Washington State University - Chinook Yearbook (Pullman, WA)

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The world is too much ruled by this commercial spirit, which weighs everything in the balance of dollars and cents. It is no longer confined to trade and business, but permeates almost every class of society. It is in our entire educational system, and lowers its real value. It enters religion and the church, and mars their sacredness. Life, to the majority, is coming to mean only the exchange of one ' s powers for compensation. To millions it is a daily struggle for food, raiment, and shelter; to other millions it means days of office toil with sleepless nights of worry. On the one side grim necessity, on the other the gratification of ambition. This mad race for the dol¬ lar is the all-consuming, all-absorbing passion. Young people preparing for usefulness are influenced by this idea. Students in colleges and universities are seeking after facts which in their application to their future will bring results that the eye can see, the hand can feel. As a part of education this is desirable, but taken as its end it is weakening to character. The most remarkable development in education in recent years is the application of tech¬ nical training. Today the effort is to make education more practical. The modern graduate would step from the commencement platform, full armed for the struggle before him. And yet, let me appeal to you. In all this educational tendency is there not this danger: that we shall make not men but mere machines? The true purpose of the school is not merely to furnish a technical training which may serve to keep the body alive, nor even the mere acquisition of knowledge, but a widening and deepening of the capacity to feel human senti¬ ments and divine passions. Life, life in its broadest and fullest sense, no longer limited by the material or even by the intellectual, but unrestrained in its right to draw strength and power from the souls of men, that is the need of the world today. Has not every soul felt the same longing, and listened with England ' s laureate to that inspiring voice? “Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, O, life, not death for which we pant, More life and fuller, that I want. Better for 11s could we learn that one deep and noble emotion com¬ ing not only from a mind that thinks but from a heart that feels has 122

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A Plea for Aesthetic Culture. The conditions which have combined to perfect the advancement which characterizes our age are so varied in kind and so rapid in suc¬ cession that it is difficult to determine which has influenced most largely the civilization of today. There is, however, in these con¬ ditions and their resulting influences one tendency which seems to be taking a stronger hold upon the world. There is one prevailing spirit to which humanity hows lower each day. Modern ideas, mod¬ ern thought and modern inclinations tend toward materialism. ‘‘The practical!” “The practical!” is the cry today. The great soul pas¬ sions of human life, which have stirred the world and revealed to men their better natures are today branded as sentiment, and cast aside as having no essential part in our scheme of life. It is this predominant idea in men’s minds which calls forth the world ' s ques¬ tion: “Will it pay?” I 21

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more life giving power than all the materialism of the age. Could we grasp that mighty truth we would the better understand and ap¬ preciate the value of a culture which develops the soul and fits man for his true mission. The aspirations of humanity, the nobler im¬ pulses, the ideals we call beautiful have been aided in their expression by the fine arts. The achievements of man which minister not to his material necessities but to his love of beauty. A neglect of these in our educational system mean s a neglect of what constitutes the primary distinction between him and the animal seeking only for food and shelter. The culture derived from an understandings an appreciation, a love for these means a broadening of sympathy that can never come from an education that has only crude coin as its inspiration. So, one element essential to this culture is the study of art. Since the beginning of human history, almost, man has sought to embody his highest ideals in material handwork. The massive architecture of Egypt and Babylon, the sculpture of a Phidias in Greece, as weil as the paintings of a Raphael or a Michael Angelo, all represent the beautiful conceptions of the man who made them. Art is an inter¬ pretation, and he is the greatest artist who interprets best. The man who sees in the unhewn block of marble a beautiful statue, and he who spreads upon the can vas a significant picture, arc alike enrich¬ ing the world because they are putting in definite form and color, new ideas, new thoughts, new beauty. Another element which is a necessary part of culture is the study of literature. Would you have a keener perception of human con¬ ditions? Study the lives of great men, the passions of great .souls. Would you understand nature? Go and become acquainted with those who have seen the beautiful and divine. Much more can we know of life when we see its throbbings pictured in prose and poetry. The historian brings us face to face with past events; the biographer brings us into touch with great lives; the poet will show us that nature is “something for the gladness of heaven to shine through.” These have studied humanity with all its passions, sentiment, emo¬ tions, and interpreted it in terms which make men understand each other, and best of all themselves. Moreover, in studying literature we study that which if it has real 123