Address to Freshmen by Pres. William Mather Lewis, 1925

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Address of Welcome to Freshmen September 23, 1925

PRESIDENT WILLIAM MATHER LEWIS

Among our overworked expressions none is more in need of a rest than this: “Welcome to our city.” And yet that is exactly what I wish to say to you today because you are taking up your residence in a community of letters, of social and athletic life, different from that in which you have resided. I use the word “welcome” advisedly because you are entering a friendly community, a community in which those of longer residence are anxious to make your stay here pleasant and exceedingly worth while.

Many who have come into this and similar university communities from the high schools have found their residence therein difficult and unhappy because they have not at the beginning secured information about the community which would enable them to go about without loss of time and energy. You may have had the experience of visiting a strange city and attempting to locate certain office buildings and residences without asking the assistance of someone who knew—the porter in the hotel or the policeman on the corner, perhaps. And you know the infinite amount of time that was wasted in that procedure. Perhaps, in a strange city you have unintentionally broken the traffic laws which you would have been perfectly willing to obey had you known them.

Now in this university community there are many things which you can find out for yourselves by hard and wasteful experience, or you can learn them from authoritative sources and save much time. There are certain regulations in this community relative to your conduct, to your duties toward your fellows and the institution which are easy to understand; and understanding, to avoid difficulty. The purpose of our meeting today is to introduce you to the new community in which you have cast your lot.

Driving along the road toward a new city you come to a great open book which tells you something of the history and the features of the community which you will soon enter. What is George Washington University? Centuries ago Saint Paul said. “I am a citizen of no mean city,” and you may well say that of this institution. George Washington University has a long and honorable record. This is the 105th year of its existence. Founded with the ideal of George Washington himself that there should be in the Federal City a higher educational institution serving the Nation, this institution opened its doors in 1821. The first commencement was held on the fifteenth of December, 1824, when President Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and General Lafayette honored the occasion with their presence. In those early days Luther Rice, the first President, and other devoted men, gave the best that was in them to add strength to the struggling institution; and through the century since they were here other men and women, professors, alumni and students alike, have striven to give us the institution which we have today—an institution of 6,000 students with constantly improving equipment, faculty members who are leaders in their field of thought, organizations for intellectual, social and athletic activities of which we may be proud.

George Washington University was founded and is maintained for the purpose of supplying broad culture and sound professional education to those who seriously desire education. The University is what it is because of what men and women have put into it. As you enter this community you assume responsibility to carry high the flag of this institution. The Scripture says, “No man liveth or dieth unto himself.” No university student can consider himself merely an individual. He is making not only his own reputation, but the reputation of the institution which in the eyes of many is judged by him.

What is your reason for taking up residence in this community? Are you coming to the University with no clearly defined idea of what you wish to gain aside from the idea, that it is the “thing” to go to college, that you are to find pleasure here, that you are to participate in various activities of a social and an athletic nature? If the opportunity of the University means no more to you than that, your life here will not be worth what it is costing you in time and money. You have a chance either to invest or to throw away some of the best years of your life, and you will do one thing or the other according to what your vision of a college education is.

In the early days of our national life colleges were institutions in which the only activity was the intellectual activity, the preparation of the mind for efficient use. Gradually there grew up various interests and activities around the central idea. There developed the athletic interests, first informally with groups of students playing among themselves and then the system of intercollegiate athletics which now occupies so much attention. There grew up the fraternity organization and the national groups of fraternities. The dramatic society found its place, and an ever more highly developed social life. But the fact remains that with all these alluring adjuncts—side shows, as Woodrow Wilson called them—the main purpose of the University remains what it was originally, to prepare students intellectually to meet life and to make the most of it. If this were not true all the effort that has been put into the building of this institution and other educational institutions would be a tragic waste.

Let no man tell you that it is the activities of the University outside of the classroom which count for most. Let no one tell you that it does not mean anything to do good work in your classes. The old contention that the student who ranks high in college is never heard from thereafter has been exploded by modern statistics. The students whose ideal is, as the slang phrase puts it, “to get by” in the University, will have in the majority of cases the same attitude toward their life work; and unfortunately the vast majority of the people in active life are merely “getting by.” We wish you to enjoy the various activities of the University. Your human relations with your fellows in social life, in athletics, in debate and dramatics, all these things, are part of your education, but they do not hold the unique opportunity which the University and no other organization can offer you.

What is this thing we call “education”; the thing which you are to acquire? It is not the accumulation of marketable information. If it were, you could better invest your money in a set of encyclopedias than in tuition. It is the gaining of mental control. Dr. Little, the great chemical engineer, defines the man of science as one having “the simplicity to wonder, the ability to question, the power to generalize and the capacity to apply.” That is a good standard by which to measure your intellectual fitness. The simplicity to wonder! There is no more hopeless individual in college or in any activity of life than the know-it-all. If there is nothing that you can learn, why have you come to the University? Says Gavit, “The failure of many a student is dated precisely from the day when they first lost step, perhaps in some minor studies, and had not the courage or the common sense to face it or to go to someone who would have been glad to restore them to the procession.”

I have said that you are in a friendly community. Your instructors’ success is measured by your success. They wish you to succeed. Do not in the first days of your University course let any essential of classroom work get by without your understanding it. If you do not understand the elements upon which your future work is to be built there is no chance of your making a success. Mental development depends upon logical sequence. If you miss one point the general sequence is broken. You are here essentially to learn how to think. I have had alumni say to me that they have not used a thing they gained in their University course. If so, that is because they do not realize the essential thing for which they were here. In other words, while they have got through their work, their work did not get through them, and to the very last they did not know what it was all about.

If at the start you have the vision of what you are here for you are going to be saved the tragic mistake of trying to gain credits in any other way than by your own achievement. The foolishness of the student who deliberately cheats himself of an education by attempting to cheat his instructors is well illustrated by the ancient but effective story of the man who, after buying a railroad ticket, turned to his friend and said, “There! I have got even with this great corporation at last. I have bought a round-trip ticket and I am not coming back at all!” It is not credit that you are here for but education. As President Lowell of Harvard has pointed out, the persons who show all that they have gained at the University by presenting some credits on a paper are usual presenting credit on a defunct bank. In other words, the record of the three credits in Latin is all that they have to show. The Latin itself has not “taken.” Hold fast to that which is good in your study, and the credits will take care of themselves.

Having gained an idea of what you are in the University for, it then becomes easy to chart you course. The first thing to do is to budget your time. You have come from high schools where your day was pretty closely scheduled for you. In this community you will find more of independence, arid in order to be successful you must have a plan for it. You know the number of hours a day that are to be taken up by recitations. Above that you should set aside the requisite number of hours for study and a number for athletic participation and other recreation. If you follow a, schedule you will find that you can accomplish much more and can enjoy many opportunities which will not be yours if you live on a hit or miss plan.

A prospective University student once said to a wise man, “I am afraid I can not get through four years,” and the man replied to him, “That is not the question. Can you get through twenty-four hours? That is all you have to live at a time.” In that time which you set aside for study there is the greatest danger of waste. Says Lockwood, “Now the trouble with many freshmen is that they have never learned how to hold their attention closely and strongly to a, set task. They are given to dawdling and idle day dreaming. They are at the mercy of every sensation and every enticement. And educated person learns to do the thing he does not want to do at the time he does not want to do it. ‘I know a person, for example,’ writes William James, ‘who will poke the fire, set chairs straight, pick dust specs from the floor, arrange his table, snatch up the newspaper, take down any book which catches his eye, waste the morning anyhow, and all without premeditation simply because the one thing which he should attend to is the preparation of a noonday lesson in formal Logic, which he detests. Anything but that!’” What one of us does not see himself reflected in this description?

There is a technique for study just as there is a technique for punting a football or running one hundred yards. Kornhauser suggests these elements, among others:
1. The driving motive, a real desire to learn. You never do anything well in which you are not interested.
2. Concentration. You can not accomplish anything mentally with a wandering and distracted mind any more than you can run a hundred yards if you zig-zag back and forth across the track.
3. System and regularity. There is a great deal to be gained by studying the same lesson at the same time each day.
4. Learning to read effectively.
5. Fitting yourself to the teaching method of your various classes. There are various teaching methods which you will meet: The lecture method, the discussion method and the quiz method. Suit your attitude to the method in the particular class. Learn the personality of the teacher and tune in with it.

I will have more to say to you as the year goes on relative to this all-important subject of how to study, but in this preliminary survey I wish to emphasize that in the use of your mind there are just as well defined rules leading to success as there are in the use of your body in physical games.

I have said that in the University you can not live to yourself. You can not be selfish and be successful. It costs nothing to be courteous, and courtesy pays large dividends. If it can be said of a man when he has been graduated from college that he has not the qualities of a gentleman, or of a woman, that she has not those of a lady, then an essential element in education has been missed. It is not necessary here to enumerate specific acts of courtesy. Most of us know them but neglect them through indifference. True courtesy indicates high character, and the world today needs men and women of high character. You come to the University with certain ideas. If those ideals are good, cling to them. It will be a tragedy if you lose them in the University. If those ideals are not high, replace them, for they are a weak point in your armor. Stand for what you believe to be right. The author of that valuable book, “Not In The Curriculum,” has this suggestion to make to the youth entering the University, “Realize at the start that your class will divide itself in time into those who follow and those who lead. The former is, unfortunately, much too numerous. They are characterized as good fellows, seldom as men. Their character and conduct depend largely upon the crowd they travel with. They let other men do their thinking for them and accept the ideas of these men without examining them for their worth. The men who lead do so because they have a positive forcefulness about them. They may lead through ability; they may lead through personality. Which sort of man is it preferable to be? Would you rather assert your independence and stand alone when necessary, or be one who always does what the crowd does?”

The purpose of the University is, I repeat, largely centered in the development of intellectual independence and resourcefulness. If you are easily led, if you can be swung away from your ideals by any individual or group, you are not developing these elements. In the development of character many elements must be watched. Common honesty is not the least of these, common honesty which manifests itself in examination and in classroom work, in the meeting of financial responsibilities in scrupulously carrying out your agreements with your fellow students.

Character has to do with cleanness of thought and speech. The student who has not these qualities does not rank very high in the calm judgment of his fellows. Character has to do with moral integrity. I observed in Santa, Barbara this summer that the earthquake did not affect buildings which were properly constructed. When you go into active life you will have to face many a hard impact. You will meet more than one situation where you will stand or fall according as you have built or weakened character.

To be courteous, to be honest, to be clean, these are not matters having to do with arbitrary university rules. These are essential parts in a successful education. The building of character is aided by an appreciation of spiritual values, by an attitude of real reverence. As a newspaper writer suggested a short time ago, there is a vast difference between religion and theology. Three days each week in this room we meet for a brief religious service followed by an address on a religious or secular topic, or by music that is worth hearing. There is no break between the religious part of the exercises and that which follows because there is no conflict between religion and science and art and all the other truths in the world. Your university life will mean much more to you if you participate in these chapel exercises, and you will participate I am sure if your idea is to get as much, as you can out of your life here instead of as little as you can.

In budgeting your time take due consideration of the activities of the University after you have laid aside the necessary hours for the purposes of study. Much of the culture which every university graduate should have but which may unfortunately lack, may be found in attention to muisc. Here the Glee Club for men, the Choral Society for women offer you opportunities. There are also the dramatic organizations whose work affords recreation and at the same time a, high type of education. There are the opportunities for debate. To represent George Washington University on a debate team is a distinction. To find a place on the team which will go to England next year would be a rare privilege. That man or woman who goes into active life without the power of effective public speech is handicapped. Do not neglect the athletics of the University. Our ideal here is not for a few highly specialized athletes making brilliant records in competitions. It is that all our students shall take some active part in games and in physical training of various kinds, that they may come through college with healthy bodies as well as with healthy minds. Competition in athletics teaches self-restraint, good sportsmanship and team work, elements which you can not neglect. There is something wrong with the student who would rather loaf during recreation hours, who seeks enervating and softening amusements rather than to participate in the give and take of the athletic field, and in the stimulating interests of debate and dramatics and musical organizations. If you do not elect and follow through some activity in the University calendar you are not doing what you should for yourself, for your fellows and for your University.

Finally, let me emphasize the fact that your success is going to depend upon your determination and persistence. College is not a flowery bed of ease. We wish to make it as pleasant and as easy as we can for the student seriously seeking an education here, no matter how hard it may be for him to get it. We wish to make it anything but easy for the student who comes here simply to idle away his time, for that student has not the stuff to make a creditable graduate of this institution. As David R. Forgan once said in addressing a graduating class, “The young man or woman who is looking for a soft place in life can generally find it under his hat.”

Give thought to why you are in the University. Give thought to what you are going to do after you leave the University. Eighty per cent of our business men fail at one time or another in their careers because they have drifted into life work. Talk with your professors, with your parents, with men and women successful in various fields of business, and decide as soon as you may wisely, how you are going to use your education. After all, to quote Gavit again, “As a minimum requisite to make the most of his opportunities in college one must take with him anyway, first, a reasonable measure of common horse sense with initiative, self-reliance and the determination to make the most of one’s capacities and opportunities; second, some appreciation of the fact that nothing in the universe or conceivable by the mind of man is beyond the proper scope of his interest and concern.”

In entering this city of learning get your directions clear; realize that it is a friendly city; consult those who can guide you properly; determine that you will be a, good citizen, adding something to the reputation of this community; realize why you are here. And then with vision and determination go on to the success that surely will be yours.

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Author or Source: RG0031/University Historical Materials
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: April 3, 2007
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick

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