Washington College - Pegasus Yearbook (Chestertown, MD)

Page 27 text:

The college gradu- ate may be tempted to pay slight attention to those not so fortunate in their educational or social opportunities. We tend to seek our own kind, to underval- ue those whom we find uncongenial in some trait or other, often overlooking a quality or talent which is rare and useful. An unpleas- ing social manner, an unprepossessing ap- pearance, a lowly social status, a skin pig- ment unlike ours, may conceal a personality of singular importance. Every man has his unique worth, if we are but intelligent enough to preceive it. Commencement, 1967 The battle against superstition, fear, and prejudice is unrelent- ing—or rather, it must be unrelenting. This his- tory of mankind offers little ground for glib optimism. But if the bet- ter qualities of man ever triumph, liberal education in its broad- est sense must lead the way. Fall Convocation, 1967 No man is perfect. No woman is perfect. No institution is per- fect. While we strive to deal with them and to reshape them, perhaps as we would wish them to be, let us be careful not to undervalue the contribution they can make to our welfare. Commencement, 1951 Whether or not you make the most of your opportunities, academic and social, here or elsewhere, depends on your sym- pathetic identification with problems and people outside your- self—the effort to un- derstand. To under- stand not in order to condemn or to judge or classify— to under- stand in order to know. Fall Convocation, 1964

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I know that what is called the ivory tower concept of ed- ucation is not in favor today, either at the secondary or the higher level. But the ivory tower has been too rudely scorned. Young men should dream dreams— and young women, too. They should have an eminence to which they can withdraw and see the world in perspective. To pro- vide that eminence and an opportunity to gain perspective is as necessary to the true purpose of the liberal college as a faculty and a library. Inaugural Address, October 27, 1951 One of the fun- damental purposes of a libera! education is to produce reasonable men and women— those who can soberly study the issues of the day, small or large, and unblinded by the winds of prejudice and pas- sion arrive at a judicious position. This is an enormous task, for man is not innately reasonable. Commencement, 1965 That blend of clear- sightedness and deep feeling, indispensable to the artist, indispens- able to the one who enjoys art intelligently, is the prize secret of the art of living. Fall Convocation, 1966 I suggest simply that when college educa- tion becomes too con- cerned with the test of immediate practicality, it may lose its most precious reason for be- ing. The aim of a college should not be to produce a business man or an athlete or an industrial chemist or a young graduate who revolves in his social niche like a well- greased bearing. Indi- rectly it may do any of these things. But the fundamental purpose of a college is to think and to produce think- ing in its students. If it confined itself exclu- sively to that purpose it would be worth the world ' s support. Convocation, 1954

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The most important things in your life and in the life of our nation and our world are not necessarily those which catch the headlines. They are not the whirlwind, the earthquake, the fire, but rather the still small voice. The still small voice is the obscure farmer on his acres in Iowa, the merchant in his store in New England, the housewife on the school board in Texas, the salesman on his route in Virginia, the doctor on his rounds in California — and, yes, the recruit polishing his rifle in Georgia and the sailor chipping paint in Norfolk Navy Yard. The still small voice is you day after tomorrow or year after next learning to find your place in that new world which today is for you commencing. For your world is not the 190,000,000 people in the United States or the several billions who inhabit the globe. Your world is your parents, your family, your friends, your neighbors, the people you work with, the man or woman you chat with on the street corner while waiting for your bus. That is the only world you ever really know or that knows you. Commencement 1970