University of St Thomas - Summa Yearbook (Houston, TX)

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The Presidents Message Members of the present Senior Class intend to go to graduate school, Where it is hoped, the intellectual Virtues nourished at St. Thomas will en- able them to exercise their talents and satisfy their aspirations. Can we say What part has been taken in the development of these students by the mis- cellaneous activities of college life not associated With the lecture hall? H University, of course, should see to it that such activities supplement rather than cancel the purpose of the institution. The purpose is strictly intellectual. The student activities, therefore, should have an intellectual term. Hence, St. Thomas has no student political party organizations. 9 stu- dent, as such, Who is committed to a political party to that extent inhibits his own intellectual development. ' The University could scarcely View With complacency so emphatic a frustration of its primary intentions. If the objectivity of the unbiased mind cannot manifest itself in the practical order, it Will disappear altogether from among menf Institutions of intellectual culture should help society to avoid such a calamity rather than to go about flirting With disintegrative forces. The unifying purpose of mental development should extend to all extra- curricularity Whether student government, the various clubs, or even athletics tthe application of principles and dexterities to fast-changing situationsi. Student government, for instance, is not designed as an apparatus by Which individual students can purge themselves of responsibility, or satisfy a deep-seated need for status; it exists to establish faculty-student relation- ships concerned With the fulfillment of the fundamental aim of the University. In the words of the great Christian educator, Dr. George Herman Derr, HStudent activities, curricular or extra-curricular aim at mental development for its own sake and not for any ulterior end. It seeks, not to make the stu- dent an effective tool to serve someone else's purpose or to give him power to make tools of others to serve his own purpose, but to train him to recog- nize, to respect and to delight in What is intrinsically true, good and beautiful.

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VERY REV. V. I. GUINRN CSB. President Of the University

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REVEREND JOHN D. SHEEHY, C.S.B. Registrar of the University Professor of Education 8H,, University of Western Ontario M.R., University of Michigan REVEREND E. LEONQRD RUSH, CSB. Vice-President of the University Professor of Modern Languages 13.9., University of Western Ontario M.H., Columbia University Certificat d'Etudes Superieuresl University of Paris Ph.D., Universite Laval