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Abstract
One by one, the land-grant universities arrived at a point at which they were taken in hand by a dynamic and university-minded president. The University of Nebraska moved into university territory in the 1890's under Chancellor James Hulme Canfield. He served only four years, but these years truly marked the beginning of a new epoch in the University's history.
The position of the American university president is absolutely unique in the educational world. At first the college president sustained much the same relation to the student body that the pastor of a church sustained to the members of his congregation; he was the spiritual teacher and advisor. As the ecclesiastical rigor that bound both church and state gradually relaxed, a change took place in the qualifications demanded of a college president. It became necessary for the president to be a strong and commanding personality.
The next step in the evolution of the university president came when private and state universities were frequented by young men and women who were seeking one of the professions, or business, or some branch of applied science. This necessitated the development of the secular side of education, and with this development came the demand for increased facilities, for laboratories, and for the enlargement in every direction of the education plant. The university president became not only the religious and eductional head of the institution, but also its financial agent.
James Hulme Canfield brought to the Chancellorship a combination of qualities and experiences. He was a man of fine presence and genial manner and was a ready and acceptable public speaker. He was, in the best sense, a "man of the world." Canfield introduced new ideas, made the public much more university conscious, and lifted the administration of the University of Nebraska to new levels of power and influence. His administration laid the cornerstone of the real university of the future.
