Wheaton College - Nike Yearbook (Norton, MA)

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Mea E MICs

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Departments of Instruction V E came across an interesting booklet the other day called the Bulletin of Wheaton College. It set down the entirety of knowledge in the simplest possible terms—such-and- such a course given at such-and-such a time by so-and-so. The title of a single course— let us say the History of Western Civiliza- tion—suggests untold vistas of human thought and human endeavor. For this rea- son, we read the booklet from cover to cover, experiencing as we did so a curious frustra- tion. There is so much to know and under- stand; we have no time to follow all these threads through the labyrinthine halls of man’s accumulated wisdom. The most we can do is enter and stare and follow one thread briefly. Wheaton College is fortunate in having for the guides through this labyrinth men and women of unusually broad interests and of the rare qualities which inspire exploration. Under their names in the catalogue are mapped out the wisdoms of which they are possessed. Let us attempt to picture it. Civilization’s two great rivers, the East and the West, have flowed over many cen- turies of man’s existence, and we, going for- ward with these rivers, will confront the recurrent problems of the Florentines, the Venetians, the Orientals. To prepare today’s student for the art which she must evaluate tomorrow, the Art Department endeavors to enrich her background and experience and to sharpen her perception. Under Dr. Seaver, Dr. Neilson, Dr. van Ingen, Miss Randall, and Miss Lorentzen, the Department trains students in an increasing appreciation. Be- sides the more conventional historical and theoretical courses in painting and sculpture, Wheaton offers an experimental course— Elements of Composition in the Arts. This course, which ts listed in the catalogue for the first time this year, might be defined as pragmatic aesthetics—dealing with the arts so as to show their interrelationship, par- ticularly in criticism and appreciation. The basic similarities of the arts of music, paint- ing, sculpture, poetry, and the dance are surprisingly numerous. The course 1s still admittedly in the experimental stages, but the results so far have been extremely stimu- lating both to students and to faculty. To see things clearly and as a whole, to see that true art belongs not only to the past but that it also lives today in good advertis- ing and in animated cartoons, to see that it is related to life and is not a thing apart— these are the essentials which the Art De- partment endeavors to point out to its stu- dents in their journey through the laby- rinth. Down another hallway of the maze we find the world of plant and tree. You may know an amoeba from a pine and a fern from [15]