DePauw University - Mirage Yearbook (Greencastle, IN)

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to smile. XVe look out today upon a world of fads and crazes in religion, and in politics. and in the sphere of social reform. XYhile many of these wild notions come from college men. it nevertheless must be said that the real protection against these things is the good sense and the good humor which a man gets as he meets day after day with his fellows. And now, lest we may seem to have laid stress upon a matter of minor importance, let us say that even in the most serious field of all concerned,-even in the field of religion. the great training' force is social. The great Teacher taught men in groups and moved among the masses of men. He laid stress both upon discipleship and upon apostleship. The disciples learned, not only because they were with Him, but also because they were with others who were with Him. The apostles were effective, not merely because they carried out His commands. but because they were working with others who were carrying out His commands. DePauw University expects to do its part towards bringing in the Kingdom of God in the industrial, social, and political worlds. lt does this by teach- ing definite principles which it thinks to be of universal value, but it insists that these principles must he applied to men, not as sep- arate individuals of men here and there merely. but to men in their relations as members of families and communities. It may happen that some man will go forth from DePauw who has been profoundly influenced by the school. He may not be able to say just what professor induenced him most, or what students did him the most good. yet he is conscious that great power has come into his life from the old school. He sums it all up by saying that he owes much to the spirit of DePauw. That spirit of DePauw is just the force that we have had in mind,-that force which comes out of coeducation in the widest. the fullest. and deepest sense.

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found as men work as individuals. .Xfter all. however. we live in a world of persons. The results of the most secluded study are of value out in the world at large, and the man who is going to serve the world at large must have a sympathetic understanding of his fellows. XX'c used to hear a great deal said in praise of the self-made man. .X keen critic once remarked. however, that the trouble with the self-made tnan is that he is too apt to worship his maker. There is large force in this criticism. The man whose training has been away from his fellows docs not see things in true perspective. and his perspective fails simply because he judges too much by himself. lle does not go to the outer edge of the circle and look hack toward the center. ln college a man is not apt to remain self-centered for long. lf he does not sec his own faults speedily his fellow-students are apt to point them out for him. Une great advantage of the close fellowships that obtain at college. the close fellowships. for example, like the fellowships of fraternities and sororities. is to be found in this opportunity for mutual correction. .Xnyone who imagines that the Freshman or the Sophomore is a timid. shrinking, homesick Cfeilttlfe. quite likely has never known very much about Freshmen and Sophoniores in the flesh. .Xs a matter of actual fact. large numbers of students come to college thinking that they know a great deal. and one result of college training is to help them to see how little they know, Professors cannot always do this. because the newcomer is apt to think that he understands the problem as well as the professor. The needed corrective. however. is found in the actual contact with the fellow-students. The truth is that the scholar has to go out with the truth which he has learned from college, to apply that truth to the actual. work-a-day world. lle is poorly equipped for this task unless his associations at college have been of the intimate kind which enable him to understand pretty well just what sort of creatures human beings are. ,X cynic once said: .X college educa- tion has two advantages: tirst. it enables a man to put up a good bluff: and second, it enables him to see when one is being put up. uf course. if a man chooses to use the college education for the sake of learning how to befool people he can do so, but he has less chance of succeeding at that in college than almost anywhere else in the world. The contact with his fellows is so intimate and so close that they are apt to see through any attempt of the kind. XYhen the attempt is seen through the rebuke is meted out very swiftly. lint the matter goes farther. even. than this: even if we do not receive definite help through being with a mass of students we receive subtle and unconscious intiuences which mold ns when we do not suspect their presence. An engineer in charge of sur- veying on the western plains once said that his surveyors made very few mistakes in their calculations when they were working in groups. XVheu. however, the surveyors became widely separated the mistakes, strange to say, increased. This did not mean that the men corrected the mistakes of one another: it meant that the very fact that they were working together carried a sort of psychological atmosphere which kept them from the numerous mistakes that came when they were alone. However this may be with surveyors, it is certainly true in college that the very presence of others keeps students closer to the path of knowledge. Occasionally we are appalled at the opportunities for dissipation that come as large masses of students get together. and of course we must not min- imize the realitv of this danger. Over against this. however. must be put the fact that the social relation is a normal relation, and has its intinences upon the mental processes of the student. Some of the things about college life that the outsider least appreciates are really among the most valuable assets of the college. Take for example the sense of lnunor that is developed in the or- dinary college niau. This, of course, manifests itself at times in rather outlandish ways, but one trouble with the world is that so few people have a fully developed sense of lunnor. There are some arguments in this world that are logical enough as arguments: the only way to answer them is to laugh at them. There are some pretenses that look plausible enough from the standpoint of formal reason, hut they vanish into thin air as soon as somebody begins

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