Butler University - Carillon / Drift Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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g:?%M. ©g What ' s It All About, ? Anyh OWJ MERICAN school children arc taught so many myths that by tlic time they reach college their minds are almost completely and hopelessly made up for them, and lines of thought are carefully settled in grooves from which it is hard to escape. Phi osophy should try to get these children to think for themselves, to dislodge the gullible attitude they have always held and to put in its place a critical attitude. But philosophy, of course, must do more than cause disillusionment. Disillusionment usually leaves its victim in despair: the world he considered sound has been proved false, has gone to pieces, and he sees nothing but futility everywhere. Philosophy will show him that life is meaningful. It will lead him not to the despair of nothingness, but to the beauty of reality, reality as it has been conceived by the world ' s greatest minds. This Great Age People have been led to believe, by after-dinner speakers, campaign orators, and newspaper writers, that, because of its tremendous mechanical development, this is the world ' s greatest age. But is machinery absolutely beneficial to society? What use is radio, for instance, if over it one hears nothing but jazz music, vaudeville patter, church sermons, advertisements, and political propaganda? And do not forget, by the way, that modern advantages are enjoyed at the expense of men ' s souls, men ' s bodies, men ' s lives. Miners who work in black. dust-filled underground pits to supply with coal the factories that manufacture the advantages usually die before reaching middle age; human lungs and human minds, you know, can endure only so much. Men who build automobiles, men who have to work in hot factories for eight or ten hours every day, hearing always the ceaseless roar of the modern industrial plant — what does life hold for them? No matter what the politicians and jour- nalists say, this age is in a frightful mess. Do the sociologists know a way out?

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The Straight and Narrow HE title dean used to carry with it evil connotations of one sort and another. A dean was a sort of grouchy and mor- bid, albeit powerful, individual who went around doing his or her best to make college students miserable. Young ladies who stayed out late at night were sure to hear from the dean of women, and young gentlemen who couldn ' t resist the joys of frequent dissipation knew that the dean of men would be on their trail. Goodness, how times have changed! Girls nowadays dance till two or three in the morn- Mr. Putnam ing, thinking nothing of it: and if they want to smoke and in other ways show their freedom, they do so. Boys tear around town at all hours of the night in their handsome roadsters, caring little what dad. or mother, or dean, or anybody else thinks of them. And the deans themselves — well, what on earth can they do but sit back helplessly and watch the inevitable: For what can even such mighty in- dividuals as they do when the young people supposedly under their jurisdiction have been taught ever since they were teachable that every human being has a right to get out of life just what he can, and that success of any sort is to be attained only by aggressiveness? For is not aggressiveness the virtue most sought after and applauded nowa- days? The football player who rips sensationally through the opposing line, or dashes madly around left end, straight-arming all players, is cheered madly by the crowd. Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey. and Billy Sunday have more followers than Harriet Beecher Stowe ever dreamed of having. The salesman that forces the most contracts down his clients ' throats is banqueted and trophied by the home company. Deans, you are up against it! How are you going to tell a gay young crea- ture who speeds down Meridian street at sixty miles an hour in her baby blue roadster and fur coat, nonchalantly flicking ashes from her cigarette and complacently disregarding all stop signs, old people, children, and other hindrances, that she must obey certain rules and regulations? Somebody ' s got to get us out of this situa- tion. But who? How can even deans be ex- pected to inspire respect for order and law in boys and girls whose parents compete fiercely with their fellow men in the business world all day and then tune in eagerly on jazz music and prize fights at night ' Miss Buti.hr

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f-S ' S: - Purpose Astray ROM their first electric train, children of the twentieth century glorify in the magnificent achievements of this age of scientific progress. People are ever re- minded that fast automobiles, tall buildings, and radios are due to the advancement of Science. Little wonder that Science means nothing more for them than speed, efficiency, and production! The advancement of Science has done away with the superstitions of the past: it has put in their place little more than a cocky skepticism. As if a whirring motor were capable of spelling out the destiny of mankind! However, it can be seen that what is really being criticized here is not Science itself but rather that foreign element which dominates Science today — namely, the practi- cal. Modern scientific investigation began with a desire to give life a deeper interpretation. But the utility element has entered and spread with stupendous rapidity. Natural Science needs to be separated from practical materialism and regrounded in a purposeful connected whole of life. Chaos is Wrong The human mind demands order of its universe. In compliance with this demand has developed the oldest of all sciences — mathematics. The extreme exactness of this science is due to the abstract quality of its ideas which are capable of unusually sharp determination. However, mathe- matics does not rest on grounds which are ultimately unlike and independent of those of other sciences. For mathematics is the science of all exact thinking. The solution of algebraic equations, the classification of plants, and the framing of constitutions are all mental operations having order as their common aim and ground. Modern empiricism proceeds on the assump- tion that the world of nature is an orderly whole capable of mathematical comprehension. The resulting progress in natural science conceptions would seem to prove the validity of that as- sumption. We are beginning to understand the ancient Pythagorean postulate that number is the source of all things. Mr. Johnson