Elon University - Phi Psi Cli Yearbook (Elon, NC)

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iPro o ' y ae Elon College. Oak College. A strange name for a place where people learn. What does a college have to do with a tree? It seems obvious at first. The Elon campus is covered with oaks; thus, the name. A name is not supposed to mean much, anyway. And yet it can. Not in itself, of course, but it can. by giving man something to think about, something by which lie can measure himself. A tree grows. It becomes; it was not always, and it will not be forever. A college grows, too, and so does man. Yesterday we were children, small seeds which had barely begun to sprout. The world began to act upon us, to nurture, condition and mold us. We played our children ' s games; we lauglied and we cried, neither knowing nor caring why. Then one day awareness happened to us; the sky was bright October blue, and the sun was warm. We welcomed that which was pleasant and shunned that which was not. Sometimes we were happy, and sometimes we were afraid. But we were not content with mere sensations. We began to ask why ; we had started to think. And it was why is this one rich and that one poor, and why don ' t those people like me, and why do I have to do this, and why was I born? Before we knew it we were thinking about ourselves.

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And so we added rings of experience, awareness and thouglit. Our wisdom and our knowledge had increased, yet we were still not satisfied. We needed to find a direc- tion for our lives. We wanted to learn more as we realized how far our lives were from being fulfilled. We decided to come to the Oak College because we thouglit that it would give us a purpose, that it would give us knowledge, and that It would fulfill us. But college did not give us anything. Instead, it offered us many things and said take them if you want them. Take them if you care. It showed us the books, but it did not turn the pages. It showed us new people, but it did not make them our friends. We were shown the tree of knowl- edge, which grew up beyond the sky. We reached for the fruit within our grasp, we shook the tree until more fruit, and leaves, and even small branches fell down; and then we picked them up. Then we started to climb the tree, limb by limb, and we are still climbing. We know we can never reach the top. we cannot even see it, but we climb anyway be- cause we are alive. Soon it will be time to leave tlus college. So many things must be left undone; yet there is no time to long for what might have been. The world i s calling us out, and we wonder what it will offer us. We hope that we are ready, that we have become mature. Yet maturity is not what we really want; for to be mature is to be fully developed. And the Oak College, Elon, has shown us that the man who thinks he is fully developed is no longer a tree but a dying weed, for he has lost the desire to learn and has ceased to wonder at the mysteries of hfe.