Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/37

Rh your sister university, the official child of the state. It is for you and for her to work in unison, the same in final purpose, somewhat different in the way of reaching it. The most wonderful thing in educational development since Alfred founded Oxford and Charlemagne Paris, has been the rise of the state universities of America. These are schools established by the people, paid for by the people, built for their own good, limited by no tradition, but rising in power and usefulness with the rise of the common man's intelligence and wealth. Great men have built them but these were not kings, nor millionaires, nor politicians, nor priests. They were simply school teachers, with the common man behind them. The material support of the University of Colorado is the personal interest of the many. The support of Colorado College is the intensive interest of the few. The word intensive suggests the nature of her opportunities. The state university must concern itself largely with the development of the professions as a whole, the general intellectual welfare of the state. Every citizen has a stake in it, each citizen has the right to make a demand.

The independent college can make its own clientage; Colorado College is not confined to Colorado. It may be cosmopolitan. Its mission is not to raise the level of professional work or of intellectual life in Colorado. It can aim at higher results, though they be less broad, to give the exceptional man or woman an exceptional opportunity, through the use of the finest agencies within a narrower field. Along this lies the future of the privately endowed colleges and universities. We may not do all things worth doing, but we can do some things better than the state universities can, by virtue of an independent position. The superiority of the independent college must be real so far as it goes. It may lie in research, in excellence of teaching or in the loftiness of personal influence; its range may not be so broad, but it may rise higher, it may come nearer to the heart.

I could not be a son of my own fair state, a 'native son' by adoption, did I not say a word as to the glorious climate which Colorado College may add to the roll of her advantages. Here in Colorado, as in California, nature is kind to man, the weather never makes him its slave, never shuts him up to stew in over-heated prisons.

Colorado, like California, is a virile state, one of 'earth's male lands,' to adopt Browning's classification. It has, like California, the three splendid attributes of healthful air, magnificent scenery and physical and mental standing room. It breeds independent, all-around men. Colorado flows red blood. She has the out-of-doors atmosphere—freed from the narrow cramped public opinion that is made in overheated houses, the public opinion of the village of white houses and green blinds, where everybody knows everybody's business. It has the public opinion of the man who stands on his own feet, cares for his