Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

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ADMINISTRATION and FACULTY — '5-

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President Gordon Kkith ClIAI.MBRS A.B. (Brown), M.A. (Oxon.) Ph.D. t Harvard). LL.D. Ilobarl) Liti. I). (Rockford and Brown), L.H.D. (Ripon) President of the College To the Seniors: This was the year the barracks began to come down and the freshman dormitories to go tip. the year the political candidates had their say and the best talkers did not win, and the year we overhauled Student Government. These and the numerous incidents of ath- letic. social, musical, dramatic, and publishing activity, as well as the assignments, ex- periments, lectures and exams provide the overt record of the one hundred twenty-ninth year of Kenyon College. ()ther events of the year which occurred in men’s minds and hearts still lie hidden from sight: apprehension of durable facts and their meaning, and the surprised percep- tion of how some of these are hooked to others in human experience. The obvious me- tamorphosis of a freshman into a sophomore may go no farther than the sophomore’s impressive acquisition of knowledge or the illusion that now he has it. Hut at both ends of the llill. in Bexley and in the College, the more mature student actually bc- gins. without knowing it. to acquire something beyond knowledge. It is all mixed up with ideas and facts, but what he acquires is entirely a part of his will and his taste, lie iK'gui to like ideas, problems, and tasks he hardly had dreamt of IxHorc he went to college or seminary. I le begins to try to acquire a little at a time, and to be sure he un- derstands what he learns. Lor the scholar this is the beginning of humility. For the man it may be the licginning of wisdom. The passages of human experience here studied in the humanities, social sciences, divinity, and science, are various and even diverse. They share one common proposition, as we cultivate knowledge of them in Kenyon College — that all are definitely con- nected with the way in which we live privately in our own minds and hearts, and the way we live in our communities. To know and live the relationship as well as to acquire the knowledge of the subjects is a part of the education we call liberal. Discoveries of the meaning of what is studied are made i ersonally and in private, particularly the discovery of the implications for the life of the learner of what he has learned. Such discoveries are the memorable incidents of the academic year. It is of these that we in the taculty think, and ot the maturing manluxxl marching before us, when we see the commencement procession on the middle path. To each of you we wish a continuance and acceleration of such private discoveries. Gordon Keith Chalmers