St Louis University - Archive Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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§lta tUi UnuWvSivu appreciative, well-poised, and mature Christian scholar which the mastery of these studies creates. Yet, given the knowledge of profane things with its by-products, and given the great religious truths and habits of living, there yet remains a high sphere of purely natural activity, that of philosophical thinking. To this end the College provides its courses in scholastic philosophy. Fundamental principles of accurate thinking, the application of these to every-day affairs, habits of mental order and rational motives — these objectives stand out boldly among the purposes for which the College stands. The College of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the University, develops men rather than technicians. It is dedicated to the production of men of high religious principles and habits, men of knowledge, men of trained and developed minds, men of attitudes and appreciations and sympathies and balance, men prepared to walk down the narrowing paths of life ' s inevitable specializations, the while their heads and their hearts remain high enough to command all the relationships of true living, and to pursue always the end for which man was created. Left — Students in mechanical drawing practice their art under the watchful eye of their instructor, John J. Quinn. Center — Practice in public speaking is secured by Arts students in the speech classes conducted by Dr. Ralph B. Wagner. Right — Science studies are required of all Arts students. Chemistry classes and laboratory work are given in the Medical Building.

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ARTS AND SCIENCES Left — Miss Elma Poole, reg- istrar for the non-professional schools of the University. Right — Courses in history are essential requirements for all students in the College of Arts and Sciences. Left — To prepare students excelling in Latin for the an- nual Intercollegiate Latin Con- test, Rev. Otto J. Kuhnmuench, S.J., conducts informal classes in his room. Right — Rev. John J. Flana- gan, S.J., adviser to Arts freshmen and sophomores, discusses a studies program with one of his charges. As each agency of the Church has its distinctive area of emphasis, the college, in Catholic thinking, exists to impart knowledge, an essential in the eguipment of an educated man; to provide experience designed to cultivate to relative perfection the intellect, the will, and the emotions; to produce, in fine, the educated man, possessed of broad knowledge, a trained mind, a taste for beauty, and a sense of values; to foster an intellectual Catholicism and the effective Christian philosophy of life needed in field-marshals of the renaissance of Christian principles in modern living. Knowledge, however, is but part of the aim of the College of Arts and Sciences. More significant even than a high level of knowledge is the whole set of habits and attitudes and judgments developed in the course of mastering knowledge. The College chooses its studies, its literatures and languages, mathematics, natural and social sciences, not for their content alone, but for the habits and attitudes of the penetrating, thorough, critical, Page Twenty

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TIE CRADUA •lA school of graduate studies finds its end in awaking the advanced student to the value of precise knowledge, and in disciplining his powers for constant attack on the unknown. Rev. Thurber M. Smith, S.J., Dean of the Graduate School. THERE are two fundamental objectives to the realization of which any university devotes itself: the conservation of truth, and the advancement of truth. The conservation and transmission of knowledge and ideas have always been recognized as the business of universities, both by themselves and by others. They have regarded themselves, at times perhaps with too great arrogance, but always with a certain degree of justice, as the guard- ians and dispensers of the accumulated treasure of man ' s intellectual achievements. Now truth and knowledge are not preserved by locking up records in a sort of academic warehouse. Records of the past and the tools necessary for the attainment of knowledge may be kept in libraries, museums, and laboratories, but, after all, knowledge is transmitted only from mind to mind, and advances step by step with the development of those who know. In other words, the preservation of the past consists essentially in the trans- mission of its treasures, interpreted, evaluated, and arranged into an ordered synthesis. This is what the process of instruction means — the passing on to the rising generation of our heritage of civilization and culture. Page Twenty-two