University of Wisconsin River Falls - Meletean Yearbook (River Falls, WI)

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The President

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The Search for Truth Many of you who read these words will become citizens of the 21st century — just 41 years away. You stand at the gateway to a new era in civilization. The question of what pattern of education colleges should offer students who will enter this new era is being debated as never before. Some argue that the key to the future lies in the sciences and in mathematics. Others believe that the study of what man is and what man ought to be is more important. It seems to me that the greatest contribution higher education can make to the 21st century is to emphasize and to reaffirm its fundamental mission. The basic purpose of a college, the reason for its existence, is to discover and to teach the truth. Truth is not the monopoly of a single generation or of a particular academic discipline. Truth will be found in the laboratory and the library. Colleges and universities have contributed to the history of man by seeking the truth and adding to the wisdom of the race. Through pursuing the truth they have improved the quality of human beings. Colleges must again assume that students come to the campus to enlist and to prepare to serve and search for the truth. All other activities are secondary. An educational experience, based on this premise, should do many things for a college student. It should disturb him and enlighten him, inspire and strengthen him. Someone once said that if a man's life is not full of big things, it will be full of little things. This will be true in the 21st century as it was in the 19th and 20th. To search for truth offers you on opportunity to fill your life with big things. You may even achieve wisdom. 29