Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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Professors G E. Bentley, R. M. Ludwig, W. S. Howell, Department of English is impelled to find connections, to educe patterns, to build hypotheses. In his handling the fact undergoes a sea' change. It is alchemically converted, as it Were, into something rich and strange. It becomes a symbol, the repositor of values. In this age of excessive specialization, the humanist remains .an incorrigible synthesizer. Separate disciplines have a way of merging in his thinking. He refuses to be confined by departmental barriers. His habit of mind is allfinclusive. The more humble he becomes about his own competence and the more reluctant ever to be dogmatic, the more daringly he takes all learning as his 'appointed realm. V The 'humanist lives in a dimension all his own. You would be surprised to find out the places he has been, the things he has done. Yet his experience is not thus to be measured, for it is cofextensive with the human Professors E. T. Cone, OL Strunk, J. M. Knapp, Department of Music Professor I. O. Wade, Chairman, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Professors A. Elsasser, E. L. Hubler, J. Thorpe, Department of English

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Professors M. E. Coinclreau, A. L. Foulet, E. B. O. Borgerhoif, Depart- ment of Modern Languages and Literatures Professor W. Oates, Chairman, Department of Classics and that true education begins and ends in the disinterf ested pursuit of selffperfection. This is not to say, as is too often said, that the humanist has no regard for facts. Quite the contrary, his appetite for them is insatiable, whether in his own field, in allied provinces of the humanities, or in those vast outlying tracts to which the natural and social sciences have staked out their claims. But although no fact is altogether alien to his curiosity, the humanist will never simply let it stand on its own merits and speak for itself. He must always he exploring its relations to the nonffactual. He Professors J. V. A. Fine, A. E. Raubitschek, F. C. Bourne, S. D. Atkins, G. E. Duckworth, Department of Classics Professor E. T. Dewald, Department of Art and Archaeologyg Professor D. D. Egbert, School of Architecture i t Ti .

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Professor A. Mendel, Chairman, Department of Music Professors J. B. Reese, W. Thorp, R. R. Cawley, M. Kelley, Department of English Professor E. B. Smith, Chairman, Depart- ment of Art and Archaeology story. He has, quite literally, 'Ldrunk delight of battle with fhisj peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. And always what he has so gladly learned, he as gladly teaches. The highest good for him is to be able to make a wise choice. He subscribes to the Socratic doctrine, Know thyself, but is sure that no one can do this who has not first known all sorts and conditions of men and a wide variety of situations. The humanities are for him not only a vvay of life, but the way of knowing life. Resolved at all costs to liberate his own individuality, he is content with doing nothing less for his students. For, above all else, he has discovered that learning is a shared process of selffdiscovery in which he who gives most receives most. Professor P. K. Hitti, Chairman, Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures