Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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

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 19 text:

There may be no reason why a man should work, provided he lives in a so- ciety which charitably supports its un- employed. The only abstract reason for working may in fact be that a God exists who created man and set man to work to glorify His creation. (The second chapter of Genesis says that God made Adam and put him in the garden to till it and keep it.”) If a man does not acknowledge such a God—and his own duties to God—then perhaps he is a fool to work. Let him sleep till noon seven days a week, leave the house only to cash his welfare checks, buy his beer and re- turn to watch television all afternoon, half the night, surrounded by his loud and growing family. Yet—to speak of myself—even if I did not acknowledge God, even if I were adequately supported by the state, I am sure that I would work. And my first, simplest reason for working would be one universally expressed in proverbs— that The Devil finds work for idle hands. But my next reason would be that one expressed in the motto which Adolf Hitler cruelly inscribed across the one-way gates into many of his death camps: Arbeit Macht Frei—Work Makes Free. Few if any men freed themselves from Dachau or Belsen or Auschwitz by the work required of them there. But the truth of the motto survives that hideous distortion. Work frees a man. Frees him from what, though? 15