety, Crime, and Child Serving, and City Government ”

“ As her father had a large family and little wealth, he could give his daughter only the advantages of the common schools and a preparatory school. Her thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and by teaching in summer and writing throughout the year she succeeded in paying her expense in college and received from Syracuse University the degree of A.B., in 1880. By her own efforts and in opposition to the wishes of her friends, she continued her studies in Greek and philosophy and won the degree of A.M., in Syracuse, in 1883. ”

“ It is a place entirely under the control of the “right people”; all unorthodox thoughts are barred, “chapel” is conducted every morning, and if anybody does not like the way we run things, he can go to hell.
Some time ago I made you acquainted with the ideal university president of the metropolitan plutocracy, Nicholas Murray Butler; a man of the world, dignified and urbane, his religion of the Episcopalian variety, reserved and proper. Compared with him, Chancellor Day of Syracuse University is provincial and naive, representing the adoration of wealth in its primitive, instinctive form. ”

“ During the years from 1870 to 1876 colleges for women were being established, and the doors of colleges hitherto open only to men were thrown open to women. Urged by her far-sighted mother, she determined to take a college course. While in Fort Edward, she took private lessons in advanced studies, and in the fall of 1876 entered Syracuse University as a member of the senior class, and was graduated from that institution in 1877. ”

“ Handsome buildings have sprung up on all sides, each one adding to the sightliness of the place; and on the surrounding hills wealthy residents have built their charming homes. The University of Syracuse, a Methodist institution, built upon one of these hills in 1870, looks down invitingly upon the knowledge-seekers of the city, and with the State Armory, [153] that stands in the park near Onondaga Creek, would furnish a brilliant equipment for some modern Minerva, were she to visit this interesting namesake of Sicilian Syracuse. ”

“ The Syracuse chancellor has written: "Our professors have nothing to do with the hiring, continuing or dismissing of professors and students." But when Syracuse recently needed a professor of botany, men looked askance at the position, and the same thing will happen now when the deanship of the school of engineering must be filled. Neither the largest stadium in the world, nor a chancellor who is a methodist orator, nor a president of a board of trustees, whose corporation controls the kerosine of the country, suffices to make a university. ”

“ The Alpha Chapter of Gamma Phi Beta was founded at Syracuse University, Nov. 11, 1874, by Misses Frances E. Haven (Mrs. C. M. Mors) , ’77; E. Addie Curtis (Mrs. F. L. Curtis) , '78; Helen M. Dodge, '76; and Minnie A. Bingham, '78. The avowed object of the society is the promotion of literary culture among its members, with the secondary object of social improvement. Some of its graduates were among the first in the university to receive the lady’s degree. ”

“ As to the second, though a few of us favored the admission of women, President Tappan opposed it; and, probably, in view of the condition of the university and of public opinion at that time, his opposition was wise.
Recalled to Syracuse after five years in Michigan, my old desire to see a university rising in the State of New York was stronger than ever. Michigan had shown me some of my ideals made real; why might not our own much greater commonwealth be similarly blessed? ”

“ Can we call the State of Agrigentum a commonwealth, where all men are oppressed by the cruelty of a single tyrant—where there is no universal bond of right, nor social consent and fellowship, which should belong to every people, properly so named? It is the same in Syracuse—that illustrious city which Timæus calls the greatest of the Grecian towns. It was indeed a most beautiful city; and its admirable citadel, its canals distributed through all its districts, its broad streets, its porticoes, its temples, and its walls, gave Syracuse the appearance of a most flourishing state. ”

“ Opposite the city hall, a magnificent structure, the "Marguerite" was made fast to repose after a fifty-five miles' course that day.
Syracuse, situated in the heart of New York State, has been appropriately named the "Central City." Its wonderful growth for the past twenty years entitles it to rank amongst the foremost cities of the East. It has a population of nearly 100,000, and is one of the leading manufacturing towns of the country. For a long period Syracuse practically controlled the salt product of the United States ”

“ The result of this view of knowledge was that, although during the fifteen centuries following the death of the geometer of Syracuse great universities were founded at which generations of professors expounded all the learning of their time, neither professor nor student ever suspected what latent possibilities of good were concealed in the most familiar operations of nature. ”

“ The public schools of Syracuse became well known as foremost in the country in art education.
Endeavoring in every way to spread the influence of art, Mrs. Prang assisted largely in the development of the Social Art Club of Syracuse, the purpose of which was the reading of the history of art and the study of historic and current art. ”

“ No nonsense is tolerated at Syracuse; they know what truth is, and how it should be taught, and you teach it that way or you get out, the quicker the better. Early in the chancellor’s administration he discovered that John R. Commons was tolerant toward free silver, and he fired him, giving as his reason that the professor was tolerant towards Sunday baseball! Every year he discovers that several others are tolerant towards something ungodly, and he fires them. There is no “tenure” or faculty control, or stuff of that sort ”

“ Syracuse, girt with slopes of flowering orchard-land, lies nobly against the fortified ridge of Epipolæ. But the city itself—richer in history than any other on that crowded soil, and characteristically symbolized by its Greek temple welded into the masonry of a mediæval church—even the thronging associations of the city could not, on a day so prodigal of sunlight, hold us long within its walls. These walls, the boundaries of the Greek Ortygia, have once more become the limits of the shrunken modern town, and crossing the moat beyond them, we found ourselves at once in full country. ”

“ There is little that is up-to-date about Syracuse. To a great extent it lives in medieval seclusion and its people are simple, genial folk so wholly out of touch with the world that whatever is essential for comfort or convenience is proper in public. ”

“ We girls can do a few in the bowling alley at the Seminary.
June.—I visited Eureka Lawrence in Syracuse and we attended commencement at Hamilton College, Clinton, and saw there, James Tunnicliff and Stewart Ellsworth of Penn Yan. I also saw Darius Sackett there among the students and also became acquainted with a very interesting young man from Syracuse, with the classic name of Horace Publius Virgilius Bogue. Both of these young men are studying for the ministry. I also saw Henry P. Cook, who used to be one of the Academy boys, and Morris Brown, of Penn Yan. ”

“ The town of Syracuse looks as I could imagine the cities of the Bible would have looked, when one sees it from the mouth of the Anapo at the opposite side of the great port on a July noon. Not a film of smoke rises from the low flat roofs of the mellow white-and-yellow houses, which, in their turn, seem to be crouching down within the shadow of the city walls. ”

“ Many tears were shed by the mourning citizens, and a herald cried with a loud voice: "The people of Syracuse will bury Timoleon the Corinthian at the public cost; and each year, through all time, they will hold in his honor games at racing and wrestling, while music is played; for he put down tyrants, conquered the foreign invaders, gave welfare to cities that had been laid waste, and restored law and peace to Sicily."
In the market-place was built a pleasant house, in the courts of which the young men of Syracuse might take exercise and engage in sport. ”

“ A competent engineer can earn far more by practising his profession than as a professor, and the Syracuse dean has not been forced to sacrifice his independence to feed his children. He has consequently conducted a good public fight, which will doubtless lead to an improvement of affairs at Syracuse and elsewhere. ”

“ No man can say that there was ever a time during which we enjoyed liberty when we were not at peace with you. Now, at all events, no sooner have we become our own masters through the death of the oppressors of Syracuse than we come to you to give up our arms, to surrender ourselves, our city and its fortifications, to accept any condition which you may lay upon us. To you, Marcellus, the gods have vouchsafed the glory of capturing the noblest and fairest of Grecian cities. Whatever memorable achievement we have wrought by sea or land enhances the splendour of your triumph. ”

“ When by valour and skill he had taken Syracuse, that most beautiful city, which was not only strongly fortified by art, but was protected also by its natural advantages—by the character of the ground about it, and by the sea—he not only allowed it to remain without any diminution of its strength, but he left it so highly adorned, as to be at the same time a monument of his victory, of his clemency, and of his moderation; when men saw both what he had subdued, and whom he had spared, and what he had left behind him. ”

“ The souls of evil-doers would, they thought, pass into the lower and more degraded animals, while those of good men would be gradually purified, and rise to a higher existence. This, though lamentably deficient, and false in some points, was a real religion, inasmuch as it gave a rule of life, with a motive for striving for wisdom and virtue. Two friends of this Pythagorean sect lived at Syracuse, in the end of the fourth century before the Christian era. Syracuse was a great Greek city, built in Sicily, and full of all kinds of Greek art and learning ”

“ Going farther back, every boy who has read his Greek and Roman history knows how Syracuse was in ancient days one of the great war harbours of the Mediterranean.
It was the arsenal where fleets fitted out, and the depot where they brought back their booties of valuables and slaves after their victorious raids. ”

“ This was the famous temple of Olympian Zeus, built probably in the days of Hiero I., soon after the Persian war, but on the site of a temple still more venerable. One seeks a reason for the location of this holy place at such a distance from the city. Holm, the German historian of Sicily, argues with some plausibility that this was no mere suburb of Syracuse, but the original Syracuse itself. In the first place, the list of the citizens of Syracuse was kept here down at least to the time of the Athenian invasion. ”

“ Some nations have rendered their names illustrious, though their virtues and valour had but a very confined sphere to move in; while other commonwealths and monarchies have subdued worlds, and roamed over whole continents in search of glory and power. Syracuse must be numbered in the former class, and amongst the most distinguished of that class. In public and private wealth, magnificence of buildings, military renown, and excellence in all arts and sciences, it ranks higher than most nations of antiquity. The great names recorded in its annals still command our veneration ”

“ How they live and bear fruit at all in such astonishingly rocky fields is a mystery, yet they are proverbially prolific. They seem ghosts of dead Syracuse, phantoms of the citizens who once, in the pride of their strength and glory, trod the streets of the great pentapolis of Epipolai, Neapolis, Tyche, Achradina and Ortygia—Syracuse all. ”

“ To all this our citizens have quietly submitted; and yet there are those, who are clamoring it over the country, that we of Syracuse, are not a law-abiding people. Some who dwell with us have joined in this cry. Shame upon them, and upon all who are circulating the scandal. The citizens of Syracuse will ever abide by law—they only trample upon tyrany. ”