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The University of Alberta War Memorial is to be an organ erected in Convocation Hall. This decision was arrived at by the War Memorial Committee at a meeting in December. This committee is a large one, and representing, as it does, every phase of the University as well as the public, its judgments arise from varied opinions and should meet with wide approval. Everybody can rest assured that many forms of memorials were considered before the conclusion was finally reached that an organ to cost $12,000, was of all memorials, the most suitable. It is within the possibility of attainment, and yet remains a challenge to the strongest efforts of all connected with the University.
The War Memorial Committee asked the Alumni Association to continue to act as finance committee. The advisory council immediately appointed a small executive to carry on the work, and since then the organization has grown so that in its various ramifications over a hundred graduates, professors, students and citizens are tackling the big job, resolved to leave no stone unturned to raise the money necessary for erecting the memorial. The various committees have taken the motto: "An organ by next Armistice Day."
The results so far have been very gratifying to the executive. Over half the required sum has been subscribed.
Contributions from the graduates have just begun to arrive in a steady stream, and it is this response that is giving the workers the greatest encouragement; for it was commonly said that the alumni had no interest in the University of Alberta once they had left it, that the university spirit was but a name forgotten at graduation. Was this true? Would the alumni rally behind the memorial? These doubts filled the executive with apprehension, and it felt that if the alumni fell down it could not for shame seek support elsewhere. Such fears were unfounded. Graduates, wherever scattered, are showing that they are loyal to the U of A and that they feel the worth of the tradition left by 80 of their comrades who gave up their lives. Coming in the earliest infancy of the university, this sacrifice should be its quickening spirit throughout all generations, and graduates are showing their determination to keep alive this memory of a strenuous time when the University of Alberta men were not found wanting.
The graduates have already given $2,800 to the Memorial Fund. Much more remains to be done. There is no room for indifference. The janitors and the workers in the dining room and kitchen and in the workshops of the University have, with a generosity that represents real self-denial, given nearly $600. The teaching staff, most of whom have college allegiances elsewhere, have given $2,200; and the students have given about $1,000 — and many of these students, it must be remembered, had but entered the kindergarten when the war broke out. Friends of the University are giving with enthusiasm. The Women's Musical Club of Edmonton, aided by most of the city's musicians, is presenting an opera to help the fund; and the Musician's Union has decided that on this occasion its member sshall play in the orchestra without any charge. Other organizations are raising money in different ways. Such has been the response. The alumni cannot fall behind. More is expected of them than of anybody else, and rightly so. Other fields of revenue have been well worked; the success of the fund depends now almost entirely on the graduates. Only if they give to the limit will the memorial come into being. The slogan is: "Something from everybody."
Published March 1925 |
