Whitman College Kicks Off the Academic Year
A night of music and poetry at the college chapel marks the opening of the 1903 fall term.
Under auspicious circumstances, Whitman College opened its academic year with convocation exercises last night and chapel this morning. The program included a piano solo by Professor Lovewell, a vocal performance by the new head of the vocal department, Thomas J. Pennell, and a violin piece by Professor Fischer. Professor Hendricks of Whitman Academy delivered the address, urging the students to cultivate the poetic side of their nature: 'The mind of this age runs too much in the direction of the scientific. It is necessary to complete man that the imaginative faculties should be cultivated as much as those of the so-called region of practicality.'
“Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is a speaking picture.”
The perennial debate between the utility of 'scientific' or practical education versus the humanities is captured perfectly in the 1903 address at Whitman, a tension that still defines liberal arts institutions.
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