[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image=”47882″ css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”150px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_row_inner row_type=”row” type=”grid” use_row_as_full_screen_section_slide=”no” text_align=”left” css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1670872566426{padding-top: 15px !important;padding-right: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;padding-left: 15px !important;background-color: rgba(24,41,87,0.8) !important;*background-color: rgb(24,41,87) !important;}”]<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height=”150px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” text_align=”left” background_color=”#7eb1dc” css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” text_align=”left” css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_column_text]When I was a student, and each time I return to Rochester, I find Professor [John] Slater\u2019s inscriptions on the front of the library (\u201cHERE IS THE HISTORY OF HUMAN IGNORANCE,\u201d \u201cHERE IS THE HISTORY OF MAN\u2019S HUNGER FOR TRUTH\u201d) particularly moving. <\/strong><\/p>\n I am searching for matching photographs\u2014taken at the same time, from the same angle, with the same lighting, etc. When I was an undergraduate, I spent an afternoon in the library looking at historical photos and other documents from when the River Campus was first constructed. At that time, I was able to browse a set of black-and-white prints taken by Ansel Adams. But it\u2019s been 40-plus years (!) since then, so I don\u2019t remember whether the photos I am looking for were among those prints.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u2014John Womer \u201982 <\/strong><\/p>\n In 1998, then University photographer Joe Gawlowicz took the pair of photos shown here: these seem to be the only deliberately created pair in the Archives.<\/p>\n Ansel Adams visited campus in 1952 and created a portfolio of photographs to use in a capital campaign to fund the merging of the Colleges for Women and Men. Adams\u2019s photographs only include one of the inscriptions (\u201chuman ignorance\u201d). The 1977 cover of Professor Arthur May\u2019s A History of the URochester, 1850\u20131962 <\/em>features a dramatic photograph of the other (\u201chunger for truth\u201d).<\/p>\n As you note, the texts were composed by Professor John Rothwell Slater. Hired in 1905 as assistant professor of English, he chaired that department from 1908 until his retirement in 1942. The October 1930 River Campus dedication issue of Rochester Review <\/em>noted: \u201cProfessor John R. Slater . . . has virtually carved his personality on the front of the Rush Rhees Library for the inspiration of future generations, as well as the present.\u201d His original compositions, or choice of quotations, also grace the library\u2019s doors and Messinger Periodical Reading Room and the Meridian marker in the center of the Eastman Quadrangle.<\/p>\n Correspondence in the Archives between Slater and the University\u2019s president Rush Rhees shows that formulating the inscriptions began in 1929. \u201cThere are plenty of familiar quotations about books, but they are all hackneyed by frequent repetition. Certainly, I would not quote Bacon\u2019s recipes for readings. . . .\u201d A deeply religious man, Slater also looked to the Bible: \u201cThe pessimistic dicta of [Ecclesiastes] come as near the goal as anything, but not for the young.\u201d<\/p>\n One draft shows three pairs of suggested texts\u2014glimmers of the final version alongside Milton and Emerson\u2014to which Slater has added a note: \u201cThere is first the literature of knowledge and secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move.\u201d<\/p>\n John Lorenz, deputy librarian of Congress, spoke at the 1970 dedication of the addition to Rush Rhees Library. As a teenager, he accompanied his parents on a 1930s road trip across New York state:<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t recall how we happened to stop at the URochester campus. I was already an inveterate reader so one of the buildings we visited was the [Library]. . . . What really made a great and lasting impact on me were the two inscriptions on either side of the entrance, an impact which led me to take paper and pencil right then and there and copy [them]. I have seen many inscriptions since that day, but I have never again been impressed to the point of copying another one down . . . and this yellowing piece of paper has been in my files ever since. Looking back, I\u2019m inclined to believe that if there was any single influence whichstarted me toward thinking of being a librarian, it was the impact and the meaning of these inscriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n In submitting the final texts to Rhees, Slater reported on a meeting at which he and other faculty considered every element of the inscriptions: weighing the meaning, effect, and word count. \u201cOne member of the faculty doubted whether \u2018ages yet to come\u2019 are likely to be \u2018wiser.\u2019 Dean [Arthur] Gale said of this criticism, \u2018If they are not wiser, God help them!\u2019 And to this I add, Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n Ask the Archivist features a question for Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”40px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_single_image image=”57802″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” mkd_css_animation=””][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_single_image image=”57822″ img_size=”full” mkd_css_animation=””][vc_empty_space height=”40px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” text_align=”left” css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][vc_row_inner row_type=”row” type=”full_width” use_row_as_full_screen_section_slide=”no” text_align=”left” background_color=”#e9e5d7″ css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column_inner][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n For more about the University\u2019s history,\u00a0<\/em>visit the University Archives blog<\/em><\/a>. To ask a question for Ask the Archivist, send an email to\u00a0<\/em>rochrev@rochester.edu<\/em><\/a>\u00a0with \u201cAsk the Archivist\u201d in the subject line.<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” text_align=”left” css_animation=”” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1670873222276{border-top-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 10px !important;border-top-color: #999999 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;}”]This article originally appeared in the fall 2022 issue of the\u00a0Rochester Review<\/a>\u00a0magazine.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”25px” image_repeat=”no-repeat”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was a student, and each time I return to Rochester, I find Professor [John] Slater\u2019s inscriptions on the front of the library (\u201cHERE IS THE HISTORY OF HUMAN IGNORANCE,\u201d \u201cHERE IS THE HISTORY OF MAN\u2019S HUNGER FOR TRUTH\u201d) particularly moving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":47922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[272,82,902,722],"class_list":["post-57752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memories","tag-alumni","tag-history","tag-just-for-fun","tag-rochester"],"yoast_head":"\nLearn more<\/strong><\/h3>\n