Bee, 1927-06-07

              the bee the greater university of buffalo weekly vol 7 university of buffalo june 7 1927 no 30 chancellor capen addresses graduates in baccalaureate services held at buffalo state normal college auditorium the baccalaureate service of the com mencement of the university of buf falo took place on sunday june 5 at the buffalo state normal college audi torium the invocation and benediction were pronounced by dr miles carpen ter chancellor samuel p capen fol lowing the custom established last year ilelivered the baccalaureate address to the graduates the seniors are now entering upon a thrilling and trying period in their lives ahead lies what no one knows adventure in the finest sense for most of you that's certain said chancellor capen this time of pain ful leavetakings is overshadowed by a great eagerness to penetrate into the fog wall of the future but it is well at this time to pause and take stock both of yourselves and of this institu tion what has the university been trying to do for you the question must be immediately transposed into broader and less per sonal terms what are universities for the most apparent object of a university the one which is immediate ly perceived by all ami which has been perhaps the primary cause of their es tablishment is professional training equally obvious and familiar is a uni versity's purpose of giving general non-professional education on its high est level in general education as universities are concerned with it deals with the past performance of the race and with existing methods for exploit ing nature and interpreting social phe nomena the more penetrating observers of universities conceive that they have another obligation less familiar anil less apparent they exist not merely to transmit knowledge whether it be general information regarding men and things or the technical information requisite for the practice of a profes sion but they exist also for the purpose of creating knowledge universities arc civilization's scouts and pioneers often many years elapse before civili zation moves in and finally settles on the territories they have discovered anil surveyed in the long march of human progress it is precisely this voyaging into the unknown that is of all the tasks of universities the most impor tant but there is one more thing that universities are for that is still less gen erally comprehended universities ex ist in part to inculcate and create ideals this is a silent and unofficial process yet the promotion of ideal ism is with the single exception of the extension of the boundaries of knowl edge the most important contribution that universities make to society by idealism is meant the striving after perfection in certain of the pro fessions there is a more or less formal code of ethics in which the student is instructed in others the code i un written and no set law exists but such odes arc not what is meant by ideal ism that reaches beyond and above no codes furnished the motive for the risk of self-made by dr walter reed and his associates in their search for the cause and cure of yellow fever it nas not in conformity with the provi sions of any code that wendell phillips ur abraham lincoln assailed the evils of slavery and advocated the extra legal cause of abolition indeed the university's silent leaching goes far beyond codes beyond precepts written or unwritten it has always in view these finest examples of professional behavior in training pro fessional practitioners it lays upon general reunion and frolic of u of b alumni to follow commencement exercises chancellor capen to a ddress a lumni on general progress shredded wheat brass band chartered for the occasion a great alumni day is planned for this afternoon by the alumni associa tion of the university of buffalo it was announced thursday evening at a meet ing of the committee in charge following the commencement excr eisea several chartered cars will take the graduating class and their friends from the elmwood music hall to the campus in main street near the city the members of the present graduat ing class their friends and those who graduated in former years will gather on the campus at noon under a large tent a buffet luncheon will be served while outside the shredded wheat brass hand will play college airs at 2 o'clock the graduating seniors will form two long rows between which the older alumni headed by the brass band will march in grand parade to ro tary field the oldest class present will lend the procession and will be followed by those next in point of age graduates of 1927 following in at the rear chancellor capen will address the alumni on the general progress of the university other speakers of promi nence will discuss the importance of the alumni in university life after which time will lie allowed for social mingling where it is expected many alumni who hava not met for years will resume old friendships the five-year classes are invited to take a prominent part 1927 1922 1917 and so on back in five-year intervals to the class of 1882 the alumni have too inadequate an idea of the extent to which their uni versity has grown it is hoped that this general alumni reunion will bring n large number to the campus who will see the evidence of progress said mr henry adsit bull chairman of the com mittee in charge dr richard wilson boynton presi dent of the alumni association made the following statement the alumni of the different profes sional schools have been accustomed to meet if at all only in their respective groups the parade with the calling of the classes and the graduates of all de partments in the same year falling into line together should prove valuable in developing a sense of unity which has not existed hitherto among contem porary alumni of the different depart 1 the parade will also bring together many friends not heretofore conscious of the common bond of sympathy which interest in the university should give them it will also be a demonstration of the strength of the alumni as an or ganized body the program has been so arranged that men can leave their offices at noon take in everything and get away by 4 1 o'clock though some will doubtless re main for further inspection of the uni versity and visits with old friends american youth show keen interest in shakespeare american youth now in schools and oolleges show us great nn interest in shakespeare as did their fathers in the days when maude adams e h south ern robert mantell ada rehan rich ard mansfield john drew and viola allen were splendidly portraying the characters of shakespeare's plays de clared prof george pierce baker di rector of the yale university theatre annd executive chairman of the ameri can shakespeare foundation recently the former head of the famous 47 workshop of harvard university made this statement in announcing the results to date of the participation of american schools and colleges in the restoration of the world-renowned shakespeare memorial theatre at strut ford on a von although the younger generation has frequently been characterized as spiritually incapable of appreciating shakespeare said prof baker the generous responses of scholastis youth everywhere tend to refute this despite the charges that the under graduate of today is jazz-mad and ma terialistic 41 colleges representing more than 50,000 students are officially participating in the international move ment to rebuild the burned memorial theatre among these are amherst bowdoin brown cornell hamilton hobart massachusetts agricultural col lege mt holyoke oberlin smith vas sar williams clark and the ttnlver sities of michigan delaware chicago virginia pennsylvania mississippe maine and indiana seventy • two secondary schools throughout the country are also co-op erating it is announced among these arc chestnut hill academy chestnut hill pa choate school wallingford ct finch school new york city freehold military school freehold n j hill school pottstown pa kent school kent ct knox school coop erstown n y mackenzie school mun roe n y middlesex school concord mass phillips exeter exeter n h princeton junior school princeton n j taft school watertown ct west over school middlebury ct thayer academy so braintree mass chicago latin school chicago morristown school morristown n j ; mcgohee school new orleans la ashley hall charlostown s c and westbridge school pasadena california one of the outstanding contributors to the fund it is stated was the hotch kiss school of lakeville ct whose l students the entire school body partici pated in the fund donating 750 in addition the public school system of 12 states connecticut georgia massachusetts alabama tonnesee north carolina arizona louisiana oregon california missouri and utah have announced participation if the campaign for rebuilding the shakespeare memorial theatre retains its present momentum among our amer ican youth in school and college said prof baker in commenting upon these results the work of restoring the only living memorial to shakespeare in all the world may well be described as the gift of american youth to the im mortal bard of avon personnel office has open position notices a few notifications of positions either for the sumer or part time have been received by the personnel office dr jones will be glad to talk them over with onyoue interested the office will be open from 10 to 12 each morning luring the next two weeks if anyone knows of places available for the summer the office will be glad to find people for them pi kappa phi announces its june dance to be held at the grover cleve land clubhouse june 10 j announce new members added to faculty among the new members of the fac ulty next year will be paul j p mahon who conies from the university of minnesota to be an instructor in english stanley d travis from the university of wisconsin instructor in english and curtis d vail comes from columbia after taking his m a to be instructor in german there will probably be two new pro fessors in economics a man to take charge of gcouogy anil geography a new assistant professor of botany and a new instructor in each department of ihilosophy physics and classics personnel office states scholastic standards raised last year the personnel office under the direction of dr e s jones made an effort to raise the standard of scholastic achievement in the college work of the freshmen who were rather shady in their ability heretofore ad ministrators have become almost ex clusively interested in the elimination of those of low intelligence or of in ferior previous high school training it was more or less of an experiment but it proved very successful it has been widely observed that those students from the lower third or two-fifths of their respective high school classes are poor material rough ly it has been found that at u b only one out of six from the lowest fifth of his high school class can main tain anywhere a 0 average and only one-fourth from the second fifth are equally efficient it has also been discovered that the size of the city should be taken into account as the rural and small city institutions send an inferior product to colleges when compared with graduates of large city high schools the follow ing table illustrates quartile points of average marks for graduates from the middle third fifth of their respective schools where a is 1 b is 2 etc with medium h s 15 4.2 4.0 3.7 large city h s 30 3.0 3.3 2.9 in an effort to help these people who would either be rejected or if admitted would undoubtly fail a four-week course in how to study was given to 32 students who registered and com pleted the course various varieties of tests were given as a matter of ex periment and test for the student about twenty hours of tests were used by the end of the period including all training was given to students in their weak places there was drill in writing compositions drill in mathe matics drill in reading drill in note taking and then a series of lectures on mental hygiene note taking abbrevi ations habits attentiveness memoriz ing culture and vocational choice everyone of these was vital to the group and many students made special comment about the worth they felt was embodied in them in addition there were discussions private interviews taehistescope studies and reading it is without a doubt a most success ful adventure the speed of reading average was increased from 4.4 to 5.8 words per second with the best at 6.4 words per second after mid-year it was noted that there was not one fail ure from this group in english only two in alath five in languages and six in general science these results compare very evenly with the upper graded students not included in this this september the course has been cut to three weeks and the number of tests have also been cut only certain ones giving the best results last year will be repeated in the fall program this is one of the first experiments with the inferior freshman ever made dr jones read a paper on this at a conference of the american associa tion for the advancement of science at st louis and a similar report has been accepted by the personnel journal the same thing will be printed in the next issue of the " u b studies college regrets loss of doctor pillsbury the faculty and students of the uni versity regret the loss of dr pillsbury from tlic faculty ho goes to pelham new fork to continue his work in the educational field there and his going is a loss to the school department of the city as well as to the university students awarded scholarships at american colleges will attend geneva school of international studies scholarships have boon awarded at fuur american universities to btudents tii attend the fourth session of the geneva school of international studios which will open on july 11 at the con servatoire dp musiquo in geneva swit borland barnard college has given a scholarship to miss sue osmotherly of kvnnston 111 a junior at cornell a scholarship has been awarded to mr george h dossion a graduate student at the university of chicago to mr royden dangerlicld a graduate stu dent at the university of missouri to mr maynard krueger who is a grad uate student and instructor the uni versity of cincinnati will announce two scholarships for study at the geneva school and the students international union plans to award one several distinguished american schol ars have accepted places on the faculty and will lecture to the students and lead the discussion groups which form a particular feature of the school among the americans on the faculty this year are dr henry seidel canby who will treat the international as pects of literature professor irving fisher of yale whose topic will be world economic problems and the league professor k a millikan of california on the international aspects of science dean julian park of the university of buffalo who will lecture on the foreign policy of the united states professor william f ogburn of the university of chicago other members of the faculty who are well-known in the united states are professor louis eisenmann of the sorbonne who will speak on the culture ■ foreign policy of france dr haas dr jaech of the hochschule fur itik in berlin the former speaking the culture and institutions of ger many and the latter on germany's for eign policy general sir frederick maurice who will treat the technical and military aspects of the problem of disarmament professor gilbert mur ray professor andre siegfried of the ecole des sciences politiques at paris sir arthur salter professor william kappard and dame kachel crowdy the advanced and less advanced groups of students are to be separated to some extent this year particularly in discussion groups so that those who are ready for intensive work in the international field will not be hampered by students whose international knowl edge is elementary an effort is to be made to present clearly to the students the factors in international affairs which produce conflict and discord as well as those making for peace and co operation all information concerning enroll ment at the geneva school of interna tional studies may be hail at the amer ican headquarters 3;)c madison avenue new york city faculty members study and travel abroad while the students are enjoying their hard won rest after exam scat tered in various corners of the globe many of the faculty too have departed to other climes dean julian park will teach at the geneva school of international studies dr edward s jones will teach at cornell university dr niles carpenter will instruct at the university of colorado the following members of the fac ulty are either studying or traveling abroad mr george e brewer jr mr emilio r calvacoa mr c wallace munshower mr osear s suverman time and m cacassa antioch college at yellow springs ohio has decided that next year class attendance will he i ipulsory fur freshmen only the other classes cut ting as they please notice all material fob the s | first issue of the bisox s j must be in to the editoi i by august i the issue i 1 will come out the first | | week of school