Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

Page 9 text:

Dwindling was extra-curricular emphasis, the collegiate attitude. Prominent became the part our college was playing in the com- munity, the necessity to accelerate our own scholastic efforts, the importance of a mature point or view. Inwardly, we ask many questions about c ollege life that were not asked before. Should I be at college? Is this merely a stop-over ? Should I be doing needed work somewhere else? Is the liberal arts education of real value in wartime? Most of us who truly ask have come to the conclusion that a college education of the widest scope is of greater value today than ever before; that it is a privilege precious and precarious. We only hope we are making the most of it. . . .

Page 8 text:

9i h a diffiiMni pJwpoAiJtwn -■ Yes, it is different to go to college in tKis year, 1944. It is a different proposition to teacK in a college. We wKo are at SwartK- more feel this change and would hke to ex- plain its significance; to make an intangible attitude explicit so we may remember it. The outward changes at Swarthmore are many. They began, of course, in 1941, with the slow but insistent decrease in the mas- culine population; a situation saved in 1943 by the sudden appearance of the bright Navy uniforms on the midsummer campus. The early adoption of a third semester per year shifted our whole conception of time. Friends became elusive people who gradu- ated every four months. Only the more nec- essary and fundamental things retained sig- nincance.

Page 10 text:

D E D I C fl T I n ESPECIALLY TODAY is SwartKmore proud of its youthful president; proud 01 his dignity, his knowledge, and his abihty; for Swarthmore is now more than a place of learning, it is a part of a country at war. To John Nason, who is so efficiently guiding us through these turbulent days, we the class of 1945, dedicate this Halcyon.