Temple University - Templar Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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The Class of 1951 is being graduated into an era of history that may be known to the future as the Age of Fear. Scarcely a nation feels assured of its safety. The brute ques- tion of personal survival has become a matter of moment to men throughout the world. The reason for that fear is the most fantastic part of the whole story. We are afraid not of guns or planes or bombs. These are effects, not causes. Fundamentally, we are afraid of ig- norance. One power has succeeded in fencing off one of the world ' s greatest land masses and in depriving the people, hundreds of millions of them, of knowing about the intentions, ideals, and ways of life of the rest of us. Not knowing us, they fear us; fearing us, they are made to hate us; hating us, they wish to destroy us. We, in turn, fear their hatred and the threat it poses to their existence and to ours. This is being written six months before your graduation, but whatever happens between now and then, the condition I have outlined will always be one of the best case studies of the peril that is in ignorance. You are the products of the best education we can give, and we send you into an uncertain world as our best hope for security. Edmund Burke said, Education is a nation ' s cheapest defense. It is also the best. I can think of no instance of an educated people ' s being enslaved. Physical force, in the nature of things, cannot stand against knowledge nor even stand for long without knowledge. You have seen men drawn toward destruction because com- munication between them was cut off. If that lesson makes you champion the free exchange of ideas and information among all men, regardless of race, nationality, creed, or economic level, you will constitute Temple University ' s finest contribution toward peace. Robert Livingston Johnson President

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The President 8

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Mitten Hall 10