University of Wisconsin Stout - Tower Yearbook (Menomonie, WI)

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Administration

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1k TOWer I933 BURTON E. NELSON, President The Teacher and a Js[ew Era Oc fccAsiONAL emergencies in political and financial affairs impose marked changes upon the social and moral attitudes and beliefs of a people. Through such an era of change we are now passing. The cost of the great war of this generation has been but partially paid in lives and gold. A full settlement seems to demand a radical change in beliefs, ideals, and wants, not of our nation alone but of all nations the world around. All countries have become world conscious. All peoples have become neighbors. Nationalism, intense nationalism, may still exist. It may be desirable and laudable. But since the nations of the world are as near to each other today as the states of America were to each other a hundred years ago, the national ambi ' tions, egotisms, and desires must change or civilization must suffer. Any preaching or teaching of national hatreds is little less dangerous in times of peace than acts of treason when war rages. Such teaching, bred in hatreds, is treason when measured by reactions upon the nation itself. America ' s problems are not hers alone. Yet America must solve them alone — and to that task the college graduates of 1933 should dedicate their efforts. Education, selfishly attacked by powerful and privileged interests during these years of strain, must lead the way to saner social and political standards and to a better understanding between the several classes until they become merged into one great fellowship — the ideal of the centuries. You are enlisted to fight vigorously all reflections upon the value and importance of education. Dignify it and ennoble it in your own practices. Keep your work in tune with the times. Blaze new trails — follow not the old. They are encumbered and difficult. Train yourself to unhampered thought. So teach as to stimulate thought. Forget the prejudices of the fathers built upon the verbiage of grandfathers. The past is not sacred. The future alone holds hope. And to the shaping of the new day your best efforts are pledged. 4 19