Chicago's President

After the death of President Ernest DeWitt Burton late last May, Professors Billings, Tufts, Manly, Gale, Woodward and Laing of the University of Chicago knitted brows with Trustees Harold H. Swift (meats), Martin A. Ryerson (finance), Albert W. Sherer, William Scott Bond, Charles W. Gilkey, Thomas E. Donnelly, Robert L. Scott and Dr. Frank Billings, over the baffling question of Dr. Burton's successor. Every week they met, soon eliminating as unsuitable all prospects on the home campus, casting their eyes afield now upon this capable small-college administrator in the East, now upon that efficient personality in a History Department of the Far West; or again, upon an editor, reputed as sagacious as he was vigorous; upon a divine, a barrister, a minor college official whose good works had shewn forth his high qualities.

During these weeks, Dr. Max Macon, Ph. D., Research Professor of Mathematical Physics, went about his recondite tasks as usual at the University of Wisconsin. At the close of the college year, he put in order the minutes of faculty meetings as a good secretary should. An earnest student, he devoted his increased leisure to redoubled efforts among differential equations, the calculus of variations, physical applications of mathematical theory. A skilled inventor, he answered correspondence concerning the Mason hydrophone, by which United States and British warships detected submarines during the War. A good provider and thoughtful husband, he packed his wife and three children off to a cool northern camp when hot weather came, planning to join them when he might.

Then, one day last week, Dr. Max Mason awoke to find himself a national figure in his walk of life. The faculty-trustee committee in Chicago, weighing all things, had named him their man and he had been unanimously elected head of as prominent a university as there was in his country.

Dr. Mason was prompt in his acceptance, saying: "I am deeply conscious of the honor conferred."

Said Trustee Swift: "We are delighted ... he is a man supremely fitted to succeed the three presidents, Harper, Judson and Burton, under whose leadership the university has seen its first chapters of development."

Said President Birge, himself about to surrender the high chair of the University of Wisconsin:-"I congratulate most heartily the University of Chicago on securing a president of great energy and ability, in whose leadership I fully believe. Deeply as I feel the loss to Wisconsin of a man so distinguished in teaching and in research, I cannot but rejoice that the qualities that have marked his career at Wisconsin have led him to the presidency . . . ."

So also must the shades of Dr. Mason's hardy Wisconsin ancestors have rejoiced. They had seen him born, in 1877, at Madison in the state they pioneered, had watched him through the grade schools and into the university, where he studied so well that he was graduated with a Phi Beta Kappa key at 21, jumped so high as a stripling Sophomore that he wore a large "W" on his chest for three years, conducted himself so genially that his friends were many, so adroitly that he won a professor's daughter to wife. After some post-graduate work and some teaching at Beloit, Wis., he studied mathematics abroad, returning with his doctorate from the University of Gottingen to instruct at M. I. T., Yale and finally at his alma mater.

Of President-elect Mason's acumen and administrative gifts there is no doubt. The large affairs* of Chicago university are safe in the hands of a man who has had high marks, not only in the pedagogical engineering of Wisconsin but also in handling men and moneys as a member of the National Re-search Council. Wondering about his personality, Chicago learned: that he likes a joke and tells a good one; that he is amiable as well as earnest, democratic as well as exacting; that he is something of a sportsman, a speedy winner of affections, an unselfish devotee of the causes he embraces. Chicago, anxious for a glimpse of the man who is to carry on the work begun by William R. Harper,t welcomed Dr. Mason stopping off vacation bound for a glance at the scene of his new dictatorship. Summer students (who recognized him from his press syndicated photographs) found it easy to believe that for all his scholastic honors he was voted the most popular professor at Wisconsin.

To representatives of Chicago's Faculty, which contains such men as Chamberlin, Michelson, Hale and Millikan, Dr. Mason envisioned Chicago as the cultural and intellectual center of the world. Later, at his home on the heights overlooking Lake Mendota, he discoursed upon productive scholarship.

Personality

"What it means to be a teacher", as reported to The American Mercury and republished in that periodical's September issue:

From a blank given applicants for the position of teacher of Art at Glendale College (Glendale, Ohio.)

Describe and estimate your personality by underscoring the proper words or phrases.

Positive Elements: Graceful, dignified, modest, gentle, cultured, efficient speaker (pleasing, clear, mellow voice), refined language, jolly, sociable, congenial, cooperative, loyal, teachable, forgiving, hearty eater, thrifty, careful in business matters, optimist, religious, reverent, prayerful, devout, spiritual, pure-minded, faithful in religious observance, Bible student, good moral and religious influence, patriotic.

Negative Elements: Lame, immodest, sensitive, faulty in grammar, slangy, critical, argumentative, sarcastic, pessimistic, irreligious, irreverent, poor moral influence, no public spirit.

Distraction

In Tokyo, Japan, officials of the Fourth Middle School sent out a courteous note to parents calling their honorable attentions to the fact that since the advent of radio sets to their distinguished homes, the scholarship of their illustrious children had sorely declined; and hinting that it would be well for the parents to discourage the devotion of so much time to construction of radio sets and listening to broadcast programs. U. S. pedagogs read with sympathy

Three Cantabs

For 23 years a tide of U. S. students, recipients of the 96 scholarships established by Cecil John Rhodes, have invaded already cosmopolitan Oxford. Some two years ago Mrs. Henry P. Davison, widow of the onetime Chairman of the American Red Cross, modestly endeavored to create a reciprocal tide, established six scholarships, two each at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, for recipients to be sent (three each) from Oxford and Cambridge.

Last week the Committee of the Henry P. Davison Scholarship Fund announced the names of the three Cantabs (Cambridgers) who will study and play next year in the U. S. At Yale--H. H. Thomas of Sidney, Sussex, winner of the Chancellor's medal for English verse. At Princeton--W. P. N. Edwards, of Corpus Christi able golfer. At Harvard--G. C. R. Ely of Trinity, who recently gained a first in the law tripos.-

*To Glenn Frank, editor of the Century.

*Notably, completion of the first phase of Chicago's endowment campaign--six millions for instruction; and inauguration of the second phase--eleven millions for buildings, to be obtained by appeal to the general public.

/-William Rainey Harper was President from the founding of the University in 1892 to 1906. President Harper was followed by: Harry Pratt Judson (1906-23) ; Ernest DeWitt Burton (1923-25).

*Term for an honor examination, especially in mathematics, peculiar to Cambridge University.