Alma mater

“ The point of view of the graduate has been defining itself slowly, but with increasing clearness, ever since the governing boards of the colleges made the very practical discovery that it was the duty and privilege of the alumnus to raise funds for the support of his Alma Mater. ”

“ ÆGROTAT DEGREE. One who is sick or so indisposed that he cannot attend the Senate-House examination, nor consequently acquire any honor, takes what is termed an Ægrotat degree.—Alma Mater, Vol. II. p. 105.
ALMA MATER, pl. ALMÆ MATRES. Fostering mother; a college or seminary where one is educated. The title was originally given to Oxford and Cambridge, by such as had received their education in either university.
It must give pleasure to the alumni of the College to hear of his good name, as he [Benjamin Woodbridge] was the eldest son of our alma mater.—Peirce's Hist. Harv. ”

“ Supplementary still to this minor study of the two colleges, I have figures for one the—larger of the two—showing the success, according to our criterion, of the men who have received first, second, third and fourth places at graduation; that is, not simply of high grade, but those who have most nearly fulfilled the ideals of their alma mater. Of the living alumni of this institution 2.3 per cent, were mentioned in 'Who's Who' and the law of probability would lead us to expect that the percentage would hold good for the men of any given place in the class. ”

“ The U. is my own Alma Mater, and I am proud to be known as an alumni, but there are certain instructors there who seem to think we ought to turn the conduct of the nation over to hoboes and roustabouts.
“‘Those profs are the snakes to be scotched—they and all their milk-and-water ilk! ”

“ The best telescope does not dispense with eyes; the printing press or the lecture room will assist us greatly, but we must be true to ourselves, we must be parties in the work. A university is, according to the usual designation, an alma mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill. ”

“ Rarely endowed as a teacher, having entered the profession before she was fifteen years old, it was natural enough that she should be recalled to her alma mater as an instructor in the training department. ”

“ Its graduates now number nearly four hundred and are found in almost every department of human activity. Some are distinguished in professional life, others in trade, or in business. Among them are doctors, skilled and eminent in their chosen fields of labor, clergymen of acknowledged ability, and teachers of long and successful experience. About two-thirds of all its graduates choose teaching as their special vocation; and nearly all prove their skill and ability in the schoolroom, and have reflected great credit on their alma mater and have been a blessing to their race. ”

“ From every college comes the Dean in his Master's gown and hood, or if he be a Doctor, in the scarlet and grey of one of the new Doctorates, in the dignified scarlet and black of Divinity, or in the bold blending of scarlet and crimson which marks Medicine and Law. College servants, with their arms full of gowns and hoods, will be seen in the background, waiting to assist in the academic robing of their former masters, and to pocket the 'tips' which time-honoured custom prescribes. ”

“ The Master of the College, or "Head of the House," is a D.D., who has been a Fellow. He is the supreme ruler within the college Trails, and moves about like an Undergraduate's deity, keeping at an awful distance from the students, and not letting himself be seen too frequently even at chapel. Besides his fat salary and house, he enjoys many perquisites and privileges, not the least of which is that of committing matrimony.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. ”

“ We welcome you to the university and to such advantages as it can afford, and we shall do all in our power to render your brief residence here fruitful both in experience and in knowledge; hoping also that the university may become to you, as she has to so many others, a bright light shining calmly over the troubled sea of active life, ever suggesting lofty thoughts, encouraging noble endeavors, and inciting all her children to work together toward those great ends, the advancement of knowledge and the education of mankind. ”

“ While it is the work of science and scholarship, roughly what is known in American usage as graduate work, that gives the university its rank as a seat of learning and keeps it in countenance as such with laymen and scholars, it is the undergraduate school, or college, that still continues to be the larger fact, and that still engages the greater and more immediate attention in university management. ”

“ Heroes and scholars have gone forth from their studies here, into the great field of the world, to seek their fortunes, and to conquer and be conquered. As I surveyed the exterior of the different Colleges, I could here and there see the reflection of the light from the window of some student, who was busy at his studies, or throwing away his time over some trashy novel, too many of which find their way into the trunks or carpet bags of the young men on setting out for College. ”

“ That done, the student, armed cap-à-pie in his intellectual armour, goes forth to face something infinitely sterner and more pitiless than tutors or proctors, ay, even than Masters and Chancellors themselves—the presiding genius of that infinitely greater University called the World, where taking your degree means anything that human fortune can give you, and where being plucked may mean anything from a clerkship in an office to selling matches in the gutter. ”

“ The college, moreover, should start the graduate interest in philanthropic and serious enterprises which in themselves furnish suitable as well as pleasing relaxation to hundreds of American university men. ”

“ But, generally speaking, you may understand that a college is an institution which gives a four years’ course in liberal arts and sciences, for which four years of academic preparation are required: a university adds to this, graduate courses, and one or more professional schools of law, medicine, engineering, divinity, or pedagogy; a technological school is one in which the higher branches of the applied arts and sciences are the chief subjects of study and in which only scientific degrees are conferred. ”

“ The University was governed, the University was taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, Master, Doctor, were originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty, and to the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty, for such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself." Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc.: Education, chapter 4. EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. ”

“ Even now, though the system is, so to speak, in its infancy, graduates judge of universities not so much by the standing of the professors or by the grade of instruction offered, as by the value of the fellowships. Students about to graduate have been known to ask their professors what inducement the college offers them to remain—more than that, have been candidates for appointment at more than one institution. ”

“ The University to which you belong will watch your career with anxious solicitude, and expect you not simply to do the best you can, each for himself,—but also to do the best you can for your fellow-men and your mother country. ”

“ THE future of higher education in America depends upon the position we shall grant to the college and university professor. The growing conception that the faculty—not buildings, nor advertisements, nor pyrotechnic display—but the faculty, makes the school is bound eventually to be accepted. ”

“ If, beside opportunity, the college can furnish also the inspiration which shall make opportunity precious and fruitful, its work is accomplished. The college that fulfils these two conditions—opportunity and inspiration—will be a success, will draw to itself the frequency of youth, the patronage of wealth, the consensus of all the good. Such a university, and no other, will be a power in the land. ”

“ The college provides for this by its surroundings—the old buildings, the old elms, the old campus, the class songs, the memorial days, the pleasant memories, the struggles and rivalries in recitation, the sports, the diploma, the honor, the prestige in the world outside, the relative standing of “our” college and the other colleges. All these things create in the student the esprit du corps which makes him glad to say, “I belong to this or that college.” See the working of this spirit in a college boat-race. ”

“ Neither does the worldly spirit that pervades the gentlemen's college further the university's interest in scholarship, nor do the university's scholarly interests further the college work in gentility. ”

“ A university now appears to mean “a college as good as it can be,” a stimulating conception, but not a finished or precise one. I would not disparage it. It is a term of aspiration, good to conjure with. When we want to elevate men’s ideas, or to obtain their dollars, it is well to talk about creating a true university: just as it is wise to bid the forward-reaching boy to become “a true gentleman.” ”

“ What counts toward the advancement of learning and the scholarly character of the university is the graduate work, but what gives statistically formidable results in the way of a numerous enrolment, many degrees conferred, public exhibitions, courses of instruction -- in short what rolls up a large showing of turnover and output -- is the perfunctory work of the undergraduate department, as well as the array of vocational schools latterly subjoined as auxiliaries to this end. ”

“ In a large university, the demand upon the teacher for more work than he should rightfully undertake, the ever-increasing interest of the student in college affairs, with many other influences, are constantly presented as difficulties in the way of the teacher’s close relationship with the student. ”

“ You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should have elsewhere. ”

“ Every student under the degree of master of arts was required to have a tutor, thus regularizing the position of fellow-commoners, pensioners, sizars, and subsizars as members of the College, and bringing them under the same rule as scholars. ”

“ The College is described as a human body. The Master was the head, endued with the five senses of seeing clearly, hearing discreetly, smelling sagaciously, tasting moderately, and touching fitly; the senior Fellow was the neck; the Deans were the shoulders; the two priests the sides; the Bursars the arms and hands; the Fellows the stomach; the scholars the legs; and the servants the feet, whose function it is to go whithersoever they are bidden. Just as the body when sick would require a physician, so it was said would the College sometimes require a visitor. ”

“ But it is perfectly well understood that in this community the degree of Bachelor of Arts is for most men the one essential condition of admission to the noble fraternity of scholars, to what has been called the "Guild of the Learned." ”

“ Now, for the first time, when we have to accompany the Student from the Academy into Life, we must call to mind that the studies and character of the Progressive Scholar are not necessarily completed with his residence at the University ”

“ When he was introduced, a student said, “There is no man more truly liked in the university than Professor ——.” As he talked, we felt that, while he might be a good teacher of chemistry, his department was chiefly important in giving him a point of departure from which he could go forth to interest himself in the life of young men. ”

“ No other cause was assigned for the action of the faculty than that they deemed it against the interest of the college to permit them to do so, on account of the dissatisfaction which it gave to certain male students, etc. ***The goal to which all medical and dental students look, is graduation and the diploma, which is to be the evidence of their qualification to practice their art. To qualify themselves for this they bestow their time, their money and their labor. ”

“ Whether in course or by indirection, whether by a cramming tutor or by examiners with prizes and foundation scholarships, education according to the English notion of it is arrived at. I looked over the Examination Papers of the year 1848, for the various scholarships and fellowships, the Lusby, the Hertford, the Dean-Ireland, and the University, (copies of which were kindly given me by a Greek professor,) containing the tasks which many competitors had victoriously performed, and I believed they would prove too severe tests for the candidates for a Bachelor's degree in Yale or Harvard. ”

“ The doctor, the lawyer, the clergyman, the miner, the farmer, and even the accountant, the dentist, and the farrier, each has his college, but where is the college for the "home-maker?" Its necessity is not even perceived. ”

“ Training for citizenship and the preparation of the scholar are then the twofold function of the college. To furnish professional training for lawyers, doctors, ministers, engineers, librarians, is manifestly the work of the university or the technical school, and not the function of the college. Neither is it, in my opinion, the work of the college to prepare its students specifically to be teachers or even wives and husbands, mothers and fathers. ”

“ Three elements compose the graduate college. Foremost is a body of first rate professors, to be added to others now in the faculty, interesting men, scholars of high power, eminent in their subjects, and able to waken young men. ”