Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

Page 29 text:

Books are good enough in their own way, hut they are a mighty hloodless substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your hack turned on all the bustle and glamor of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us. he will lKi e little time for thought. Robert L. Stevenson, Virginibus Piieresque To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. Francis Bacon, Of Studies Page

Page 28 text:

In this pastoral setting a young man was enabled to loaf comfort- ably and delightfully through four luxurious and indolent years. They loafed and invited their souls or, with great energy and enthusiasm, promoted the affairs of glee-clubs. athletic teams, class politics, frater- nities, debating societies, and dra- matic clubs. And they talked — al- ways talked, under the trees, un- der the ivied walls, assembled in their rooms . . . they talked with a large easy fluency about God, the Devil, and philosophy, the girls, politics, athletics, fraternities and the girls — My God! how they talked ! Thomas Wolfe. Look Homeward, Angel tedium, tedium, tedium. The frenzied Ceremonial drumming of the humdrum! Where in this small-talking world can I find A longitude with no platitude? . . . If only I had been born a flame, a flame Poised, sav. on the flighty head of a candle, 1 could have stood in this draught and gone out. Whip, through the door of my exasperation. But I remain, like the possibility Of water in a desert. Christopher Fry. The Lady ' s ot For Burning Page 24

Page 30 text:

I got the idea in my head — and I could not get it out — that college was just one more dopey, inane place in the world dedicated to piling up treasure on earth and everything. What ' s the difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even C! ture. or even just plain knowledge? It all seemed like e.vactly the same thing to me, if you take off the wrap- ping — and it still does! Sometimes I think that knowledge — when it ' s knowledge for knowledge ' s sake, anyway — is the worst of all. The least excusable, certainly ... I don ' t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while — just once in a while — there was at least some polite per- functory implication that knowl- edge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn ' t it ' s just a disgust- ing waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word ' wisdom mentioned. J. D. Salinger, Franny And looey Page 26