Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/195

Rh oilier university functions that have become so numerous in recent years realize that their types of character are as various as their interests. As evolution progresses by variation and survival of the fit we may look for rapid progress in educational administration from the great diversity of college presidents presented for natural selection.

The most striking contrast is evident between the inaugural addresses of the new presidents of Northwestern and Princeton. The Salvation Army captain and the Jesuit priest are not more unlike. President James is full of the spirit of democracy and progress; he overflows with the popularization of the university, technical training, coeducation, university extension, correspondence schools and the like. President Wilson dreads all these things. "In order to learn," he tells us, "men must for a little while withdraw from action, must seek some quiet place of remove from the bustle of affairs." "I believe general training, with no particular occupation in view, to be the very heart and essence of university training." President Wilson here obviously confuses the college with the university, due doubtless to the fact that the college of New Jersey has altered its name to Princeton University, without a corresponding extension of its functions. Whether or not a college for liberal culture, student life and athletics should be maintained apart from a university is still a disputed question. President Hadley in his address at the installation of Chancellor Strong, seems to have struck the correct note when he said:

We should seek for the solution of our university problems, not in the enforced addition of a German course to an English one, but in a combination of the English spirit with the German organization; so that we can teach professional studies without teaching the spirit of professionalism. . . . If our educators can manage to combine the framework of the German university with the spirit of the English university, or of the old-fashioned American college, they will economize the time of the student without sacrificing the educational result to be achieved. They will give to the community, for whose benefit they exist, the trained experts on which the community insists; and they will at the same time provide for the maintenance of that healthful public spirit in the individual and public sentiment in the body politic on which it may sometimes perhaps not so strongly insist, but which it needs all the more for its permanent continuance and prosperity.

The four great American engineering societies—The American Society of Civil Engineers, The American Institute of Mining Engineers, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and The American Institute of Electrical Engineers—have united to establish a medal in honor of John Fritz, the well-known iron master and mechanical engineer, who has at Bethlehem done so much to forward the engineering interests of the country. Subscriptions of $10 were invited from the members of these societies and the sum of $6,000 was contributed. The design has been executed by Mr. Victor Brenner, and a gold medal will be awarded each year for achievement in the industrial arts and sciences by a joint committee of the societies mentioned above, and it is expected that this medal will have the same representative character as is held by the Bessemer medal conferred by the British Iron and Steel Institution. In addition to the establishment of this medal, a dinner was held in New York City on October 31 to celebrate Mr. Fritz's eightieth birthday. The arrangements were made by the same societies and five hundred members and guests were present. Speeches were made by representatives of the different societies and others, and Mr. Fritz responded. We reproduce the frontispiece of the program—a portrait of Mr. Fritz, the industries with which he has been identified and his signature.