NON-PROFIT U.S.POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO.97 WHEELING, IL
Office of Institutional Advancement 122 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60603-6162
REVIEWING OUR LEGACY
Looking Back on Words from NLU’s Founder By Meghan Ryan Elizabeth Harrison dedicated her life to building an institution designed to influence the educational landscape locally and nationally. Her passion for teaching children led to the creation of the Chicago Kindergarten College (predecessor of National Louis University), a place in which space was carved out for women wanting to pursue their own quest for education. The following excerpt is from Elizabeth Harrison’s opening address to students on September 28, 1907, at the start of a new school year. It was printed in the Autumn 1907 issue of the “Chicago Kindergarten College Alumni News”: “Vacation days are over and a new era has begun in the life of each of us, for we cannot begin new relationships without beginning a new epoch in our character building. I take it for granted that every student who today sits before me is here to develop character. You are certainly here to learn how to prepare yourselves to serve humanity in a better, wiser, nobler way, and to do that, more and more of true, rational and useful character must be developed. So over and above all things else in your work here is the constant testing of new skill, new enthusiasm, and new insight by the translating of these into conduct. ‘To Serve,’ and to serve always better and more, is the keynote to your work here as it is the keynote to all noble living…”
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