My dear Dr. Ward:
I am glad to learn that a movement is being organized to preserve the more vital of the smaller colleges, which have been suffering from the competition of the great universities. The small college is irreplaceable in many of the services it renders and the inspiration it gives. There is a great need for such institutions, for in them is preserved to a high degree that personal relationship of teacher and student so difficult to maintain in the Universities. They develop character and provide a rounded cultural equipment to students who do not wish professional specialization. I warmly commend the effort to maintain these institutions, which have played and should still play so large a part in the development of leaders of American life.
Yours faithfully,
HERBERT HOOVER
[Dr. Albert N. Ward, Chairman, Committee on Arrangements, Conference of Liberal Arts Colleges, Westminster, Maryland]
Note: The message was read at a conference of representatives from 278 liberal arts colleges held in the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Ill., March 18-20, 1930.
Herbert Hoover, Message to the Conference of Liberal Arts Colleges. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/211703