"We Can't Take It"

IF SPACE WERE available we would like to reprint in these pages some number of the editorials which appeared in newspapers throughout the country following the publication of President Hopkins' address at the opening of College in September. In general, editorial writers selected the phrases "Wehave been afraid to grow up,""There has been an obvious retrogression from, the unusual promisewhich the country showed after theWorld War", and "We have yieldedwith but feeble resistance to forcesmaking for weakened aspirationsand for less worthy accomplishments" and similar epigrammatic quotations. It is along these lines that editors have recognized the President's address to be a significant contribution to current philosophy, both in respect to the proper ideals for educational policy and the basic faults that he finds in present-day living.

One of Dartmouth's most talented young alumni is James M. Langley '18, editor of the ConcordMonitor. He is also chairman of the New Hampshire State Planning and Development Commission, an important position for which he is admirably qualified by ability and by experience in other public affairs. Mr. Langley, under the caption "Have Courage," commented in the Monitor on the opening address in a stimulating editorial. Some paragraphs from his comments follow:

The Dartmouth president holds education at fault, using the word education inits broader sense, of course. Supposedlyeducation should immunize the people ofthis nation, or of the world, against folly.But instead, in recent decades, it seems notto have prevented resort to expediency,self-pity, cynicism, wishful thinking andself-indulgence, as president Hopkinspoints out. Somehow education has accomplishedan over-immunization and hasleft us soft. A little knowledge has indeedbecome a dangerous asset.

In the words of Diamond Jim Brady inthe current motion picture we have nolonger any "guts." We are shirking responsibility to engage in new dissipations. "Wehave been afraid to grow up," as PresidentHopkins sums it up. Nor have we been insensitive of our weakness, for someone hascoined and we have universally come to usea catchphrase which gives us away. "Wecan't take it."

The Hopkins pronouncement may helpbring us to our senses. But we will inevitably quarrel on which of our collectiveweaknesses should be discarded. Thisquarrel will become part and parcel of thenext national election campaign. The "newdeal" is involved, not as a whole but inmany of its segments. Every state is involved in its own way. Internationally weare up against the same retrogression beyond a doubt. We are nevertheless growingup. Historically civilization as we know itis still adolescent. It is still sowing wild oats.While it is floundering around it is nevertheless learning to swim. Overnight it willdiscover that it can, not strongly, but feeblyat first.

There is a very real time lag to the effectiveness of education, a lag generally recognized but seldom labelled. The politicianalways takes advantage of it, either selfishly,or through realization that persistence isessential to accomplish change. So thosewith the conviction that better things lieahead regardless of the current retrogression bide their time patiently as they attempt to slowly bring their fellows to theirsenses. That the truth still prevails in thelong run, we must believe. And believing,we have the courage to be patient.

It is true that could we have avoided theweakened aspirations which come from impatience, starting a whole series of dissipations, we might progress farther morequickly. We have got out of the mainstream and are being delayed in an eddy,but we shall find our way back into thestream. We are finding it already. Thereare signs that this is so on every hand. Bachin the stream we will not stay there always,but from time to time we shall be caughtup by other eddies. We shall resist them atfirst, as we did that in which we have been.Then, perplexed, we shall yield to themwhile our courage and ambition graduallyovercome our surrender which has temporarily proved stronger than we are.

Here and there a man goes through lifewithout being drawn into the eddies withhis fellows. President Hopkins himself hasbeen such a man. That is why his observations to the Dartmouth undergraduates today will also be accepted as a challenge bygrown men everywhere. It will or shouldhelp them to a realization that they canshed their despair, their self-pity, their resort to expediencies, and be men again.And to the undergraduate his remarksshould also carry some degree of assurancethat life is worth living well, and thereforshould be prepared for carefully.