The Foundation Four

What amazing men those foundation professors were! They were faced with creating a university which they had understood to be already in existence, and heavily endowed. "Fortunately, they all had qualities—comparative youth and a vast good humour, or a faculty for genial contempt, or an undemonstrative endurance which gave them a high survival value. The amazing four were: Brown (Classics) "the cautious, brilliant, kind Scot whose belief in Classical Culture led him to plan the Greek history. Art and Literature course, for those who hadde little Latin and lease Greek"; Mackenzie (English) the other Scot, irrepressive, expansively genial, laughter loving, generous (he wrote love letters for Scotch lassies without the learning of the pen) Easter-field (Chemistry) the Yorkshireman, the German-trained researcher, idealistic, a high-spirited practical joker (he turned a hose on a colleague and the result was anything but academic!); and lastly, the brilliant MacIaurin (Mathematics), almost a New Zealander, tolerantly critical, versatile and charming. He left Vitoria to virtually create the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To cope with the situation the professors each took extra subjects: Brown, French; Mackenzie, Mental Science; Maclaurin, Law; Easterfield, Physics and Mechanics." if the professors were enthusiastic, evangelical in zeal, what is one to say of the students, those 100 undergraduates?" The year 1899 was an annus mirabilis. A Student Society leapt into activity. The Debating Society was founded. Sport was represented by a Tennis Society. In 1901 there was a Hockey Club with 11 members and in 1902 the first Winter Tournament (we advertise the 50th on our back page) was held; 1902 also saw the first publication of "Spike," a periodical with a point. (So pointed, indeed, that the first issue had to be reprinted.)

Almost before those hundred knew it they were a Universitas a body corporate.