December 29, 1931

Speaking to the student delegates to the seventh annual conference of the National Student Federation, meeting in Toledo, President MacCracken called for analysis of the “economic and political disabilities of students,” so that these impediments could be addressed and removed. In particular, he urged that the “medieval tradition” of town-and-gown hostility be replaced with a “sounder American spirit.”

Praising the rise of independent work in colleges, he proposed “as the fundamental axiom of the university that the student’s chief motive for university life is study in association with his teachers and students of like interest.”

The conference adopted a resolution favoring immediate United States entrance into the League of Nations and the World Court and voted 100 to 22 against compulsory military education in American colleges.

The New York Times