Place in the Educational The State universities in many instances, and espe cially in the Middle West, are a deliberately planned and component part of the educa tional system of their States. The educational system in a State which emphasizes such a plan may be said to cover 16 years, eight in the elementary school, four in the high school and four in the college. The articulation of the different parts is complete. The grammar school graduate passes into the high school without examination and the graduate of the approved high school enters his State uni versity without examination. The State uni versity in such an instance is the natural cap stone of thd State s educational system. The relation of the State universities very gen erally to the schools below, and especially to the high schools, is intimate and helpful. The relation has its personal and human side due to the intelligent and tactful activity of uni versity high-school visitors whose business it is to visit and inspect high schools for the maintenance of an accredited entrance list. Cordial relations are also further cemented by frequent conferences at the universities of superintendents and principals and teachers upon topics of mutual interest. The high schools are invigorated and inspired by contact with the universities and the universities are kept sane in their entrance requirements by intimate knowledge of the capacity of their prospective students.
Social The social life at the univer sities is ordinarily democratic and wholesome. Greek-letter fraternities for men and sororities for women, national in character, have after many vicissitudes proved their right to perma nent place in university life. They are now rarely frowned upon and are often encouraged by university faculties. Many of them have per manent homes at the university seat and con tribute largely to the comfort and social op portunity of their members. They also are coming to be a means of aiding rather than of hindering university discipline and are fre quently employed by tactful college officers in forming and directing student sentiment and action. The relation of men and women stu dents is on the whole helpful to both sexes. The social and college intermingling of men and women is natural, and the disadvantages of a co-educational system, if there are any, are hardly thought of in a great State uni versity. Physical training for men and for women is everywhere emphasized and class and club and fraternity games are very common. Athletics — basketball, football, baseball and track and field sports — occupy the spare time of the students and are valued more by col lege authorities than the public ordinarily un derstands as means of creating healthy college spirit and of controlling the enthusiasm of youth. The military band, glee and mandolin clubs, literary and scientific societies also con tribute to the enrichment of university life.
Progress and The older state universities may now be said to have passed the creative or building stage. Their growth and de velopment has been unprecedented, but it has not been without heroic struggle. The people in every commonwealth almost, especially in the Middle West and the Far West, have been united in their desire for a State institution of higher learning, but they have rarely known how best to go about creating and building such an institution. It has remained for educational statesmen — and it has called for statesman ship of the highest order—to lay down the guiding policies and educate the public to a right appreciation of its university. Singularly enough — and yet in a certain sense naturally enough too — the very public which has sought to promote the university has steadfastly in sisted that it .should prove its worth step by step. Hardly a State university has not gone through the period of being an outcast in the eyes of its own constituents. This means that patience and tact and disinterested public serv ice is woven into the fabric of every one of them. The elementary scope of their progress is now well nigh over. Legislatures need no longer he convinced of their legitimate place and func tion in the life of the commonwealth, they no longer have to be haled into the open court of public opinion to establish reputable char acter. They have arrived in the minds of the public.
For the last two or three decades much has been heard — sometimes directly from their own press bureaus — about the growth of their appropriations, the size and number and cost of their buildings, the number of their stu dents and in general the 'bigness" of their work. This prevailing note has been natural because the material growth of the State uni versities has of itself changed the educational map of the United States. The enduring serv ice and the progress that is in the long run to count the most is to come through the build ing of the invisible universities within and with out the magnificent walls that have been set up. The bringing together of trained teachers and scholars, the creation of libraries and labora tories and museums that shall do fine as well as large things, the searching out of new truths, the widening of human knowledge, the leader ship of the State in the promotion of health, creature comforts for the masses, sound ad ministration of public affairs— these are the things that are beginning to characterize the State university of to-day and that will un doubtedly signalize its service in the future. There is no better endowment than the will of a great free people for better things and this is the continuing heritage of the State uni versities.