Making Higher Education Deeper
FOR some time I have been sensing a strong undercurrent, I might even say a rising tide, of interest shown in the direction which higher education is taking at Dartmouth, and I do not doubt but what a large majority of those reading these lines have likewise been quick to recognize the emphasis which is being given to the original purpose of education as fostered by its founder Eleazar Wheelock. Those of my generation are thoroughly familiar with the impetus given to this deeper meaning of knowledge by President Tucker, and it appears to me that President Dickey is a worthy successor in making sure that the original aims of the founders do not perish from the curriculum. Last October George Colton '35, in a splendid article, brought us up to date on the efforts of the William Jewett Tucker Foundation to set the forces in motion which will turn dreams into reality for embodying President Tucker's ideas into facts and practices. Based on the progress already shown, I have full confidence in Professor Francis Childs and his committee to do just this.
If President Tucker's thesis of education was based on the development of one's ethical nature and the awakening of one's social consciousness, then his ideas are in harmony with Solomon's who said, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." We have been laying much stress in recent years at Dartmouth on Great Issues. Well, here is one which need take second place to no other. When one gives earnest attention to this thought with all its implications, he can easily see how a pure and unselfish heart leads to understanding between neighbors, more tolerance between nations, greater sympathy for the underprivileged, and more friendly relations between men everywhere. If these things will not start us well on our way toward a successful issue in life, then I am at a loss to know where to turn for a satisfactory basis.
Wise man that he was, Solomon made another observation pertinent to our discussion when he said, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom." Solomon recognized the value of knowledge, but then he realized that mere wisdom is too shallow a foundation for a person's life, so he concluded by saying, "With all thy getting of wisdom, be sure to get understanding." It is as President Tucker suggested at our Commencement 49 years ago this June, when he said, "Wisdom is practical knowledge, - it has to do with the head and the hands. Understanding goes down deeper into life, - it has to do with the heart and the spirit."
Now of course, a student desires to acquire all the practical knowledge possible, because in the world of business or in his profession he needs all the wisdom and skill he can muster to make a success of his life's work, in order to establish his home and become a worth-while citizen. Let him remember, however, that in the complexity of our modern civilization, with its give and take in public relationships, to acquire proficiency in any line of work requires a person to have broad sympathies and a deep understanding of human nature.
When one is attending college, there is nothing which takes the place of securing an education, but let the student be careful to lay its foundations deep. He ought to be serious-minded about his books. He should also be serious-minded about his extracurricular activities. He ought to make sure that his Outing Club and his Glee Club, his sports and his campus life, develop within him an understanding which has to do with the heart. A person of understanding has not only broad concepts of life, giving him practical wisdom for everyday affairs, but he also has unselfish motives and pure affections, which lead him on to goals in life worthy of his highest ambitions. How greatly we admire a person of understanding, and what a future life has in store for him, because such a person does not need to fear the great issues of life nor doubt its results. He has already made them secure through the sincerity of his friendships and the worthiness of his deeds.
PERHAPS you recall the story about Lord Northampton, who had been none too discreet in his youth, how he emerged from court one day in a hesitating fashion and was heard to say, "Confound these legs of mine; if I had thought they were one day to carry a Lord Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them." Just so, for some day this higher education will be obliged to carry the weight of the world's woes. Then is the time it needs to have its foundation roots deep in the soil of a common humanity and a courageous morality. Then is the time when practical knowledge having to do with the mind and hands had better be linked up very closely with understanding having to do with the heart and spirit, if the problems of this world are to be solved in an equitable manner. This will demand the genius for broad intellectual wisdom which we have acquired, combined with deep sympathetic integrity, the power of which we should never discount and the need of which we must never deny.
Charles G. Osgood, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, put the matter on a very high level in an article "Preserving Values," appearing in The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa news magazine, when he wrote some time ago, "Perhaps we are on the eve of a new renaissance, a new and stable education, a new evocation of the whole man into his fullest powers. Older men and women who had their experience with the humanities, seem to be possessed of a capacious and mature culture not often realized in our latter-day education. But it is not a straggle between the humanities and science that engages us, but the urgency of regaining humanity for all our education, since all liberal subjects, if rightly applied, are humanities.
"Not from curricula and theories will our salvation come, but from the hand of teachers who revel in their chance to take part in expanding the student's knowledge of this world, in awaking him to enjoyment and appreciation of its beauties both in art and nature, in extending and correcting his scale of values, in helping him to mature his skill in the use of his powers, and in disposing him to use them to high and right results."
Yes, education is the leading out of all the endowments of a man's personality, so that he lives at his best, with his aspirations at their highest, with his sympathies at their broadest, with his convictions at their deepest.
In talking with the woman at the well of Samaria so many years ago, that great Prophet of Israel intimated that the well of learning was deep, but that if it were plumbed to the depths, one would reach the Source of living waters and, after drinking them, never thirst. It is this deep well water of understanding and truth which is needed by our world today. We have enough scientific knowledge and technological skill to make us the most powerful of the nations, but still our countless gadgets and our endless contraptions do not seem to create happy homes or a contented society, and the reason we still crave for something beyond all these is based on the fact that while we are rich materially, in certain areas of our society we are poverty stricken morally.
This is the way Dr. Elson of Washington, D. C., expressed it, when I was visiting recently in the Capital, "As a people we seem to have obtained a very comfortable position, and yet we are comfortless; we seem to have secured supremacy industrially, and yet we are scared individually; we seem to possess everything, and yet have nothing." This leads me to draw the conclusion that we must not substitute scientific security, through our knowledge of the atom bomb, for inner serenity based on our understanding of the human heart and social relationships.
WILLIAM C. JONES, Dean of the University of Oregon, brought some light to bear on the subject when he wrote recently, "The ultimate hope of our civilization lies in education, for our greatest resource for the Good Life is intelligence ennobled by understanding. Its ennoblement does not accrue from mere knowledge. Raymond B. Fosdick perceived this when, in dedicating the Palomar telescope in 1948, he said, 'And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough. .. . The vast enterprise of man that is pushing out the boundaries of knowledge in glorious adventure on a score of frontiers - all this.is not enough. Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral foundations, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes - dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery.'" Thus do Dean Jones and Mr. Fosdick make the same point - that education not only should have high aspirations, but should have foundations that go down deep into the heart of man's noblest impulses, else he will find his life built on the shifting sands of selfishness and prejudice, instead of on the granite rocks of understanding and tolerance, as is fitting for men whom Hovey described as shot through with the granite of New Hampshire.
I like the manner in which President Dickey stated his case in the 183rd Convocation at Dartmouth when he said, "You have heard that experience is the best teacher. In respect to responsibility, it is the only teacher. The terrifying truth is that young men learn responsibility by being permitted some opportunity to be irresponsible. Your task from here on is to use your opportunities of choice to build into the fibre of your experience the strength of moral choices. That intangible thing which we call the spirit of a man or the spirit of an institution made of men is one of the grandest and most precious realities of human life. To borrow his informal words from a talk with Robert Frost, 'When the spirit dies, the world grows false.' I am sure he would be willing to join me in the further thought that where the spirit has never dwelt, there at best is an empty thing, be it a man or an institution. I think it is fair to say to you that this is neither novel nor merely personal doctrine. It is the traditional position of a College which through the years of nearly two centuries now has never lost touch with the creative spiritual purpose of its founding by Eleazar Wheelock."
In these statements you see that the mantle of Elijah which was worn by President Tucker, and gathered up by President Hopkins, has now been caught up by President Dickey and is being worn by him in all honor and faithfulness. Dartmouth can never go far astray from its founding purposes when such ideologies are being taught by its leader and fostered by its teachers and absorbed by its constituents.
When one is approaching the 50th anniversary year of his graduation from College, he knows that the amount of money he has in his bank account seems of small consequence in comparison with the amount of good will he carries in his heart. How great a name he has made for himself seems a small matter when compared with the integrity he has brought to the name which was given him at birth. Wisdom will enable a man to get on, but something deeper is required of him if he is to get honor, and to get honor seems the best choice of all.
From the nature of the case, knowledge has to do with our beliefs, but I like the break-down meaning of the word belief, something that we live by, something that we bet our lives on, something that gives meaning to our practical way of life and a sure foundation for the building of wise choices found in the superstructure.
Let our education, then, be higher, - let it reach to the stars, ideologically and practically. Let it also have a long-range aspect, one that sees far horizons and distant vistas. We should also continue to keep it broad, with its outlook and its outreach as wide as, and in keeping with, its upward reach and its onward march. But finally, let it go down deep, until it comes into contact with the wellsprings of our being, and finds there the response of our hearts and the power of our spirit which will enable us not only to make a living but to make a life. Then whether our days may be few or many, we shall have a clear vision for the pathway; we shall be given a renewal of power for the task; we shall possess faith in the time of fear and uncertainty; we shall be honored with friends who will not fail us; we shall find peace within our souls and, at the last, peace with our Maker.
Mr. Pierce, who now lives in Whittier, Calif., retired nine years ago as Vice President of the Third National Bank and Trust Company of Springfield, Mass. He is the author of two booklets, Words to Build On (1948) and One Hundred and Twenty Devotional Meditations (1951).
