RESPONSE OF PRESIDENT HARRY WOODBURN CHASE, PH.D., OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF NORTH CAROLINA
The ties of friendship and affection which link the University of Virginia
with the institution that I am privileged to represent to-night are so
close, so intimate, that no formal words of congratulation on my part could
possibly convey the warmth and heartiness of the greetings which I bring
you from the University of North Carolina. Both of us are children of that
far-visioned Southern statesmanship which so soon saw that democracy
must make public provision for the training of its leaders; we have known
common sorrow and mutual joy; we have learned each other's temper at
work and at play; we claim, equally with you, him who at this hour presides
over your destinies—our own alumnus, teacher, and president, whose Alma
Mater greets him and rejoices with him at this birthday feast.
On an occasion such as this, one is torn inevitably between the mood
of the historian and the mood of the prophet. A milestone has been reached
in the history of a great public, a great national, institution. It marks the
completion of a century of distinguished achievement; a century spent in the
growing of men whose careers are a more lasting memorial than bronze to the
magnitude of the service of this University. But it is, I know, your temper,
as it is the temper of America, to conceive of anniversaries not merely as
memorials, but as points of departure. The mind kindles not only with the
memory of that rich and glorious past which is yours, but in no less measure
with the vision of the splendid promise which lies ahead.
Thus it seems to me of happy significance that we should celebrate with
you your centennial, with all its joy in work well done, at the moment when
you and your sister universities of the South are called to the performance of
a task, certainly of greater magnitude, perhaps of greater difficulty, than
any that lies behind. For it is very clear that the South is even now beginning
the writing of a great new chapter in her history, whose theme is to
be the final and full release of her splendid material and human resources.
There is no braver story in history than the story of the last half-century in
the South; the story of her struggle for reëstablishment and for liberation
from poverty and from ignorance, which was its sequel. I cannot think it
without significance that the men who had the courage and the vision to
make that fight have been men of the stock and the blood that made
America, children, almost without exception, of the colonists, the pioneer,
the builders of our country, they are making a new civilization where
their fathers made a new nation.
Such is the blood which flows in the veins of the youth of the Southland.
Who can fail to see what promise their liberation holds for the South and
for America!
This is the South's appointed hour. Out of the hearts and minds of her
sons then shall surely proceed—is even now proceeding—a new, a greater
and a higher order. Thus the task of the Southern university of our generation
must be, in the full sense of the word, constructive. Men must be
trained for full participation in the difficult and complex responsibilities of a
swiftly developing new civilization, fitted to live happy and productive lives
in an environment that shifts and alters even as we view it. And it is, I
think, no less the task of the universities of the South to guide, to focus, to
interpret to themselves and to the world this great forward, upward movement
of democracy, to do their utmost to see to it that it becomes, not
merely a great national expansion, but a steady enrichment of life in all its
higher reaches.
The task of the Southern State universities is then to-day in a very real
sense a pioneering task, as in the days of their foundation. Their journey is
again by unknown, untried ways.
To you, University of Virginia, born of the spirit of the pioneer, to you
who played so bravely your part in the making of your State and your
country, beloved by us all, hallowed by memories that cluster about you—
to you we bid Godspeed as your second century begins, in confident assurance
that your contribution to the future South will be as free, as splendid,
as enduring, as has been the service of the century you have passed. The
new South, the new day, is here. May you go forward, under skies that
brighten more and more, with steps that falter not, and a vision that never
shall grow dim.
