University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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rldmini dministration

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ROBERT GORDON SPROUL President of the University The President ' s Message THE Class of 1945 is unique among the many that have been graduated from the Uni- versity of California. To ,the truth of that statement, this volume of the BLUE AND GOLD, traditional chronicle of the past year in student society, bears witness. For here is pictorial representation, not of Junior Prom, but of war work ; not of the Big Game, but of war bond contests. The Class of 1945 is a war class, from first registration to Commencement impelled by one inexorable purpose to acquire, as rapidly as possible, the education and the training essen- tial to useful and responsible citizens of a nation at war. Has the class of 1945 thereby lost something of its birthright? Yes, but it has gained something, too, for even as it has foregone frolic or academic tranquility, it has learned, as few classes before it learned, the meaning of education. It has learned that education is not the filling of the mind with facts, soon to be forgotten, but the whetting of the intellect that it may cleave into the very secrets of the universe. Tough of moral and mental fibre, trained of eye and of brain, the class of 1945 is ready to take full share in the win- ning of the immediate battle and in that even more heartbreaking task which is the inevitable aftermath of war, spiritual and material recon- struction of the world. It can be counted on to pit tolerance and justice against flaming hatred, and to face with high idealism and unwavering realism the obstacles which lie between man and his ultimate destiny: peace that shall be peace, not truce. The University of California is proud of its wartime class, of its stamina, its courage, and its promise. With each of you, down whatever perilous path you may travel, goes my personal Godspeed. 24