Washington College - Pegasus Yearbook (Chestertown, MD)

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One day this winter a student came into my office to ask me a simple question, which he insisted had not yet been answered by anyone to his satisfaction. What is the use of a college education? This was a pretty big question for ten o ' clock in the morning, and I wasn ' t ready for it. Perhaps I should have warned him that to talk of usefulness is to start off on the wrong foot. Perhaps I should have sent him to read Newman ' s essay, or some of the better passages in our own catalog. Instead, I fell back on an old argument and attempted to convince him in fifteen minutes that the main purpose of a college education is to improve the mind. As I think back now to that conversation, I am less than satisfied with the answer I tried to give. Certainly it is better to improve the mind than to fill it — better to sharpen the mental faculties than to treat the head as if it were a filing cabinet. Yet this fashionable emphasis on the mind as an instrument is beginning to worry me. Not only is the mind no cabinet, it is no pair of scissors, either, no pair of scales. The mind is a place, its own place, as Milton said, that can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven. I wish we could get back in education to a greater concern for individuality as something precious in itself, to a recognition of the fact that each mind is separate, different, a sovereign kingdom. This seems especially important in an age, like ours, of so much pressure for commitment in great collective movements — an age when protest itself assumes the manner and methods of the crowd. Perhaps we tell each other too often that no man is an island. I should be happy to know that each member of the class of 1967 is taking from the experience of the past four years a heightened awareness of his own solitary and inalienable identity as a thinking being. It is difficult to imagine any more precious gift from heaven to man. Nicholas Newlin Acting Dean of the College Nicholas Newlin, B.A., Williams College, 1930; M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1942; PhD., University of Pennsylvania, 1949. Ernest A. Howard Professor of English Literature. Chairman of Department of English. Acting Dean of the College. 24

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Carl A. Westerdahl, B.A., Wagner College, 1959. Dean of Men. Class of ' 67 This is my first opportunity to bring a message to a graduating class at Washington College. My mind is full of cliches such as as you go down the road of life, The challenges of the future are great, and you are the children of the space age. The sentimental clap trap of high school graduation has no place here. I hope your four years at Washington College have developed just one thing in your life. That one thing is a sense of responsibility to and respect for your fellow men. If your hours in the classroom, on the athletic field, and in the dormitory have heightened, and developed this all important sense of responsibility, you have gained a great deal from college. Remember and cherish the years you have spent here in Chestertown. They will never be replaced. I urge you to become an active member of the college ' s Alumni body. Your active support will help the college attain its future goals. GOOD LUCK. CJU.CSs.. CJC1U 26