The President's report to the Board of Regents for the academic year Financial statement for the fiscal year

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ...her ability to manifest new standards of thoroughness and accuracy. We have been a race of pioneers. We have simply done the best we could under all the circumstances. Our achievements in the past have been notable, but we have now reached a stage where future world leadership will depend upon higher standards of work in every field. Repeatedly, and I fear truthfully, it has been asserted by our foreign critics that our outstanding vice as a nation is superficiality. Whether one considers our manufactured commodities, our architecture, literature, music, or education, there has been a real basis in the past for such an accusation. Whether we have been constructing a railroad, painting a picture, writing a book, or building a cathedral, we have rarely felt that we have had time to perform the task properly and thoroughly. Our method of work has affected our temperament as a race and our standards as a nation. The fact is that this whole situation has reflected itself in American home life and education. Our youth are restless. They rarely evince those qualities for patience and hard work which lie at the basis of national prosperity. In our schools we have not insisted upon precise, accurate, painstaking scholarship. Just what is meant by accuracy? I take it that "accuracy" comes from ad and curare, and means carefulness, definiteness, and exactness. From the negative point of view it means the absence of mistakes, freedom from errors, and elimination of defects. Positively, it calls for precision and for a delicacy and fineness in thought and work which are all too rare with American students. It likewise calls for that "rigor and vigor" which the mathematical and scientific disciplines inculcate. Practically, for our universities today,...