Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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Y EE UNIVERSITY 1947i

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171 e Pl'esillent's Bless-age Yale is back to her peacetime function,-the preparation for citizenship. After live years devoted to direct participation in the defense of the nation during the most perilous period of our history, We have returned to our fundamental academic purpose. The mission of the University is to equip Americans for life in our democracy and provide leadership capable of meeting the issues which must be faced and settled. Our academic obliga- tion goes far beyond a preparation for a livelihood, Whether in business or in any of the professions. It calls for the production of citizens who have assimilated the best in our cultural inheritance from the past, Who with this background can broadly interpret the problems of the present, and fearlessly assume responsibility for the guidance of public opinion and public action. These are times when it is not easy for our students thus to prepare them- selves. College halls here at Yale and elsewhere, are ove1'croWded, living conditions inconvenient, opportunities for personal contact between under- graduate and teacher more difficult of achievement than with a normal-sized student body. But the students themselves have already manifested their ability to overcome the relative hardship characteristic of the transition period from War back to peace. Upon their own determination to make the most of the educational values that Yale offers will depend the quality of the contribution they will bring to the nation during the next generation. No democracy can long continue except the individual citizens carry a sense of personal responsibility for the Welfare of the community as a Whole. Furthermore it must proceed from something more than mere good inten- tions, it must find its basis in a reasoned appreciation of human values, intellectual and spiritual, as they may exist in modern society. This should be the end product of a college education. All of us, faculty and alumni, as Well as students, may worthily strive together in this mission. QQWLMS my