Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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William H. Wells Only near the end of a student’s col¬ lege experience does the realization that it is only a transitory period sink in. Until then, the student reacts angrily to the suggestion of those who have lived longer and gained a bit of historical per¬ spective, that he is, after all, only a tran¬ sient. Our society is not kind to transients. With rare exceptions it heaps its greatest rewards on those who cling tenaciously to one employer, one expertise, one ca¬ reer. The man who knows a great deal about one thing is treasured above the man who knows much about many things. The Renaissance man is revered in romance but not in reality. If there is one explanation of the un¬ settled state of this or any campus it might be between the transient and the fixed; between those who see the present as eternal and those who see the eternal as present. The white racist now has his counter¬ part in the black racist and hate is the name of the game. Pity the person who merely loves. I do not believe in collective guilt or innocence—only in individual guilt or innocence. I am not responsible for what my ancestors did nor will my children be responsible for what I do. But I owe to my children that which my ancestors owed to me. And I owe it to those around me not to assail or praise them for what others have done, but to judge them by what they do. The college campus is the one place where anyone can feel young—unless he doesn’t wish to. The biggest difference between college as I knew it as a student and as I see it now is between thinking and doing, between wisdom and expertise. College ought to be an institution pre¬ paring youth for the years that follow. It has gone astray. It has become the mis¬ tress of a part of society. Today’s stu¬ dents want not to return it to its original purpose, but merely to shift mistresses. They seem not to want purity, merely a whore with different interests. 24

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Of course it has been helpful at the end of many days to be able to go home and pull leaves off my plants, cut them down to proper size or have a soul-freeing potting party. 23

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The more one investigates the more it becomes clear that no one really agrees on what the purpose of a university is. There are as many purposes as there are individuals to enunciate them. Perhaps we need parallel institutions, to be attended in alternate years or terms. One would be frankly and unequivocally vo¬ cational—whether to produce a doctor of medicine, a school teacher or an architect. The other would be unequivocally academic—doing nothing more than ex¬ posing the student to the art and literature and phi¬ losophy of the ages and of the present. We might need a third type; for those students who want to pull down society, for teachers to like to gam¬ ble with their careers, and for administrators who need the thrill of combat. The buildings would be in¬ expensive and destructible and easily replaced after each confrontation. On too many campuses there is an undue emphasis on being black or white, or old or young, or radical or conservative and not enough attention given to being merely human. The trouble with the Vietnam War is the trouble with all wars. And the trouble with all wars is the anarchic system of independent nations which makes them possible. The peace marchers want to change the rules of the game. The warmongers like the rules the way they are. The “realists” don’t like the rules but think you can work with them. Then there are a few of us world government fanatics who think we ought to get a new game board. All of us are against the establishment. And each of us creates his own establishment to be against. The trouble with the establishment theory of society (like the late Sen. Joe McCarthy’s conspiracy theory) is that the state of men’s digestive tracts has more to do with the way society operates than greed or ideology. And a migraine headache can make a monster out of a saint. The surprise in growing old is in finding that you still feel young. The pleasure is in learning to live on your own terms. The solace is in getting used to the idea of dying. The shock is in finding that others think you are old. 25