Marquette University - Hilltop Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

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Fr. Gerard Smith, S.J., professor and chairman of the philosophy depart- ment of Marquette, is such a teacher in whom his teaching lives. He is a primary teacher, one who gives his students insights and challenges not found in textbooks or class notes, insights so original, so individual that only he can give them. His class lectures are permeated and punctuated with Fr. Smithismsf' In his description of man as an object of first intention he explains: Obviously the man whom we know in that way, exists or can exist in all his own physical splen- dor, with his ears layed back, his feet in the trough, eating corn on the cob, and washing it all down with a highball as long as his leg. Then he rumbles and explodes into laughter while his students join in, pleased to think that he can find such enjoyment from teaching them. They know him to be a wise man, reposed in his wisdom and vitalized by it. Fr. Smith was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on April 25, 1896. He entered the Jesuit order in 1914 at Florissant, Mo., after four years at St. Mary's College, Kan- sas. Both his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees were received from St. Louis University. He did graduate work at the School of Divinity, St. Louis, Ore Place in Hast- ings, Englandg and Fouviere in Lyons, France. In 1936 he earned his doctorate from the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto University. Fr. Smith came to Marquette in 1929 as an instructor in English and, later, philosophy. He remained at Marquette until 1935, when he left to spend a year at St. Louis as an associate professor. He returned to Marquette in 1936, and became head of the philosophy department in 1944. In 1955 he became the first American and the first priest to be awarded the Spell- man-Aquinas medal by the American Catholic Philosophical Association. This medal is given occasionally, but not annually, for excellence in philosophical writ- ingand teaching. Only two medals were previously awarded, one to Jacques Mari- tain in 1951 and one to Etienne Gilson in 1952. Fr. Smith was the Fordham University Suarez lecturer in 1955, the Marquette University Aquinas lecturer in 1956, and received the Marquette faculty award for teaching excellence in 1959. His professional affiliations include memberships in the American Philosophi- cal Association, the Catholic Committee on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs and the American Catholic Philosophical Association, of which he was president in 1951. His writings include over 70 articles in philosophical and educational quar- terlies. His philosophy text, Natural Theology, was published in 1951. In 1961 he co-authored a second text, The Philosophy of Being. Other books are Molina and Liberty Cunpublished dissertationj in 1936 and The Truth That Frees, 1956. Fr. Smith is editor of the Aquinas Lecture series, the Christian Wisdom series, the Highway to Heaven series, Jesuit Thinkers of the Renaissance, Translations of Medieval Texts and An Etienne Gilson Tribute. Fr. Smith's life is a search for wisdom and truth and a possession and com- munication of it. By giving of himself he is able to give this wisdom and truth to others. To this philosopher-teacher, we dedicate this book.

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Men and Women of Marquette: My hope today will make you wonder. As soon as you with- draw from Marquettefs campus in June, may you suffer a severe but not disabling onset of homesickness. May you pine for Mar- quette's buildings, old and new, for the people who are part of us, for Twelfth Street and Wisconsin Avenue, for the Gesu, for Mil- waukee parades, for the Union, and for the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. lt would be regrettable if, after three, four, or more years of being part of this University Community, you could shake the dust from your feet, walk away, and rarely turn to glance back over your shoulder. Marquette's faculty does not feel that a Marquette education is a short-term ad hoc situation restricted to your precise years on campus. Rather, these are the years of affiliation with Mar- quette, when sons and daughters of the Mother University are conceived and born. A dreary prospect it would be if the children of a family were to move off from the family abruptly and not feel that, while admittedly acquiring munificently within the family, they had not left part of their heart, part of themselves, at their University. Marquette is not composed of buildings, nor of faculty, nor of administrators, nor of currently enrolled students, nor indeed of a composite of all these. These all exist to insure products, our product is our graduate or even those short of graduation who terminate their formal education with us. This makes Marquette much more extensive than Milwaukee. We truly exist wherever our products confront the world and proclaim by their depth, their habits, their ideals, and their reason- ableness, This man, or this woman, is Marquette Universityf' My hope, again, is that wherever you go, you will look back fondly on your Marquette Years not as an experience, but as a process of adoption into a University family or Society. May you be homesick to return frequently where you will always be wel- come. - Ewa wel?