Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

Page 17 text:

that-matter would be irrelevant and in- tolerably presumptuous here now. In any case, the list has altered, is altering year- ly; and the fullest record of the effort to make it and keep it (such as it has been) is contained or implied in my stories and novels. Summary, as usual, would only be a lie. 13

Page 16 text:

It was in England, at Oxford—after my graduation from Duke in 1955—that I encountered still another sentence which seemed to have both steering and braking power. It was told to me by my teacher, Lord David Cecil; and it had been said by his grandfather Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, Victoria's Prime Minister. As I recall the story, Lord David’s mother had said to the old man, Father, don't you think it matters very much for the children to do thus and so. . . .?” And Lord Salisbury had replied, My dear, nothing matters very much and few things matter at all.” The remark seemed to me then—as it does now—both moving and shocking, consolatory and subversive. It is not at all a new observation. It appears at first sight to share the weariness of Marcus Aurelius, the easy disillusionment of Ec- clesiastes, the Rubaiyat and a million sophomores' diaries—Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. But that is not what Lord Salisbury said (though well he might, having presided for years over the largest empire in the history of the world) — not All is vanity” nor Nothing matters but Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all.”—What few things? My own formal education lasted nine- teen years (my whole education will be, I hope, conterminous with my life), and the list I have made of the few-things- 12

Page 18 text:

One of the things, however, has be- come so central to the continuation of my own life, to my slim convictions about the needs of others and to my few cer- tainties about the ends of education that I must discuss it. It is something which I learned in the process of the inadequate life and education which I have had— ridden by the seven sins, most heavily by sloth—but which I assert as universal. And it can be briefly stated, almost a motto, a hated motto—Work Makes Free. I could even extend it (truly, I think) to make my own definition of education —-Education is the process by which a man discovers, as early as possible in his brief life, the nature and duties of his personal work. 14