CONVOCATION. The ninety-first consecutive session of the University was formally opened with the annual Convocation exercises in Cabell Hall on September 30. President Alderman presided, the prayer was offered by Professor W. M. Forrest, and the principal address was delivered by Poultney Bigelow, of New York, the famous traveller and authority on colonization and Prussian history. President Alderman introduced the new faculty members (brief sketches of whom are given elsewhere in this issue) and made an opening address in which he briefly, but clearly, pointed out the tremendous responsibilities imposed upon this nation and its universities by the European War: PRESIDENT ALDERMAN'S ADDRESS. We enter today, formally, upon the ninety-first continuous year of the life of the University of Virginia. It is fitting and proper that all the elements of this life should assemble together for better knowledge and understanding of each other, the teacher and the taught, the young and the old, the beginner and the graduate student, the collegian and the professional man. The total statistical facts thus far available for this year are as follows: At this time last session there were 867 students enrolled. Now the total is 972, but every year at least seventy-five students enter between October 1 and the close of the year, so it is reasonably certain that the total enrollment will be over 1,040. Last session the total was 946. Even at this day, last year's figure has been exceeded by twenty-six. According to the registrar's records, the geographical distribution is as follows: Northern United States, 44; Southern, 798; Western, 92; Southwestern, 25; and foreign countries, 6. You will see that, compared with other American universities of equal dignity and power, our growth has not been rapid, though the total increase this year of 105 is greater than in any one year in some decades. Our policy has been to increase requirements for admission and graduation so as to keep articulation with the feeding schools, but to advance along the whole line constantly and steadily. I attribute this unusual growth to the development of preparatory schools, public and private, in the South, and especially in Virginia, and to the fact that certain of our departments after years of rigid expansion are just now coming into their own. It is gratifying to note that we continue to be in a very real sense a national university, for our enrollment touches every corner of the Republic, and it is especially gratifying that the attendance from Virginia is larger, in a marked degree, than ever before. I congratulate you as an older but as a fellow student upon the opportunity and the time which fate has allotted to you to undergo intellectual and spiritual discipline. There never was a time when the world was charged with more deep and tragic meaning than at this time. The world that we knew a brief year ago has passed, never to return. Society is being born again amid the travail of battle and death. Your descendants, who will gather here, will look back to these years 1914-1915, investing them with the same atmosphere of deep reality and romance and world rebirth that we look back to pivotal years like 1776, 1793, 1815, 1861. Long held conceptions of life and conduct are being stripped naked and submitted to critical reëxamination. The democracies of today stand before the world and find themselves on trial. Is self-government the direct and only road to good government, or is self-direction to be sunk in some high and grandiose ideal of external direction? The most venerable and powerful of all republics is about to come into a position of peculiar responsibility which will place it in the very center of the world's regard. Already the standard of economic value has passed to these shores and the American dollar has become the world's standard of value in the processes of barter and trade. The intellect and youth, the genius and aspiration of the old world are being ground up as the grist of war, and other standards of value will be sought here-the disciplined will, the clear brain, the well-stored mind, the steadfast purpose, the abounding energy, the classifying genius. Will we meet the world's need? The answer will come out of such spots as this if we are great enough to grow great in spite of peace and prosperity. Suffering and self-sacrifice are putting a new soul into, and lifting ever higher, the head of the Frenchman, the Belgian, the Ger man, the Englishman, and the Russian, as these same experiences had power to inform the Southerner's soul a half century ago. My friends, youth is youth and deserves its radiant joys, and I pray you may be very happy here, but I venture to express the hope that you will meet this most serious year in the life of the modern world with a high seriousness of your own. You are here primarily to undergo discipline through work, to the end that you will be able to react forcefully and helpfully to the intellectual social issues of your time. I speak for my colleagues-your teachers as well as for myself, when I bid you welcome to the University and express the hope that you will meet this test manfully and well. A LETTER FROM MR. BIGELOW Mr. Bigelow, in his address, which was listened to with interest by one of the largest crowds that has ever gathered in Cabell Hall, dealt with some of the significant landmarks in Prussian history, and discussed the question of militarism as opposed to adequate preparedness. When Mr. Bigelow was asked for a manuscript, so that his remarks could be published in the BULLETIN, he replied in the following letter: "DEAR SIR: "You ask much-and as representing a university dear to me, you have the right to do so. The words I spoke on Convocation day were inspired by the audience which greeted me on September 30th; they were intended for that audience alone, and if that audience is satisfied, myself am more than pleased. Had I done as you expected, written my oration out beforehand, it would have been my duty to read it-that particular oration-the whole of it. Possibly the effect might have been good in type, but I'm sure that upon that particular audience the effect would have been chilling. The eye is window to the soul and when I am in carnest I must look my man in the eye and not be hunting for words on a piece of paper. "President Alderman's invitation to speak at the home of Thomas Jefferson touched me deeply, for when he did so he probably ignored the fact that, on the maternal (Poultney) side, my ancestors were Southerners and slave owners. Moreover, I have no ambition to claim superior intelligence or higher moral standards than was professed by them and practiced by the best Americans of the last century. My travels and studies in Africa, no less than in my own country, have made me realize that under slavery in this country the Negro reached a higher social and economic level than anywhere in his ancestral home; and that all the Tuskegees and other meddlesome monuments to Northern philanthropy can not alter characteristics of human nature. "The best blood of Virginia was liberally poured out to vindicate her right to govern herself, and I, for one, venerate the names of Lee and Jackson, “Jeb" Stewart, and Jefferson Davis, no less than I do those of Washington, John Paul Jones, and Thomas Jefferson. The Truth for which Virginia fought from Bull Run to Appomattox is no less the Truth today than it was then. A political majority has noisily preached against this truth, but with ever weakening force. Majorities are usually wrong, and this one is no exception. "It is the business of a university to seek Truth and make it known; not to enquire what Congressmen or other symbols of majority rule may think expedient. Today, our rulers want us to be neutral because their voters may be hyphenates! A President is compelled to consider these forces; he can muzzle our officers of the Army and Navy; he may leave the people in doubt regarding our military preparedness. All the more reason, therefore, that our academic bodies bear aloft boldly the torch of Truth and show the way to the wavering masses who today are being manipulated by agents of Pope or Kaiser because their natural leaders have not the courage to act as Americans. "Yours truly-with no hyphen or desire for office,— SEVEN NEW PROFESSORS. There were seven additions to the professorial faculty at the beginning of the present academic year. Brief sketches of the new professors follow: IVEY FOREMAN LEWIS, the new Miller professor of Biology and Agriculture, was born in Raleigh, N. C., in 1882. He received the degrees of bachelor of arts in 1902 and of master of science in 1903 from the University of North Carolina, and doctor of philosophy from the Johns Hopkins University in 1908. While at Johns Hopkins he was successively scholar, fellow, and Bruce fellow in Biology. After leaving Johns Hopkins, he spent one semester in study at the Bonn University in Germany, and for two months occupied the Smithsonian table at the Stazione Zoologica at Naples. During the summers he has been at various times a scientific assistant and investigator for the Bureau of Fisheries, and instructor in Botany at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. He has also studied at the Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute at Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., and at the Cinchona Station in Jamaica. In 1905, Dr. Lewis was appointed acting professor of Biology at Randolph-Macon College, and was appointed professor at the same institution in 1907, with one year's leave of absence. In 1912, he was appointed lecturer in Protistology at the Johns Hopkins University, but resigned without serving in order to accept an assistant professorship in the University of Wisconsin. He stayed at Wisconsin for two years and was then called to the University of Missouri as professor of Botany. He comes to Virginia from Missouri. Professor Lewis's published papers include the following: "The Life History of Griffithsia Bornetiana;" "Notes on the Development of Phytolacca decandra;" "Notes on the Morphology of Coleochaete Nitellarum;" "Periodicity in Dictyota at Naples;" "Alternation of Generations in Certain Florideae;" "The Seasonal Life Cycle of Some Red Algae at Woods Hole," and "Chlorochromonas minuta, a new Flagellate from Wisconsin.” Professor Lewis is a member of the Botanical Society of |