1914
War broke out in Europe in July. Known first as the Great War, it later came to be called the
World War, and in the twenties ominously was titled the First World War. Literature saw the
publication of Tarkington's Penrod, Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes, and first poems by Joyce
Kilmer, Robert Frost, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee Masters. Both the Panama and Cape
Cod Canals were opened formally. T. M. Richards won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his
exact determination of the atomic weights of a great number of elements." Fifty-two companies
in and around Los Angeles spent $5,720,000 to churn out more than 1,000 miles of developed
movie film. Congress established the Federal Trade Commission. A woman's suffragette
movement in Washington, D.C, had the pomp of a military procession with 10 bands, 50 ladies
on horseback, and platoons of government dignitaries.
• New Seal • New Alumni Tradition
• Commencement • Alumni Banquets
• Prof. William Dart • New Students
• Senior Week • Sports
New Seal.
After receiving the amended charter in 1913, the Board of Trustees adopted a new
seal designed by Director John Pascal Brooks, which centered the coat of arms of the Clarkson
family and, at Brooks' suggestion, around it in circles the motto, "A Workman Who Needeth
Not To Be Ashamed," and the new name of the institution. Remembering that they were
founding a trade school in their brother's memory, the Clarkson sisters chose as the motto their
brother's favorite Biblical quotation, (confirmed by an article in the Oct. 22, 1941,
Integrator
,
which quoted "Doc" Powers, and by George Maclean '42, in 1991) because they believed it was
a slogan applicable to their brother, Thomas S. Clarkson himself who truly was "A Workman
Who Needeth Not To Be Ashamed," and hopefully to the future graduate who would be just
such a "Workman."
Commencement.
Irving Bacheller, well-known North Country novelist, gave the baccalaureate
address on May 31. The diplomas to the seven graduates were the first granted directly by the
College.
Prof. William Dart.
One of the graduates of 1914 was William A. Dart, who earned one of the
first two master's degrees given by the College in 1916, and who taught at his alma mater from
then until his retirement in 1959. His four sons also graduated from Clarkson. A native of West
Potsdam, Bill entered Clarkson in 1911 to study electrical engineering. Besides being an
excellent student, he also was the first president of the student branch of the AIEE at Clarkson.
While doing graduate work at Clarkson, Bill was hired as an assistant and taught 17 hours per
week, besides carrying nine hours of graduate work.
He served as an instructor of electrical engineering from 1916 to 1917, was promoted to
assistant professor and taught Industrial Engineering until 1921. In 1939, after teaching for 25
years at Clarkson, Bill, an associate professor of electrical engineering, estimated that he had
taught over 50 percent of the college courses. During his years of teaching, he also gained
