Measure of the Mind

A 60th reunion triggers a revealing search through decades-old course papers and notes.

Call it a time-travel experience, an unexpectedly cleansing and transforming event that left me, finally, with significantly greater peace of soul.

For several days, from mid-morning to midnight, I have sifted through two crammed filing drawers of my old college course papers, detailed notes written during class lectures and discussions, and extensive reading notes from out-of-class assignments. After 60 years the time had arrived to toss most of them, but I wanted to give myself a final goodbye review of those thousands of pages of hand-written script, the tangible evidence of four years of academic labor.

I had just been in Hanover for my 60th reunion, and at the registrar s office I had secured an official transcript of my college record as a combined English and philosophy major. There were 42 courses listed, a final point standing of 3.02 and a class rank of 88 out of 512. The transcript lists 12 philosophy courses (including six honors), 11 English courses, four German courses, two each in chemistry and physics, and a dozen others.

In going through my old files, however, I was struck by the volume of notes from courses and classes for which I had neither sought nor received formal credit. I had audited quite a few classes, either because the topics interested me or because they were taught by professors with exceptional reputations. I found lecture notes from extra classes in English, sociology, classical civilization, comparative literature, biography, economics, political science and music.

Some of these non-credit courses remain among my most memorable Dartmouth experiences—for example, the marvelous lecture in 105 Dartmouth by English professor Kenneth Robinson on melodrama and theater in the Gay Nineties, at the conclusion of which, according to my notes, "He was spontaneously applauded by the class. What could possibly be more gratifying to a college professor?" The papers evoked memories of more than a dozen other professors who had intangible effects upon my life: Macdonald, Morse, Hurd, Raven, Cox, West, Childs, Lambuth, Gramlich, Rosenstock-Huessy, Miekle- john, Mecklin, Stilwell, Lathrop.

At our 60th reunion the Glee Club resurrected for us the old-timer "Where, Oh Where, Are the Pea Green Freshmen?" The refrain in 1941 began, "They've gone out from Pollards smut class, safe at last in the sophomore class." Well, I found my notes from 1937 on that required (but without credit) series of lectures on hygiene, presented by physical education professor Dr. Joseph Pollard and commonly known as "smut." I discovered, however, that the session devoted to sex and venereal infection was given by a different doctor from Dick's House. "Be very careful in relations with girls," we were advised. In the same song the juniors are said to have "gone out from Professor Hull's physics," and sure enough, I still have notes from my Physics 3 class with professor Gordon Ferrie Hull.

I had no difficulty throwing out all my notes from physics, chemistry and German since I retain absolutely no interest in those subjects and am not a linguist.

But when I came to the tremendous bulk of papers relating to my English and philosophy major and to the supplemental courses that still have some relevance to my life today, I hesitated. What a giant store of knowledge was embedded in this ancient, cardboard warehouse! What a mass of facts and ideas had I sought to assimilate!

I stumbled upon observations and descriptions which are still useful, accounts of significant historical characters, novelists, poets, playwrights, artists, musicians and philosophers which, taken together, constitute a skeletal history of Western culture and civilization, the foundation for much of our society today.

Nevertheless, except for certain core recollections of teachers and subjects, almost all that I once knew is long forgotten. And yet that base of learning provided the foundation for almost all that I have subsequently thought and done.

The greatest revelation in revisiting my course notes came from my philosophy classes and honors program. I found two insightful definitions of philosophy. The first: Philosophy is nothing less than the whole history of human thought and ideas. The second: Philosophy consists of incomprehensible answers to unsolvable problems.

Sixty years ago I was fascinated by the study of various ideas and abstract thoughts throughout the ages. I had entered Dartmouth with a family background of religious (Christian) idealism and a natural bent toward social and political activism. The thinking and soulsearching I engaged in through my college courses in philosophy, literature and religion fired my idealistic activism both on campus and in later life. I'came to feel a personal sense of urgency to find the truth and to follow its dictates. I had to try to change things immediately, here and now.

The decades since my graduation from Dartmouth have indeed brought tremendous changes. The second half of the 20 th century saw transforming strides in civil rights for blacks and other minorities, in equal rights for women and in nondiscrimination against gays and lesbians. Work remains, but American culture today is profoundly different from 1941. That places many of the traditional English and philosophy courses I took in a new and different context and perhaps provides reason for throwing out my old notes. Nevertheless, it was with Dartmouth's long-lasting help that I found my place in life. I am satisfied with the personal philosophy and faith I have ended up with: an elemental belief that the purpose of life is indeed life itself, to live fully and well. This is the outcome of a Dartmouth education.

Yet reviewing my college work has given me a new sense of perspective. I see that philosophy is indeed an unending search for answers to basically the same questions and the rehashing of ideas concerning human existence. Various religions have claimed to have found the absolute truth, and indeed their believers do accept this on faith. But applying reason to the global mix of prophets, sacred scriptures and institutional practices leads one to the assessment that truth is not one and universal, but many and individual.

In the end I had little difficulty in throwing out the great bulk of my philosophy notes and papers because I came to realize that, interesting as the ideas of thinkers and writers through the centuries may be, the end product that matters most to me is my own resolution of the meaning of life. I no longer feel an urgent need to find and know "the truth" and to convert others to it. I am content with where my life has led me and with my lifelong assimilation of belief and practice.

Robbins Barstow was a public schoolteacher before spending34 years as director offield services and professional development forthe Connecticut Education Association. He livesin Wethersfield, Connecticut.