Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Overview and State of the University (1913) [PAGE 34]

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possibly in the other fact that lncr< iin| numb< I may not h, ble to secure suitable rooma > nourishing food at i d ..able The difficulty about homes is a leri I one. To often rooms are not what they should be, and I 1 is not as nourishing as it might be. And the effort to make the charge ex. essive i ntThe University has alwaj tried: avoid then ponsibility of startinga system of dormitories, but may eventually have to come to it

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It has been hoped, and is still hoped, that tin- surplus Capital, of which there is plenty, in the adjacent citi I would build suitable apartment houses, near the campus, to m t the needs of the faculty and students; that common sentiment would gradually improve the living, and that rates would have some consideration for the worthy who are struggling against odds to secure a liberal education. This is, in the main, the uncertain factor in reckoning upon future attendance of students at this University. As it may be eliminated, it doubtless will he. If so, there is little reason to doubt that inside of another ten years the attendance at the University proper will reach four or five thousand, and that, with the professional schools, which are as legitimately and completely a part of the University as any other part, we shall be, so far as numbers are concerned, among the first three or four of American universities. Established, unlike any other, with the departments which thrive best away from a large city located in a rural environment and with our great medical departments at the heart of one of tin greatest cities, indeed at the very largest center of medical education in the world, we might easily come to be, in point of numbers, the largest University in America. But we readily see that the largest is not necessarily the st n >ngest or the greatest. Of infinitely more importance than anything else is the quality of the instruction, and the spirit of the students. The level of scholarship must be high, and t.-ie quest for 11 e w truth general and serious, the ideals must be noble, the organization must be comprehensive, the work must apply to the circumstances of a constituency, before a university can be strong or great In these regards we are likely to see early and very decided advances. Because we say that we are to advance to the best university } ideals it would be thoroughly unjust to infer that the work of tl University has been of a low grade. On the contrary, its work h * been high, and earnest, and its graduates are standing up well !*' erting their full meed of influence, and winning their full share * | 6