Dominican College of San Rafael - Firebrand Yearbook (San Rafael, CA)

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EDITORIAL Dominican College is ivory tower . . . an escapist society . . . totally cut oii from the reality of the world . . . isolated in a small community. Four accusations which are very common, very over-stated, but definitely not new. When you think about it, no situation is really new, what is new are those people who face the old situa- tion forthe first time. Consequently, it is not surprising to find these same accusations directed at Oxford University by a student-and argued by a college professor-both in the l930's. The name of the student is incidental, the name of the professor is pertinent: J. R. R. Tolkien, who has in the last few years been udiscovered by college students everywhere, primarily by way of the Hobbit and the Ring trilogy. In the l93O's, Tolkien commented: Not long ago-incredible although it may seem-I heard a clerk at Oxenford declare that he welcomed the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his university into con- tact with real life. He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century w-as increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without -actual oiiensive action tpractical and intellectuall. l fear he did not. In any case, the expression real life in this context seems to fall short of aca- demic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more alive', than, say centaurs or dragons is curious, that they are more real than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm-tree: poor obsolete thing, insubsitantial dream of an escapist. -J. R. R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf. 9

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Hfieal Life -these are Tolkien's key words. Just what is real?, he is asking. Is an automobile any more real than an elm-tree? ls something real just because it is ugly, just because it is new? It has been inferred by some that we at a small women's college are leading a fairy-tale life, a life which is, in today's jargon, Mont of itf' In an age when San Francisco State and Cal are surrounded by pickets and demonstrators and violence, Dominican is surrounded by trees, and grass, and peace. But are pick- ets any more real than trees? Is violence any more real than peace? The search for reality goes yet deeper-into education itself. The humanities too are accused of being irrelevant and passe, while the social and natural sciences, it is said, equip us to cope with society. This utilitarian philosophy is concomitant with the philosophy of those who find it necessary to be surrounded by all the udiscoveries', ofthe modern world in order to lead a relevant life. And yet, why should more emphasis be placed on the writings of todayls psychologists and social scientists than on the words of Homer and Aristotle? Universality is an im- portant Word to the argument for the humanities. If edu- cation is taken to be the search for truth and for the im- provement of man land if it is not taken this way it is because it has in the past years been forced into a very mechanical patternj , it seems to make sense that we profit from what other men have said on tmth and humanity, and build on what they have said, rather than throw it out in favor of only that which is written in our colloquial tongue, referring only to our individual, idiosyncratic qualities. I0