1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

THE SCROLL. 125iar sights that he loved so well, memory seeks to console himby bringing afresh before the mind scenes of those early days.How plainly he can see himself as he approached this oldbuilding for the first time, an awkward, ungainly freshman,and heard the spectacled old professor say that he might selecthis own studies, from the course which included the followingimposing array of subjects: algebra, geometry, physics,history, rhetoric and literature! How well he remembersthe shock of resentful surprise he received, when the oldprofessor told him, after this mild and liberal minded statement,that the only thing which was compulsory was a certainamount of labor each day on the farm and gardens.Then come to mind one by one memories of the harmless—if rude and disconcerting—jokes he and his classmates playedupon each of the three old professors who daily dealt out invarying quantities their mental porridge. And he could feeleven now, though be it said somewhat guiltily, the pride whichhad filled him when he learned that the enrollment for thefirst year reached the grand total of seventy-three students!But now—all is so changed! The fenced-in lot has expandedinto the most beautiful campus in the west—perhapsin America; the shambling old building is now supplanted bythirty large and handsome brick and stone structures; thethree old professors have given way to a faculty of four hundredenthusiastic and learned instructors; and the seventythreestudents have multiplied more than fifty fold!These and many things more, were observed by the olderalumni and the faithful old instructors who have grown greyat their work in the university.But what of the four thousand loyal students with theirquick wits and boundless optimism—surely they, too, sawmore than the mere form, the mere spectacle in the installation?Yes, indeed. With youth's natural impatience theirgaze is constantly directed to the future. As yet, their pastmeans little to them, and as the present always seems so commonplace and routine an existence, all their hopes, all theirplans and all the glowing creations of their strong imaginationsare bent to the future.For them the installation of President James marks a radicalchange in the policies of the university. As with anyorganization—be it a business concern, a municipality, or asovereign state, its early policy and the greater part of itsenergies were directed to material betterment. Before themost efficient educational work could be accomplished, there