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About
the Libraries >
George
Norlin
Quotes/Inscriptions | Charge | Legacy | Links
Norlin Library was named for George Norlin (1871-1942) at the end of his
22 years of University leadership. Raised in Kansas, Professor Norlin began
teaching Greek language and literature at CU in 1899. He was named Acting
President in 1917 and assumed the permanent post in 1919 until he retired
in 1939.
During his tenure he oversaw Charles Klauder's redesign of the Boulder campus,
stood up to the Ku Klux Klan when it was a powerful influence in Colorado
politics, led the university through the hard years of the Depression, and
eloquently defended academic excellence and freedom.
Norlin was popular with the Board of Regents, the Faculty, and the Students.
He presided over the expansion of the University after World War I. During
his presidency, the campus enrollment tripled to 4,500.
George Norlin wrote essays and gave speeches which were critical of the
Scopes "monkey" trial. He rebuffed the blandishments of the Ku Klux Klan
governor of Colorado, who offered him legislative support in return for firing
Jewish and Catholic faculty. After a year in Germany as lecturer on American
Civilization at Berlin University in 1933, Norlin spoke and wrote articles
warning of the dangers of Nazism and anti Semitism. Hitler, he told a journalist,
was not someone with whom you could go fishing. Unfortunately, few listened
to Norlin's warnings. Like Churchill, he had the dubious fate of living just
long enough to see his warnings come true.
By 1939, he had raised the prominence of the University of Colorado to rank
among the best "medium-sized" institutions of higher education in the nation.
Norlin's tenure as president coincided with Klauder's years at Boulder.
The mutual vision and positive working relationship between the two men may
account for the success of the architectural achievement. Although the main
public entrance to Norlin Library moved to the east side in 1977, the west
terrace opening onto the Quadrangle remains the sentimental front of the
building.
Norlin's Quotes (Inscriptions)
Inscribed over the west portal of the University Library is a quote suggested
by Dr. George Norlin, former president of the University of Colorado. Mr.
Klauder, the University architect, asked Dr. Norlin for suggestions and this
is one of the two inscriptions over the library entrances.
The phrasing is original, Dr. Norlin said, but the thought was frequently
expressed in writing of both Greek and Latin classical authors. Dr. Norlin's
wording resembles very closely the thought expressed in Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-43 BCE)'s De
Oratore, sec. 120, which is as follows: "Nescire autem quid ante
quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum." Translated it reads: "To
be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."
To understand fully Dr. Norlin's purpose in suggesting this inscription,
read his address, Things that should go without saying, in his volume, Things
in the Saddle: Selected Essays and Addresses, published by the Harvard
University Press, 1940. His address concludes with the following paragraph:
Above the portal of our new library building there will be this inscription, Who
knows only his own generation remains always a child. I hope that
the purpose of the University, thus expressed, to enable the student
to grow in the full stature of his being through companionship that ranges
beyond his day and time, will stand unshaken as long as those words shall
endure in stone.
Cicero:
Orator ad M. Brutum (Full text from the Latin Library)
De
Oratore (XXXIV) (GIGA Quotes)
Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse
puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum
cum superiorum aetate contexitur?
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain
always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it be
woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
Perhaps Cicero inspired George Santayana to write
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
ENTER HERE THE TIMELESS FELLOWSHIP OF THE HUMAN
SPIRIT
-- which is inscribed directly above Norlin's west entrance, is a direct
quotation from Dr. George Norlin.
Norlin's Charge to the
Graduates
The first commencement at the University of Colorado was held for six graduates
on June 8, 1882, in the chapel of Old Main. It was not until 40 years later,
on September 4, 1922, that the first summer commencement was held. Since
the first commencement in 1882, over 222,000 degrees have been awarded by
the University of Colorado at Boulder. The traditional Norlin Charge to the
graduates was read by the late President George Norlin to the June 1935 graduating
class.
You are now certified to the world at large as alumni
of the University. She is your kindly mother and you her cherished sons
and daughters. This exercise denotes not your severance from her, but
your union with her. Commencement does not mean, as many wrongly think,
the breaking of ties and the beginning of life apart. Rather, it marks
your initiation in the fullest sense into the fellowship of the University,
as bearers of her torch, as centers of her influence, as promoters of
her spirit.
The University is not the campus, not the buildings
on the campus, not the faculties, not the students of any one time --
not one of these or all of them. The University consists of all who come
into and go forth from her halls, who are touched by her influence and
who carry on her spirit. Wherever you go, the University goes with you.
Wherever you are at work, there is the University at work.
What the University purposes to be, what it must
always strive to be, is represented on its seal, which is stamped on
your diplomas -- a lamp in the hands of youth. If its light shine not
in you and from you, how great is its darkness! But if it shine in you
today, and in the thousands before you, who can measure its power?
With hope and faith, I welcome you into the fellowship.
I bid you farewell only in the sense that I pray you may fare well. You
go forth, but not from us. We remain, but not severed from you. God go
with you and be with you and us.
When did the tradition of the Norlin Charge to graduates at Commencement begin? 1943 is the year President Stearns first started using the Norlin charge in the commencement addresses:
Commencement Address, June 14, 1943, entitled, A Travel Guide for the Future. Excerpt::
Members of the Classes of 1943 here and elsewhere: In addressing you for this last time as students of the University, I cannot do better than use the words with which my distinguished predecessor addressed the graduating classes some years ago. Perhaps in this way we can perpetuate, in some small measure at least, for you and for me, his influence, his wisdom, his warmth and his very human presence. I speak to you now in the words of George Norlin.
Norlin's Legacy in the
Libraries
Writings by and about Norlin may be found in the open collections at Norlin
Library:
Allen, Frederick S. et. al.
The University of Colorado 1876 - 1976
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1976.
Davis, William E.
Glory
Colorado!: A History of the University of Colorado 1858 - 1963
Boulder, Colo: Pruett Press, 1965.
Norlin, George
Fascism
and Citizenship
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1934.
Integrity
in Education and Other Papers
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1926.
Isocrates
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1928.
An
Odious Comparison
Phi Beta Kappa Addresses, [Columbia, Mo?],
1917.
The
Quest of American Life
Boulder, Colo: University of Colorado, 1945.
Things
in the Saddle: Selected Essays and Addresses by George Norlin
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940.
A
Voice From Colorado's Past for the Present: Selected Writings
of George Norlin; selected and edited by Ralph E. Ellsworth
Boulder,
Colo: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985.
Archives holds many primary documents and books, and the library stacks
hold several books, which contain information on George Norlin. Archives
holdings which contain Norlin material include:
- George Norlin Papers
- President's Office Papers
- Robert L. Stearns Collection
- F. Hellems Collection
- Van Ek Collection
- Dean of Arts & Science Papers
- Silver & Gold
Related Links
After commencement exercises, graduates, families and friends
gather around the sundial at the Norlin Library east entrance.
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