November 5, 1921

President MacCracken, Helen Kenyon ’05, Julia Lathrop ’80 and Cornell University President Livingston Ferrand addressed the annual meeting and luncheon of the Associate Alumnae of Vassar College (AAVC) in the Hotel Commodore. MacCracken spoke on “Modern Education in the College,” pressing his idea that the term meant “to the college that the subject matter of instruction is infused with life” and that the modern college was “trustee not only for the cause of learning, but for the youth who seeks to learn.”

“The purpose of modern education,” he concluded, was “not primarily the promotion of research, or even the transmission of the great tradition of knowledge from the past. The primary purpose is the development of a self reliant, independent, eager, questioning spirit, of a steady purpose and a resolute will, and, above all, an understanding of life which will leave the student in touch with his environment when the time comes for him to take his own part.”

Forty thousand dollars for the faculty salary endowment was raised at the luncheon in ten minutes’ time.

The New York Times