Park University - Narva Yearbook (Parkville, MO)

Page 10 text:

Will lam Lindsay Young, U. U., L. L. U our President, is completing Iiis third successful year of living and serving at Park under the motto of faith and work. J T IS with more than a little amusement I recall a story told by an elderly man to a college classmate. They were discussing the experiences of the students of their day as they reminisced. They laughed as they recalled one Jimmy who worked spare hours herding a calf in a green pasture in the center of town which served also as the village park. One day Jimmy sat in the grass, hook in one hand and the rope holding the calf in the other. All seemed serene and peaceful until the calf s adolescent impulses and urges began to assert them¬ selves. It jumped, pulled and pranced until Jimmy grew weary. Finally the calf started to run down the main street of the town, galloping clumsily, much to the merriment of the local inhabitants. One of his class mates chanced to be standing on the sidewalk and saw Jimmy’s predicament. As he passed by he 6

Page 9 text:

W HE world outside is a vast field waiting for men and women equipped with knowledge and vision to plant seeds of worthy service in its soil. From Park again go forth the seniors to take their places in the great outside. Park has prepared them, as she is preparing those of us who still remain Inside, through faith and labor. Faith gives a temper unto their knowl¬ edge, while Labor moulds them into characters for service in the world of man. 5 THE EDITOR

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u LLIAM L. YOUNG called out , Hey, Jimmy, where are you going? breath, I don’t know, ask the calf.’’ And Jimmy cried back in bated It is now about fifty-five years since this experience transpired and I have often wondered whatever became of Jimmy. Did he go through life not know¬ ing where he was going except that his course was being determined by a calf? Did his means of livelihood remain so exasperating that he never could learn what it meant to live? Did sheer economic necessity alone draw the lines of life’s meaning for him? Was the significance of human existence limited to or dictated by the grim need of something to eat and a place to sleep? Did work remain his master or did he become the master of his work? There is a vast difference between making a living and making a life. One can be spiritually, morally, aesthetically and socially maladjusted and underfed even though he may possess ever so much of the material things of life. It is possible to possess all the flesh pots of Egypt and remain a shrivelled and mis¬ erable person. That is w hy it is the first and most important task of a college like Park to teach the students how to live. What s hall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, that is, succeed marvelously well in making a livelihood, but at the same time lose his soul, that is, never really learn the meaning of living. Life is more than mere material existence. It is a strange mixture of conflicting impulses, desires, emotions, ideals, purposes and problems. College men and women have no right to membership in their fellowship of liberated souls until they have integrated and unified these diverse elements within their personalities. Not until they have learned to master themselves can they hope to live creatively and triumphantly in the bewildering social world of which they are a part. Living the abundant life is no simple and easy task. With open minds we should, therefore, seek to learn from every possible helpful source. Science can teach us to face life’s challenges with the cool, calm, dispassionate objectivity essential to its method. Art can assist us by its direct intuition of values, arriv¬ ing, as it were, at some high goal by a simple leap. Religion at its best accepts the contributions of the scientist with his analytical techniques, of the artist with his immediate flashes of insight, but moves higher and makes possible the fulfill¬ ment of all that both science and art cannot do. To ascend to the highest possi¬ ble level of culture calls for a self-commitment to the true, the good and the beautiful as made known in the Christian revelation. The art of living is a divine enterprise. It never finds its richest meaning until it is in harmony with the ultimate purposes of the Infinite. 7