Grand View University - Viking Yearbook (Des Moines, IA)

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have hardly had time to catch our breath. But a reason is no excuse and certainly no cure. The swift change of life has ruined many homes and we may as well admit it. But there is another part to the answer. This is that we have not been alert to recognize the necessary elements of change so that we can incorporate them into our own situation and by doing this maintain the elements that should not be changed. Too many parents have ruined their chances at maintaining a home for their children as they grow up by failing to adjust themselves and the home to the inevitable changes in society. Stubbornness can be a foe to preservation as well as to progress. Much the same can be said of our churches. In many instances the core of church life has been lost, because an uncritical attitude toward changes has led to a destructive torrent of change. In other instances churches have lost their living and vital character and have become static and ossified institutions, because they have failed to see the changes that were inevitable and have failed to adjust themselves to this. Let us think also for a moment of our college. In many ways we have had to face the problem of change. Almost like an avalanche the change swept over us at the end of the war. We had done much planning, but we were compelled to do many things over and beyond our planning, simply because they were practically necessary. We have tried to keep our heads, but we have lost some features of our college life which we are sorry to see go. Now don't get me wrong! I am not indicating a regret at the new deal for our college. To me it has been a fine inspiration not only to see how our numbers have increased but how valuable possibilities have come that were out of the question before. But there are things that inevitably would be lost in so sudden a change. If on the other hand, we had chosen to resist the changes and deliberately tried to maintain a pre-war status quo, I arn confident that we would not only have lost a splendid opportunity but we would have placed in grave jeopardy that which we would have tried to preserve. We are now taking stock, consolidating, remedying and strengthen- ing. We are also planning new expansion-not for the purpose of in- creasing our numbers but for the purpose of doing a better job for what We have. It is our earnest hope that the Grand View College of the future may reflect a judicial balance of change and preservation. Change may mean decay, if there are no vital forces to resist it or to direct it. Change and decay in all around I seeg O Thou who changest not, abide with me. J. KNUDSEN. ..13- Al

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every Sunday. We have too much professional preaching about that subject and too little preaching that could nelp fill the churches. My point is that while we admit that change is inevitable and concede that some things not only cannot be brought back but should not be brought back, we must also realize that some of the changes are very unfortunate and that they are only inevitably, because we do not adjust ourselves to the fact of change. Perhaps the fact that change is coming about so rapidly has something to do with the loss of valuable things. We do not have time to adjust ourselves to changeg some things have to go, so we let too many things go. To put some of these observations into orderly form, let us say that change is inevitable and that we must adjust ourselves to change. Change can go on at different rates of speed, however, and there is danger in too rapid a change. Some things must go and can only be retained at a loss to the moderns who use them and to the detriment of the things themselves. Other things need not change, if the right adjustments are made and efforts are made to keep them. If they go, our loss is great. lt is then up to us to decide what we want to keep and what efforts we want to make for preservation. Some groups try almost desperately to maintain the externals of life, to retain the clothes, the customs, and even the tools of a day long since faded away. Such groups not only try in vain to stem the glacier of change, they make a mistake of identification. They fail to understand that external things must change and they identify externals with char- acter. Others make the mistake, lesser in extent but just as great in scope, in believing that only externals change and that minds and morals go on unchanged from age to age. They wake up some day to discover that they are out of touch with life and that they have lost the oppor- tunity to make adjustments. On the other hand, we find that content is often discarded with custom, principles of living with habits of living, and this is equally tragic. Just as true as the fact that externals must change, just as true is it that principles do not change. If they did, they would not be prin- ciples. And along with principles go basic ways which we can discard or violate only at the cost of the principles or with serious damage to them. It is easy to enumerate such principles and such ways, and we can all see how important they are and how much they are threatened by the rapidity of change. They are such principles as honesty, justice, purity, freedom and responsibility, and they are expressed in ways of living such as democracy, community living, home life, etc. We can lose our values by failing to preserve them in the rapid turn-over of change, and we can lose them by failing to adjust them to the change that is inevitable. Time marches on and time runs away! Let us take the home. A few decades ago the home was still the center of living. It formed an essential part of church and community life, but it was the most important immediate nucleus of living for young as well as old. It was a refuge and a reservoir. It was a living and vital thing in the existence of all. Today the home is in danger of disintegration. It has fallen into disrespect to the extent that a frightening percentage of homes are dis- solved by divorce. It has been pointed out that we are in the same situa- tion of moral decay which the Roman Empire experienced shortly before its collapse. One of the basic pillars of society and human living is crumbling and with it goes many of the finest values in life. The reason? Partly that we have given ourselves uncritically over to change and have failed to see what was going on. To some extent we are excused, because the change has come about so quickly that we -12-

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I DEAN ALFRED C. NIELSEN History and Sociology HARRY c. JENSEN KAREN MADSEN Business Secretary, Economics Secretary -14- W