Flashback
60 years ago
The legacy of Samuel P. Capen
Julius Pratt (left) and Julian Park (right) present an honorary doctor of civil law degree to retiring UB Chancellor Samuel P. Capen at the conclusion of UB’s 1950 commencement ceremony. Photo: UB ARCHIVES
When Samuel P. Capen, UB’s first full-time chancellor, retired on June 7, 1950, he was recognized in many ways. Awards were created in his honor. An endowed chair in American history bearing his name was created. He was the recipient of an honorary degree. The following year, he received UB’s highest honor, the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal. Serving as chancellor since October 1922, Capen had transformed UB from a group of professional schools into a full-fledged university. For many, it was difficult to imagine UB without Capen at the helm.
Capen was respected by college and university presidents throughout the country. He received honorary degrees from 13 other colleges and universities, and was asked frequently to speak at other institutions.
In 1938, he was the principal speaker at the inauguration of the president of his alma mater, Tufts College. In that address, Capen described the role of the modern college president: “to coordinate for the accomplishment of a common purpose the efforts of many persons, each more learned in some directions than himself; to be sympathetic toward both people and ideas; to weigh proposals and to bring to bear upon them the critical judgment of many minds; to relate all proposals to the means, human and material, available for their realization; to preserve a just balance among the institution’s several commitments; to plan, but to submit all plans to democratic ratification; to initiate action, but not to force it, until it receives majority consent; to choose officers of instruction and administration who give promise of growth in wisdom and productivity and power to inspire the young; to be the champion of freedom for teachers and students against all attacks from without or within the institution; to persuade rather than to command; to lead, if God gives him the grace to lead, but never to boss.”
At the conclusion of UB’s commencement exercises in 1950, Capen received, much to his surprise, an honorary doctor of civil law degree. The citation for the degree read, in part, “The service which Dr. Capen has rendered to this community and to this university, which perhaps transcends all others, is his defense of each man’s right to seek the truth, and publish his findings in his own way.”
Sixty years after his retirement, Capen remains UB’s most-revered figure. He is remembered through awards, scholarships and professorships, and on two different buildings that bear his name; UB alumni who graduated 50 or more years ago belong to the Samuel P. Capen Society. The Samuel P. Capen Garden Walk is held annually in the University Heights and Eggertsville neighborhoods near the South Campus.
The legacy of Capen is not to be found in awards or with buildings bearing his name. Instead, his legacy is in the university’s continuing commitment to what Capen prized above all else—intellectual freedom. His legacy can be found in the words of that citation read 60 years ago, and even more clearly in his own words.
He concluded his opening address at the October 1946 symposium celebrating UB’s centennial with a stirring defense of intellectual freedom. A university, he said, “is an instrument of inquiry. It is a forum of criticism and interpretation. It is an incubator of ideas. It is a nursery of free men, and as such it is democracy’s strongest bulwark. Only by exercising the prerogatives and the responsibilities of freedom do men learn to be free and to be strong.
“The most precious of all these prerogatives,” he continued, “is freedom of the mind, and it entails the gravest of all responsibilities. To the free exercise of the mind, this university is irrevocably committed. Any student or teacher may here investigate any subject that attracts him and may report anywhere, in or out of the classroom, the conclusions he has reached. Any student or teacher may voice his opinions on any question, no matter how unpopular they may be, or even how foolish. He will not be restrained or penalized. On the contrary, this university will defend against any one who attacks him his rights of free inquiry and of free speech. This is what academic freedoms means.”
For more about Capen, see the University Archives’ award-winning exhibit “S. P. Capen: University Man.” and the “Samuel P. Capen Papers.” in the University Archives.
—John Edens, University Archives
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