4 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Dr. Adams’ health failed in 1900; and from that time to 1908, with but
a few weeks of interruption, Dr. Edward Asahel Birge, for many years a
member of the faculty and then Dean of the College of Letters and Science,
was acting president. Throughout the entire period the increase in num-
bers and the corresponding development of the work of the institution
went on uninterruptedly.

Charles Richard Van Hise, professor of geology, was the first alumnus
of the University to be called to the presidency, which he assumed in 1903
and occupied until his death on November 19, 1918. The material progress
of the institution continued under his administration. The College of Ag-
riculture became an important college, as well as an institution of research.
A course in home economics was created; the first two years of a medical
course were given. Courses in journalism, in chemistry, and for the train-
ing of teachers were established, while the older similar School of Com-
merce, now called a course, continued to thrive. Lagging somewhat behind
these advances have come the material provisions for them, so that the
University remains crowded. The mere enumeration of the newly organ-
ized courses illustrates the fact that during the administration of President
Van Hise, the tendency of the University to accentuate professional equip-
ment rather than a liberal culture suffered no abatement. At the same time,
the work of the department of the humane arts and the pure sciences con-
stituted the largest single part of the activity of the University and the
opportunity and the ideal of liberal culture were maintained with energy.

The war made a deep impress upon the life of the University. In
such a national crisis an institution of higher learning manifests its ideals
mainly through the response of those who have received its training and
imbibed its spirit. The University fostered the ability and encouraged the
desire of its faculty, alumni, and students to be of directly active use to their
country, an ability and a desire which have been abundantly manifested.
For the alumni it could do little directly, but it has carefully preserved the
record of their service as a memorial to the future. To the members of
the faculty called to war work, it granted leave of absence on generous
terms. The total faculty, alumni, and students in active military service
was upwards of 10,000 men.

The signing of the armistice did not terminate the University’s con-
nection with the war, for many students and not a few of the professors re-
mained in the service in the war zone, or in the army’s educational schools,
or aided the American Commission in the manifold duties of settling the
terms of the Peace of Versailles. In all the labors of war and of the com-
ing peace, President Van Hise was untiringly active, and his death, a few
days after the armistice, was in truth another sacrifice which the Great
War imposed upon the University.

In January, 1919, Edward Asahel Birge, who had been Dean of the
College of Letters and Science since 1891, was elected President of the
University. The issues which confronted his administration were espe-
cially heavy and complicated. They involved numerous scholastic ques-
tions and also many difficult financial problems, raised by the phenomenal
increase in attendance after the war and by the concurrent increase in the
cost of living and building, which came at a time when business of nearly
all kinds was beginning to suffer the inevitable check which followed the
peace. Partial solutions were found for these problems until a special ses-
sion of the legislature, in May, 1920, granted the necessary funds for oper-
ation and enabled the University to place salaries on a satisfactory basis.
Toward the close of President Birge’s term and under his inspiration,