It is scarcely necessary
to identify the picture appearing on the cover of this issue of
CALIFORNIA MONTHLY as that of California's first citizens,
Robert Gordon Sproul '13. But it may be news to most that on
July 1 last he began his twenty-first year as standing president
of the University, and thereby shattered the longstanding
presidential endurance recorded for the Golden Bear course
established some time ago by his greatest predecessor, the
beloved Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
This is quite an
achievement for a young fellow trained in civil engineering who
as an undergraduate functioned as drum major for the band, and
ran the two-mile for the track team. It is not easy to
administer the largest university in the world for twenty years
and do it to the satisfaction of twenty-three fellow Regents,
not to mention what is perhaps the largest, finest, and most
discriminating company of scholars at any university in the
world.
There are some 900 years
of tradition behind the concept of a great university, and every
faculty with any pretentions of greatness knows that it must
carry a torch for the fundamental principles involved. There is
often a tendency to view with alarm any president who has not
had an early background of teaching and research, because he
might fail to understand the teacher's approach or to appreciate
the importance of the intangibles upon which greatness rests.
Faculties have usually preferred to select a scholar as
president and take a chance on his administrative ability.
This procedure worked with
fair success in the past years, but in the present day of very
large, highly complex universities, a president without
administrative experience or skill would soon find himself too
snarled up to even think of greatness.
The more one reflects upon
such facts, the more he comes to appreciate what Robert Gordon
Sproul has meant to the University of California, and to know
why the faculty and the regents have consistently joined forces
to hold him whenever attractive opportunities to go elsewhere
presented themselves.
It was outstanding
administrative skill, demonstrated as cashier, comptroller, and
vice-president, during the years 1914 to 1930, which won for
Robert Sproul the confidence of the Regents. It was his
consistent deference to the opinions of the Academic Senate, and
his ability to represent the University brilliantly and
successfully on every public front, which won him the respect
and loyalty of the Faculty. He not only demonstrated an
understanding and appreciation of true greatness in a
university, but he provided the practical ability to maintain
and increase that greatness. It has been his privilege to count
as friends a tremendous number of those leaders who control
sources of support, both public and private. No man could have
had a greater test of loyalty than was provided by the
unfortunate loyalty oath controversy.
On occasion "Bob" Sproul
has smilingly said that he would never have survived the demands
of the presidency without the Latin which he learned in high
school from Monroe E. Deutsch '02. Later of course, he was
bolstered by having fifteen universities confer doctors' degrees
upon him, honoris causa, including the far-famed academic
Emily Post, Harvard. If the truth must be told, his success
results from nothing more than an extraordinary friendly
personality and a wonderful sense of humor, backed up by a
remarkably clear quick mind, a phenomenal memory, an
inexhaustible store of energy, and a larynx commanding quality.
When "Bob" Sproul became
president in 1930, there were a good many people who felt the
concept of a single great university for the State of
California, however desirable it might be, would soon be
destroyed by a lack of confidence on the part of Southern
California in any institution closely associated with Northern
California for almost two-thirds of a century. If any single
factor is responsible for the survival of the University of
California, it is the confidence which "Bob" Sproul has won
personally from the thoughtful and far-seeing leaders in the
South.
"All -University Week End"
a modern California tradition sprung straight from the core of
the University family philosophy in an annual tribute to
President Sproul, that philosophy's strongest advocate. It was
significant, then, that students, faculty and alumni chose those
few days last year to celebrate his twentieth year as president.
This was the second major tribute among innumerable smaller ones
that has been paid to "Bob" Sproul by students and alumni. In
1946, they awarded him the "Highest honor at their command" the
alumnus of the year award for his "manifold services to
University, State and Nation."
This brief sketch cannot
hope to cover the subject of President R. G. Sproul. For a
complete list of honors and achievements, see "Who's Who in
America." We prefer the epitome coined by the late Professor
Dixon Wecter, who said that God doubtless could have made a
better university president that Sproul, but doubtless God never
did.
__________
_____. "Our
Distinguished Faculty: President Robert Gordon Sproul."
California
Monthly. Vol. LXI, Alumni Publication,
University of California, No. (January
1951), p. 12.
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