Age Ignored

Last January, Robert Maynard Hutchins was 30. Last week he was made President of the University of Chicago. Going from Yale, where he is Dean of the Law School, he will duplicate and improve upon the feat of Chicago's first President, William Rainey Harper, who made the same journey for the same purpose at the age of 35./-

From Yale's President James Rowland Angell, Dean Hutchins should receive special parting blessings. Dr. Angell was himself Acting President of Chicago (1918-19) before he went eastward to New Haven.

A normal prodigy, neatly dressed in New Haven-tailored suits and plain neckties, Robert Maynard Hutchins was made Secretary of Yale University in 1923, while he was still in law school. Then he said: "I get so sick of hearing that I am young. I wish that I would suddenly grow up and get baldheaded. People come into my office and when they see me they laugh. President Angell said in a speech that Yale had robbed the cradle to get a secretary, and I replied that I wanted every one to know that I had a birthday last week and am now 24 years old."

Last week he was saying: "It is difficult being so young and presiding over men much older and more experienced . . . but I have gone ahead ignoring my youth and generally there is nothing to remind me of it except occasions like this when there is nothing much to be said except that I am only 30."

Ignoring his youth will be more than ever necessary for President Hutchins of Chicago. He will command educational machinery used by nearly 15,000 students. To him for decisions will come such world-famed professors as Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, Greek Scholar Paul Shorey, Physicist Albert Abraham Michelson, Theologian Shailer Mathews, Latinist Gordon Jennings Laing, English Litterateur Robert Morse Lovett. Physically the University of Chicago is among the hugest in the U. S. Buildings started last year included a Social Sciences Building, the Bobs Roberts Memorial Hospital for Children, the George Herbert Jones Chemistry Building, a new $1,500,000 power house. When President Hutchins assumes his duties he will find completed several new dormitories. He will see students walking into a new Rockefeller-endowed chapel and a new Hall of Modern Languages. In the University libraries are stacked more than 1,150,000 books. Studying financial reports, President Hutchins will notice that during its last fiscal year, University of Chicago's assets were $77,812,221.26; that 1928 gifts totaled $6,858,042.00. Looming in the University's financial background are Julius Rosenwald, John D. Rockefeller Jr., the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation.

The youngest of big-university presidents was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., of a mother who was graduated at Mt. Holyoke and a father who is now President of Berea College (Kentucky). Education has be come a Hutchins family tradition. The Youngest President's brother, Francis, 26, is head of Yale-in-China; another brother, William, teaches at the Westminster School, Simsbury, Conn.

Robert Hutchins went, aged 16, to Oberlin College, near Cleveland, for two years. Then War called him to France, where he drove an ambulance, and to Italy, where for bravery he received the Croce di Guerra. Peace called him back to the U. S. and Yale. He worked his way through by organizing a Co-operative Tutoring Bureau. He was graduated with an A. B. in 1921, entered the Law School for a four-year course. Success and Dr. Angell had already marked him. He succeeded Anson Phelps Stokes, now canon of Washington Cathedral, as Secretary of the University. From studying law he turned to teaching it, continuing his University secretaryship until, two years ago, President Angell made him the youngest Law School Dean in the U. S.

When Student Hutchins was still reading law, he married Miss Maude Phelps McVeigh, later an able sculpture student who won a prize in her second year at the Yale School of Fine Arts. To the University of Chicago will go a "first lady" as young for her position as her husband is for his. She, born in Bay Shore, L. I., will succeed Mrs. Frederic Campbell Woodward, wife of Chicago's now Acting-President, who was born in Evanston, Ill. Still in her twenties, Mrs. Hutchins will have as much need as her husband to "ignore her youth" Not only must she be the first lady of a University, but the first lady "culturally" of a City which, perhaps faster than any other in the world, is gyrating toward cultural coherence.

Observers of the swift-winged Hutchins rise, wondered who was behind this last, most notable flight. Undoubtedly President Angell fostered it. But who in Chicago? Because he is determinedly the University's "mystery man," it could not be told definitely how much Harold Higgins Swift, potent packer, had done or said. Many are the donations of money and ideas that come from the office in Chicago's stockyards where Mr. Swift functions as vice president of Swift & Co. and a director of Libby, McNeill & Libby. But he keeps most of his enthusiasm and efforts for the University anonymous, letting his name appear only occasionally as when, last week, as President of the Board of Trustees, he announced the front-page Hutchins news.

President-Elect Hutchins conducted himself skilfully in his first meeting with the press. In the best tradition he disclaimed any revolutionary ideas, and balanced his disclaimer with "I do have great ambitions for the future growth. . . ." For something to talk about, he said he "wondered" how he would feel about having co-eds under his charge. He expressed no alarm when he learned that his new charges had recently held a vote to determine their "MOST BEAUTIFUL MALE," had chosen pompadoured Captain Virgil Gist, of the University basketball team.

/-Other famed young college Presidents: the late Dr. Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard at 35; Dr. Clarence Cook Little, Presi dent of the University of Michigan at 37; Dr. Glenn Frank, President of the University of Wisconsin at 38.