f "r l ~ OPEN WIDE THE DOOR The Story of the University of Minnesota FOUNDED IN THE FAITH THAT MEN ARE ENNOBLED BY UNDERSTANDING DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH DEVOTION TO THE INSTRUCTION OF YOUTH AND THE WELFARE OF THE STATE Dedication, The Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium University of Minnesota BY JAMES GRAY Novels: The Penciled Frown Shoulder the Sky Wake and Remember Wings of Great Desire Vagabond Path Histories: The Illinois (Rivers of America series) Pine, Stream and Prairie: Wisconsin and Minnesota in Profile (American Scene series) The University of Minnesota, 1851-1951 Business Without Boundary: The Story of General Mills Literary Criticism: On Second Thought American Non-Fiction, 1900-195° (with others) l OPEN WIDE THE DOOR THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA JAMES GRAY 'OUNOtDtU. G. P. PUT N AM'S SON S• NEW Y 0 R K © 1958 by James Gray All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without per­ mission. Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada by Longmans, Green & Co., Toronto. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-10753 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THIS STORY of the University of Minnesota is regarded by its recorder as a collaboration on the part of hundreds of men and women all associated, in more or less conspicuous ways, with the rapid growth of the institution. Though, in its one hundred seventh year, the university is seven years older than the state of Minnesota, its history has been conveniently com­ pressed, by circumstance, into the capacious portmanteau minds of certain enormously creative people. One of these, the first president, William Watts Folwell, had the additional gift of longevity. He survived to be a sprightly ninety-six and generously permitted his distinguished brain to be picked by a curious undergraduate at Minnesota who, of course, had no notion at the time that he would ever become the chronicler of what he was told but who simply enjoyed being given free access to that fine intelligence. In 1948, that same frequent interviewer of Folwell was in­ vited to write a book to appear three years later as a part of the university's centennial celebration. The large volume was issued by the University of Minnesota Press. The present work was prepared within the year especially for this series of studies of the great American universities. Its text is entirely new and it brings the account down to date with a consideration of the administration of the present head of the university, James Lewis Morrill. However, the investigation conducted in the preparation of the earlier book uncovered much of the material presented in this one. Sources for both were either the same or similar. 7 The first step was to interview everyone with a long memory, taking these, with the investigator's grim awareness of the realities of life and death, in the ordet of their probable dis­ appearance from the scene. Included, along with former presi­ dents, their wives or widows, were deans, professors, football coaches, campus "cops." This procedure proved to be highly productive. The academic is notably (only to the ungrateful is he notoriously) communicative. His analytical flow can be counted upon to continue as long as it is not interrupted. Their properly appreciative interviewer never permitted any limitation, except that of the professors' own time, to be im­ posed upon them. The second step was to help channel into the university archives the scattered papers of scores of departments on the several campuses. An understandable reluctance to part with documents-to the academic almost anything on paper is holy writ-at first tended to baffle the investigator. But the persua­ sive gifts of a succession of extraordinarily energetic archivists began, at last, to prevail. When all the sluggish influences had been removed the stream proved to be copious, indeed, con­ taining the papers of presidents, the reports of deans, lecture notes, manuscripts of papers read before convocations and dining clubs, fragments of biography and autobiography, min­ utes of department meetings (in fair or foul longhand), letters (public and private), summations of committee findings. This last source was perhaps the most useful of all. The University of Minnesota has had from its earliest days a habit of self­ appraisal, and the tone of these surveys was unvaryingly reve- latory. Estimations of past efforts and speculations about proposals for experiments to be tried in the future vied with I one another in the vivacity of their candor. In certain instances the exigencies of time and temperament had tended to make the stream of documentation run thin. The earlier administrations were the least well represented. An exception was that of Folwell, whose own interests as historian made him an undefeatable conserver of significant records. His private papers, distributed between the archives of the univer­ 8 sity and the manuscript collection of the State Historical So­ ciety in Saint Paul, contain a wealth of evidence. To this he added in his four-volume history of the state passages dealing with the university which are immensely valuable for their keenness of observation, their wisdom in the interpretation of educational philosophy, their objectivity of judgment and their magnanimity of appraisal. It was the habit of Northrop to use a wastebasket as his filing case for university reports. This eccentricity of adminis­ trative procedure opened alarming gaps before the investigator. But these were filled from four sources of evidence: a fragment of autobiography; a vast collection of family letters donated by the second president's nephew, the late Dr. Joseph Warren Beach; the affectionate account of personality and purposes contained in E. Bird johnson's Forty Years of the University; and the equally beguiled and beguiling biography, Cyrus Nor­ throp: A Memoir by the late Professor Oscar Firkins. An unaccountable lapse of judgment once permitted a self­ styled "efficiency expert" to swoop through the records of the pre-Coffman days. With the insensate fury of a female Attila she pillaged and burned. The chief result of her scorched-file policy was to leave the important Vincent administration vir­ tually a wasteland. Fortunately, the third president left vivid evidence of his powerful individuality, his administrative energy and his idealistic outlook everywhere in department records. A man who cannot speak without being both witty and profound is not easily relegated to obscurity. Vincent could be readily put together out of the brilliant fragments of himself that were scattered through all the documents con­ temporary with his administration. The days of Vincent's youth were revealed delightfully in the opening chapters of an autobiography which the author did not live to complete. It was put at the disposal of this recorder by the former presi­ dent's widow. A university piles up to impressive, even overwhelming, heights the souvenirs of its collective temperament. The printed work of its scholars offers, either by intent or by un- 9 conscious testimony, evidence of its philosophy. Official publi­ cations, stur.ent newspapers, humor magazines, literary reviews -short-lived or long-lived-all uncover lively glimpses of day­ by-day procedures, dominating personalities, changing mores. The files in the archives of the President's Reports, the Board of Regents Minutes, the Senate Minutes, the Minnesota Daily, the Alumni Weekly under its many aliases, now the Gopher Grad, Ariel, Shi-U-Mah, the Minnesota Quarterly, Minnesota Chats, the Ivory Tower have been consulted with varying de­ grees of pleasure and profit, amusement and fortitude. Because the number of collaborators runs literally into the hundreds, it would be impossible for the author of these pages to list them all in this note of thanks. It would be quite as inappropriate snobbishly to single out a few because of their pre-eminence in university circles. But gratitude is owed to them all both for the scrupulous attention that they gave to questions and for the personal kindness they displayed toward the questioner. For their special services of many kinds a word of thanks must go also to Dr. Edward B. Stanford and his staff of the University Library; William L. Nunn, director of University Relations; William T. Harris, director of the University News Service; and the vice-presidents of the university, Malcolm M. Willey and William T. Middlebrook. J. G. 10 CONTENTS PROLOGUE NATURAL HABITAT OF THE CIVILIZED SPIRIT 13 CHAPTER ONE PARAGON OF PATRONS 25 CHAPTER TWO ARCHITECT OF THE FUTURE 34 CHAPTER THREE CYRUS, THE CONCILIATOR.................... 51 CHAPTER FOUR THE WAY OF THE PERFECTIONIST 73 CHAPTER FIVE UNEASY INTERREGNUM 118 CHAPTER SIX CRUSADING SCHOOLMASTER 128 CHAPTER SEVEN DEFINER OF A FAITH.......................... 178 CHAPTER EIGHT MASTER OF CRISES 190 CHAPTER NINE WE, CITIZEN RULERS.......................... 200 EPILOGUE KEEP THE DOOR OPEN 249 Sixteen pages of illustrations will be found following page 64- PROLOGUE NATURAL HABITAT OF THE CIVILIZED SPIRIT HIS IS THE STORY of an experiment in education, American Tstyle. The University of Minnesota in its administrative structure encloses, as dramatically as does any institution of the group of land-grant colleges, the theory of universal educa­ tion which is America's unique contribution to the record of man's effort to collect and to distribute knowledge. The day-by-day history of the university's progress toward that goal unfolds in illuminating detail the development of the idea that every sovereign citizen of the state is entitled to all that his mind can accept and his abilities advance in the way of wisdom. What he may gain of understanding it is his duty to turn back to the service of the state in ways that will promote still farther the well-being of all men every­ where.