Alumni

“ To glance through the average college or university history one would imagine these associations sprang full-armed, with no preliminary throes of organization. Suddenly we find the alumni asserting their desires in some important matter and thenceforth their voice has a recognized place in university councils. It is quite obvious that the significance of this movement among college graduates was not recognized for a long time. Everywhere the graduates were slow in finding themselves; and it is safe to say that an efficient alumni sentiment was almost unknown until within the last fifty years. ”

“ These graduates have organized themselves into Alumni and Alumnæ Associations and maintain their fellowship, principally in social, but partly in educative work. The school button or pin and the alumni pin prove that these young folks are quite as human as those of other schools and colleges. ”

“ For I have heard it said by those who have to do with college discipline that their alumni are no longer invariably distinguished by 'a gentle nature and studious habits'--qualities for which, as the Warden of Merton says, colleges were originally intended to provide a welcome haven of rest, and which are now the especial and gratifying characteristics of that whilom roisterer and boon companion, the Unattached Student. ”

“ The alumni are the best possible sources of keeping the faculty informed as to what the world really wants in the way of trained men and women, and, for the students, of information, suggestions, and jobs, both temporary and permanent. ”

“ The first attempt at a general alumni organization seems to have been a meeting of the alumni at Williams College at Commencement time, in 1821, to organize a Society of [329] Alumni. The purpose of the proposed association was set forth in the following words:
The meeting is notified at the request of a number of gentlemen, educated at this institution, who are desirous that the true state of the college be known to the alumni, and that the influence and patronage of those it has educated may be united for its support, protection, and improvement. ”

“ The potential effectiveness of the alumni organization was increased by the formation of a National Alumni Association, whose working administrative centre was the Graduate Council of about 100, representing the graduate classes, the alumni associations, and different regional districts of the country. The national character of the university was expressly recognized by the addition of regional trustees to the governing board, and also by the establishment of a large number of regional competitive scholarships. ”

“ 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 educational effect of our exaggerated emphasis on intercollegiate athletics is shown in the attitude of alumni. It is difficult to arouse the interest of a large proportion of graduates in anything else. At one of the best of our small colleges, in the Mississippi Valley, I saw a massive concrete grandstand. This valiant emulation of the Harvard stadium seemed to me to typify the indifference of alumni to the crying needs of their alma mater. ”

“ There has been too much tendency to make the fraternity the end and not the means.
The alumni have not realized that the atmosphere of the chapter-house determines the character of the chapter’s influence on its individual members, and that the ultimate responsibility for this atmosphere is on the alumni. If we would make this atmosphere permanently good, we must appreciate that the alumni are the permanent and the undergraduates the transient body—completely changing every three years; and the seniors, the governing body, every year. ”

“ Keep your intellectual interests and your interest in your alma mater, not in her athletics and her fraternities alone. Remember that as alumni of this University you are citizens of no mean city. Recruit men and women whom she ought to have and who ought to have her, remembering that the danger to this country from the inside, and it is no inconsiderable danger, is mainly due to the misdirected zeal of sincere people who lack knowledge and background. ”

“ They get the local financial celebrities on their boards; they get the Gothic buildings with arrow-proof windows, and ivy of the quickest growing variety; they dress up their faculty in fancy robes, and their graduating students in caps and gowns; they have their fraternities and sororities, their full equipment of athletic teams and alumni boosters. ”

“ Each man has his own talent. This he should cultivate. ‘Act well your part, there all the honor lies.’ The address abounded in striking passages and terse statements.”
“President Cravath then, in behalf of the Trustees of the University, addressed the graduating class in fitly chosen words, and gave them their diplomas.
“At two o’clock the alumni dinner, one of the institutions of Commencement week, came off. About sixty guests, including former graduates, members of the college classes, and various ministers of city churches, sat down with students and teachers to an ample collation. ”

“ Now the professors, though at great inconvenience, permit the students to consult their standard works. When we have a building devoted to the three professions, the law library should become at once an accomplished fact.
This year in the academic department we had no graduating class. Our anniversary exercises have been somewhat out of the usual order, but thoroughly interesting and successful. Perhaps never have we met the popular taste more fully than this year. The old graduates were invited to return and take part in the first public anniversary meeting of the Alumni. ”

“ When Commencement comes you move about the campus like some tall mountain peak on legs. The students bring their young brothers up to meet you and you try to be kind and approachable. They give you a tremendous cheer when you go down the aisle in the chapel to get your prizes. You are referred [Pg 290] to on all sides as one of the reasons why America is great. The professors when they bid you good-by ask you anxiously not to forget them. Then Commencement is over and college life is past, and there is nothing left in life but to become a senator or run a darned old trust. ”

“ As we filed out into the light of the noon sun, and could easily discover the towering, broad shoulders of Ellis, our leader, at the head of the line, I thought of the honor he had brought to the college in his four years’ presence in it, and saw in him the union of all that is best in American college life and those qualities which the college aims to invest in every willing student’s life: loyalty to one’s fellows, physical fitness, moral alertness, humility in success, and a respect for the law that governs men and nations. ”

“ Whatever degrees you carry from school or college, whatever distinction you may acquire in your career, no title will ever mean quite so much, will ever be quite so noble, as that of gentleman.
"A keen and sure sense of honor," says Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard University, "is the finest result of college life." The graduate who has not acquired this keen and sure sense of honor, this thing that stamps the gentleman, misses the best thing that a college education can impart. ”

“ The most precious thing of all, however, if you have made the most of your chance, is the uplift, encouragement, inspiration, which you have absorbed from your teachers, from your associations; this is the embodiment of the college spirit, the spirit of your alma mater; it is that which should make you reach up as well as on, which should make you aspire instead of grovel—look up, instead of down.
The graduate should regard his education as a sacred trust. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Once upon a time a certain old graduate found himself in the midst of a beautiful college campus. On all sides he beheld old beloved scenes and well-remembered landmarks; but also he discovered new haunts, new places, unfamiliar and somehow unwelcome to him. And about him, as he stood there gazing, came and went many of the same recognizable types of lovable undergraduate humanity; and yet here in the crowd strolled one sort and over there across the way stood another sort that seemed strange and unexpected. ”

“ This is ever a proud day for Eminence College. Annually on these festive occasions do the hearts of the many thousands who have gone out from these classic halls turn to them again with longing. Memory, unfettered by space, walks again amid these lovely bowers and responds unconsciously to the greetings of other days. Though separated far, and mingling in the busy scenes of life, how their souls revel in these delights! These college associations are the golden links which bind many hearts in an unbroken chain. The chords so exquisitely touched in our hearts to-day will vibrate for an age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only upon the shields of our American universities do we find “veritas”; in spirit at least it is also clearly written across the face of the entire college life of our times. Gentlemanliness, open-mindedness, originality, honor, patriotism, truth—these are increasingly found in both the serious pursuits and the play life of our American undergraduates. The department in which these ideals are sought is not so important as the certainty that the student is forming such ideals of thoroughness and perfection. ”

“ Following out that line of thought, there is a great deal that is attractive in a gathering of College men. They have such a winsome and a winning way with them.
Richest in endowments, foremost in progress, honored by the renown of a long line of distinguished sons, the university that claims you is worthy of the homage and respect which it receives from the educated men of America. ”

“ Of the spirit that actuates the College, of all that makes it a living Society, I have said little. In truth, these are incapable of analysis. The charm that the place perennially exercises on those who, generation after generation, make it their home, the affection it inspires, are intangible: they exist, there are but few members of the House who have not felt them, and perhaps that is all I need say on this aspect of our history.
29 A paper read to a party of north-country students visiting the College in 1906. ”

“ There every professor and every senior wears his uniform as if he were used to it; each one knows his place and his part and performs it impressively. The academic procession, headed by the regents in their gowns and followed by the members of the various faculties with their characteristic hoods and stripes, and by the senior classes of the college and the various professional schools, is perfect in its orderly procedure, and the commencement exercises themselves are carried through with a solemnity which is sometimes awesome. ”

“ Beloved instructors, it is character not less than intellect that you have striven to develop. As we stand at the end of our college course, and turn our eyes toward the scenes forever past—as our memories linger on the words of wisdom which have fallen from your lips, we are more and more deeply impressed with the true conception of duty which you have ever shown. You have sought not to trim the lamp of genius until the light of morality is paled by its dazzling brilliance, but to encourage and strengthen both. ”

“ 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. ”