Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW the College graduate expects to succeed more readily than the untrained man is to state a condition born, not of conceit, but of the logical proposition that the trained man has better equipment and that this equipment will жга him, in the long гип, to overtake and outstrip his less fortunate brother in the race for temporal success. Some persons will point to the self-made man, and from the fact that hc has succeeded without the advantages of education, they argue that education is un- necessary. A significant fact is that objectors of this type invariably are not them- selves self-made men, nor are they, in the proper sense, educated men, nor are they successful men. Perhaps the strongest, certainly the most striking refutation of their assertions is the attitude of self-made men themselves. No one realizes and insists upon the usefulness,—nay, the necessity—of education with greater emphasis than those who have raised themselves up by their own efforts; no man is at greater pains to ensure the proper education of his children than one who has not himself enjoyed the advantages of advanced study. It is not true that the self-made man has succeeded without education; he early realizes the value of a trained mind, and at terrific sacrifice he succeeds in acquiring in an imperfect manner some of the benefits that the graduate has assimilated as part of a logical, well-presented course. The College man has guidance, the self-made man has none: the practice of comparing a self-made man with an unsuccessful gradu- ate is easily shown to be illogical. The difference between the two is the difference between a man of strong character making full use of what little he has, and a man of weak character making no use of his advantages; how unfair it is then to compare the two to the disparagement of education. Education is not an absolute key to success, but we claim this for it, that other things being equal, talents, industry and the like, and barring unavoidable misfortunes, the man with an education will advance more rapidly and farther than one who lacks his advantages. Within the last several months a truly phenomenal event has been witnessed Philosophy or by the reading public,—a history of philosophy has obtained a the History place among the best sellers! As a result, the intelligentsia are of Philosophy? endeavouring to solve whether humanity has suddenly become philosophical, or whether philosophy has suddenly become human. Another recent consideration of significant importance which might concern us, is the ascribing to philosophy of the much-discussed wave of student suicides in the American colleges. Š It is not our intention at this point to associate the above ideas and assert that the book in question has brought about the suicides,—we fully comp rehend the absurdity of such a thought. However, these ideas lead to a reflection on the two methods current by which philosophy is being studied, and culminating in the question: Which is of the greater educative value, Philosophy or the History of Philosophy? Philosophy, which is said to give the finishing touches to a college course, is con- sidered to be the most essential part of it; consequently it is necessarily of great import to study this science in a manner which is most productive of results. If the student is taught one system which can meet the demands of all occasions, which is optimistic, and which never contradicts itself, then he has a firm ground beneath him; but if he is taught all systems he has much more ground beneath him, but none of it is firm. А mere study of the various philosophical systems thrusts upon the immature mind of the student the task of — for himself between what is good and true and worthy of adoption, and what is fallacious and demands condemnation; and when it is remembered that the mature minds of the {2}

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW MM M n í ———- ———— —— ———————————————‏ ل مل great thinkers of the past have disagreed upon fundamentals, what chance has the youthful undergraduate for genuine discrimination? When one has never had a sound philosophical training in one set system, he will be merely amused or dis- sted on turning the pages of a book containing little more than the history of the intellectual disputes of innumerable thinkers, spread over thirty centuries of time. The history of philosophy tells how the speculations of one вісім are elimin- ated by those of another, whose, in turn, are eliminated by those of a third. Can every philosopher be right? As a modern writer aptly expresses it: Greek meets Greck and polysyllables fly. Bacon poohpoohs the Scholastics and pleads for science while he invents the most unscientific and impractical Utopia. Spinoza goes gunning for the gods of the world; the God of Aristotle and the God of Descartes, the god of Voltaire and the god of Spencer are all cancelled by his system. Bergson drives an ineffective rapier through the materialism of Spencer. Kant cuts the ground from under Berkeley and incidentally from under science and all human knowledge. Nietzsche slashes at the pacifism of Jean Jacques Rousseau and is slashed in turn by the pacifists, Croce and Russell. Schopenhauer quarrels with life itself and solves existence by hating it.” There may be some truth in attributing the student suicides to philosophy. For if the student reads from one p that the world 1s nothing but a place of gloom and that man has no positive feelings except those of pain, and from another that we can be sure of nothing, not even of our own existence, and from another that there is no future life, and from another that there is no God, and from another that everything is God, and so on ad infinitum,—without any one sound system to guide his thought,—there is little reason for wonder if the wave of student suicides seems to be approaching the fulfilment of Schopenhauer's dream of one grand act of uni- versal suicide. It is not by a study of all systems that the greatest results can be obtained from philosophy. A course in philosophy should be the study of a system upon which one can rely in all circumstances, not merely of a transient cult, but rather a rule of thought that is applicable for all time. Such a course should not be the study of all systems, obliging the student to ferret out from each its mite of truth, and рег- mitting him to fall a victim to the absurdities, eccentricities and fallacies of any system that appeals to him. If he learns one system, he has something; or we may say, everything; but if he learns all systems,—he has, in the true sense, nothing. Within the рик few years people have eagerly adopted the current idea of “making a day of іс.” Mother's Day, Labor Day, and Arbor Day, as well as in- , fumerable other “Бау,” are flourishing under this régime of concentrated н. remembrance. It was m because the calendar did not furnish enough ` days, that entire weeks began to be consecrated to the promulgation of ideas, constructive or memorial. In the meantime, while our teeth, our food and our clothing became the subjects of days and weeks of intense meditating, the hope of the nation,—our boys,—were relegated to the background of unconcern. This neglect, or oversight, resulted in the boys being denied those attempts at self-expression so indispensable to their advancement, while, at the same time, biased and pessimistic writers seized the opportunity to give vent to a general wail anent the degeneracy of the modern boy. At length, Boys' Week has become a reality. An entire week has been set apart during which they may, without let or hindrance, express their views and organize and carry out those plans and projects which belong most intimately to themselves. {3}