Bethany College - Bethanian Yearbook (Bethany, WV)

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Letters from home Is Cl) OtV. Your entry into college is so momentous an event in our lives that I feel I want to write you a few words of advice. We here at home have a great stake in your future. If it is happy and successful your mother and I will be content, for it will fulfill our hopes and dreams and justify the years of struggle and planning and the sacrifices we made that you might have the opportunity for higher education. From now on, you are largely on your own. How well you adjust to your new environment and what you learn will determine how success- ful you will be in later life. College offers you three things: Knowledge, friends, and a chance to develop some skills. Starting with the latter I urge you to take part in extra-class activities, if they bring you pleasure. Determine for yourself which activity has most value and interest for you. Then go out and give it everything you have. Don ' t attempt to be in everything. Do one thing well and others will follow naturally. If you attain prominence in activities or ath- letics, drink gladly of the joy it brings; but re- member that, four years from now, there will be no one on the campus to whom your name will mean anything. Even the great are soon forgotten. Don ' t hold your professors in awe. Cultivate friendships with members of the faculty. Finally, always remember that the primary purpose in going to college is to get an education. If you finish your four years of college without having developed a love for learning and acquired an intellectua curiosity these years will have been a failure. If a man empty his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. Remember this. As ever, Dad. JJear JJciUCjkter: So you ' re really at college. Certainly, it should be one of your great- est experiences. Dad ?nd I know that you ' ll be true to our hope. All that we ask is that you be true to your- self, that you make yourself the finest, broadest, most thorough, and most thinking individual possible. You will find it easy to slip into the habits of those around you ,and, if their habits are what you sincerely want, then slip. But first, take a little time out to think. Don ' t be a- fraid to be yourself — people are thankful for an individual. You asked about joining a sorority. If you will be happier, dear, Dad and I say, Go a- head. But if you join a sorority, we want you to keep open-mindedness and tolerance. Don ' t build a barbed-wire fence around your sorority sisters, or pin a No Trespassing sign on your heart against other friends. Become interested in campus activities, but not to the exclusion of the wider world around you. Read a newspaper and some current litera- ture. Keep in touch with the world. Take care of your health. Don ' t burn your- self out now; you don ' t want to feel like an old woman when you graduate. You ' ll acquire poise, and lose self-conscious- ness when you think of other people ' s happiness first. Charm and personality spring from your consideration and thoughtfulness. You ' ll find these by thinking first of others, rather than try- ing to play the lead yourself. Your loving Mother. The rural delivery PAGE EIGHT

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partment has been guilty of such one sidedness, asserted Dr. Woolery. Even now, the German justification, as well as the English is being taught here. The intelligent student of European affairs will read everything he can from good books such as Van Paassen ' s Days of Our Years, or Vincent Sheean ' s Not Peace But the Sword. to such authoritative magazines as the well written Foreign Af- fairs, and the opinionated New Republic, suggested Dr. Wool- ery. What are your own convic- tions on the war crisis? was the last question put to Dr. Woolery by one who was aware, at least, that convictions arrived at after years of study and ob- servation are not to be explained in a few statements. The answer to war is the use of common sense. Not sub- terfuge. Not power politics. Nations which have, must give to those which have not. What are the ends to such a war as this? Poland cannot be main- tained independent, Dr. Wool- ery said. If you want a com- plete statement of my views, you ' ll find them in the article I mentioned before. It ' s Charles A. Beard ' s titled ' Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels ' in the September Harper ' s. I ' d sign my name to it, all except the last section in which Beard criti- cizes Walter Lippman for his demand that America assume her natural responsibilities as a world power. For the remainder of the space allotted us, suppose we turn then briefly to Beard ' s article. From 1783 to 1890, United States kept out of European troubles, and there -were plenty of troubles, according to Mr. Beard. But with the entrance on the national scene of such men as A. T. Mahan, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Albert J. Beveridge, a new doctrine of imperialism appeared in which America was DR. WILLIAM KIRK WOOLERY Provost and Professor of History and Political Science DR. CHANDLER SHAW Assistant Professor of History expected to plunge into every European dispute for the sake of enlightening barbarians and spreading democracy. At the end of the World War United States decided that the loss of life and repudiated war debts did not balance the joy of playing savior. During the first years of the ..„ Roosevelt era, domestic troubles kept the government men busy. When the alphabet soup turned into poor fare for a hungry na- tion, the Roosevelts turned an inquisitive eye to South America where they tried to teach our democratic way of life to a con- tinent of which three-fifth of the people are now under dic- tatorships. In the east we hung on to the Philippines, which Beard terms the Achilles ' heel of United States; meanwhile refus- ing to recognize the war in China as a war, but selling Japan one-half the munitions she used in China. A month after the election of 1936, won on a platform of neutrality among other things, the Roosevelt administration, says Beard, in violation of inter- national law and U. S. neutral- ity, passed a bill placing an em- bargo on munitions to the loyal- ist government in Spain, which was fighting fascist domination. In January, 1938, the White House, not the navy (for the navy, according to Admiral Lea- hy, had adequate forces to pro- tect the Western hemisphere) demanded an enormous increase in naval outlay, presumably for an European bound navy. With these and oth- er definite examples cited by Beard, of United States meddling into European incessant quar- rels, it would appear that America is getting clos- er to becoming victims of the foreign malestrom. According to the July 4th New York Times. the president asserted in an interview that pre- vention of war in all parts of the world was the first policy of his administration. continued on page 22 PAGE SEVEN

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Hail ! The Forgotten Man Rush week is over, the upper classmen relax and remember — Freshmen! I ask you a favor! Won ' t you stop for a moment — only a small moment — it ' s all I ask — and remember the forgotten man, the upperclassman. He ' s right here among you — so, someday, take a look around you, in chapel, say. Behold him — sitting there. Take off your dinks and place them over your hearts for the small moment I mentioned. It ' s the decent thing to do. It may surprise you to hear that such an animal as the upper- classman exists, but he does. Statistics and the Admissions and Per- sonnel Office have told us there are, en- rolled in Bethany. 119 sophomores, 44 jun- iors, and 56 seniors. Amazing, isn ' t it? You are 168 strong, and, I might add, self-sufficient. You have a right to feel that way, I suppose. All summer long professors turned pro- moters, have been chasintr over hill and dale, wearing out the best products Good- rich has to offer for the pedal extremities of the automo- bile. Time, money, and en- ergy has been spent in per- suading you that Bethany is THE one and only college and you are THE only ones worthy of populating her halls (Gateway (to) Helwig, Phillips and Cochran). And speaking of halls, two professors were summarily ejected from their hearths and homes in order to make more room for the incoming class. The vacated houses were joined together (effect okay in spite of dire pre- dictions) and we are now to pretend that it ain ' t never been no other way. When you arrived at college, you were feted, fed. Also, tested, of course: no doubt your first inkling of your by Marilynn Roberts future oppression. Furthermore, you were too new and dazzling for the world worn and tarnished upperclassman. He was kept away from you, shunted off downtown to find sustenance, perhaps even forbidden entrance to town (oh drastic! and perhaps not true. Cer- The author is a senior majoring in English tainly, he wasn ' t welcome, poor soul). Then he was admitted to your sacred presences and had his turn at exulting your already sky-high ego. Remember how you came to the final and seem- ingly irrevocable conclusion that you were God ' s own gift to the world — (if we don ' t think so — just ask you) ? There ' s a lot of you, now, 168 of you THIS year. But. whether you know it or not — that THIS has a pessimistic and ominous sound. How many of you will move into that sopho- more section NEXT year? Think you ' ll be able to fill it, my proud Freshmen? I doubt it. Why, this year ' s juniors added up to 82 when they were sophomores. Lookit them now. Depression, huh? Oh, you think it can ' t happen here? Wait and see, babes, just you wait. We upperclassmen know what it ' s like — seeing our numbers decrease each year. Where do they go ? Well, any number of colleges and universities have Transfer from Bethany Col- lege registered in their offices. Two former Bethanians are doing library work this year. Oth- ers are doing office work. Then some have gone and taken the big jump, the final blow, I mean marriage. We won ' t investigate the personnel of various and sundry breadlines, but we venture — uh — nothing. So, kids, take a lesson from that junior class. They ' ve been robbed. And also, ma frans, another small warning. Those pledge pins are anchored now. May I warn you of what is to come? Thanks. You ' ve heard, no doubt, of pledge work? It ' s a combination of manual labor, ego deflation, and expense saver for the fraternities and sororities. Then there ' s the small matter of Hell Week — an interesting title. It ' s one of those things (quote) anything can hap- pen (unquote) . It has its place: through the years to come the meliferous tones of Twelve o ' clock — all ' s well — no pirates on the Buffalo resounding from yon Reservoir Hill, will linger in your memories long after sum, es. er, etc., have long since departed. Your memories of your fra- ternity and sorority house will be mingled with the poignant odor of dust mops, the industrious continued on page 21 PAGE NINE