Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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ilr. Pelloc in contributing the following introduction tor Sub Turri- I9J2, has done us a kindness, appreciation for which we cannot express in words other than those whose simplicity we know he will surely understand:

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Contents Sntrobuctorp The Right Order by Hilaire Belloc Campus - Administration Classes Publications Athletics - Activities Organizations Features Sunrise Fog

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SOB mmm ■ ' ' •a. Sntrobuctorp Jl )t Eisijt darter [i ' npijnghl, ly.iJi THE great advantage of the monastic training, which was the only educa- tional training Europe received for over a thousand years, the training which built up the whole of our civilization, was primarily its certitude — which involved continuity. It had one philosophy running throughout: therefore the order in which things were taught, the relative importance given to the subjects, the life which was emphasized as the right life to be led by those thus educated, was all known. It was not a matter of mere opinion, but formed part of the teacher and the taught. On this ac- count it created a permanent and stable society. If what it had taught had been false, or in as much as it had been false, that society would not have been stable — which it most eminently was. But the philosophy was true, and by means of the education based upon it our culture was rooted and estab- lished. On mere opinion or on changing philosophies nothing can be erected, least of all a system of education. But what is worse than a lack of certitude and almost worse than a lack of truth, is the effect upon education of abandoning the right order in which things should be taught. In the modern world the attempt at a right order has been simply abandoned. The principle is taken for granted that a right order cannot be discovered, and that therefore the only things certainly taught shall be the things immediately and material- ly necessary— and even those are left to the chance of changmg moods, so that, for instance, one kind of history is taught in one generation, and