University of Colorado - Coloradan Yearbook (Boulder, CO)

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THE PRESIDENT President Norlin What is an educated person has been a question of the ages. There have been many answers, some of them famous. One is very ancient. It was made by Isocrates of Athens twent ' -two hundred and eighty years ago. I am tempted to call him the Nicholas Murry Butler of classi- cal times, since he was at once philosopher, eloquent com- mentator on contemporary politics, and the head of a famous school. Their ideas, too, are not unlike. Isocrates objects to the narrow specialist, who is, he complains, often mean-spirited and intolerant. The educated person must be, he insists, of broad cultivation and character — a scholar and a gentleman, as we say. But let me translate his own words : Whom, then, do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, and who possess a judgment which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the ex- pedient course of action; next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all whom they associ- ate, tolerating easily and good-naturedly what is unpleas- ant or offensive in others and being themselves as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as it is possible to be; furthermore, those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not unduly overcome by their misfortunes, bearing up under them bravely and in a manner worthy of our common nature; finally, and most important of all, those who are not spoiled by successes and do not desert their true selves and become arrogant, but hold their ground steadfastly as intelligent men, not rejoicing in the good things which have come to them through chance rather than in those which through their own nature and intelligence are theirs from their birth. Those who have a character which is in accord, not with one of these things, but with all of them — these, I contend, are wise and com- plete men, possessed of all the virtues.