Description
The Alma Mater is a patinaed bronze figure of a woman in academic robes. She stands in front of a throne with her arms outstretched in welcome. The attendant figure "Labor" is a male who stands to her (proper) right and wears a blacksmith's apron. At his feet lays a sheaf of papers. The proper left figure "Learning" is a female robed a classical gown with a sun bas-relief on front. Learning and Labor extend their hands in a handshake over the throne. The work stands approximately 13-feet tall. The granite base carries three inscriptions:
- Front: "ALMA MATER / To thy happy children / of the future / those of the past / send greetings"
- Left (Green St side): "Given to the university / by the sculptor / the alumni fund / and the senior classes of / 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929."
- Right (Altgeld side): "Her children arise up and call her Blessed" Proverbs 31-28.
The long flowerbed stretching from the front of the Alma Mater to the corner of Green Street and Wright Street is known as the Alma Mater Plaza.
Read more about this topic: Alma Mater (Illinois Sculpture)
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)