Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M ASM II) OR. SAFIK ' .S PvUlSSAC I From .1 thousand colleges, within a month, mi lifly 1 1n ii i ,inil graduates will he M-nl forth. In i vr|l the now slowly diminishing army ol the unem- ployed, Their problem will nol I -. in any e in tial respect, different from thai ol tin- inilln.ii ,il ready seeking work; except that, instead of experi ence, they can exhibit only a sheepskin which pro- claims them bachelors of art or bachelors of science. 1 hey soon find that preference is given 1 married men, particularly la those who for some years have been devoted to their work, and have become expert in their fields of life endeavor. I he college graduate, in other words, is handicapped in com- petition with the young man of equal age who has had four years not of study, but of business. Unless he is planning to enter a professional field, for which college study is prerequisite, the gradu- ate, looking around at the world today, may well question what good his degree has brought him. The value of a college education is something that must be questioned, indeed, not only by the student and the graduate, but by all those con- cerned with the general well-being of the com- munity, especially in a metropolis like New I ork City, which maintains three free colleges for its generations of growing citizens, and wherein are almost twenty other educational institutions of col- legiate and university rank, including two that are among the largest in the world. However im- mediately practical the college graduate, hunting for a job, may be in his estimate of the worth of the four years he has spent in absorbing the subjects and amassing the points required for his degree, the community may perhaps be forgiven if it looks with less interested eye on the graduate ' s pocketbook, and turns its attention upon other aspects and values of his college education. In the minds of many, too many even of the students themselves, the function of the college of liberal arts and science has been confused with that of the technical and the professional schools. These in- titution . ii i -.I,-. ion ,in l iru -. art • ■quip thru Indents with tli - trainim w •■ -iry for carrying on, in later life, a specific type of ■ • — engineering, teaching, medicine, the law. are, for mature) yeai . the equivalent .l thi school and the technical high school, ihey are tin- modern counterpart f appr ' -nticethip and reading foi a profi ion. The college of libera I arts and science has quite another function, holds quite another position, another significance, in the scheme of higher education. Its aim is to lead its students, not to do something, but to be something. Not specific training, but character and culture, are its goal. The leaders of our land, of all lands, are drawn increasingly from the ranks of the college gradu- ates. Whether, indeed, they rise to individual prominence or remain undistinguished among their communities, it is ultimately from them that the cultural ideals of the land must emanate, from them that the leaven must come to lift the level of intelligence, of tolerance, of liberal and truly- democratic acceptance of the many racial tradi- tions and cultural and ethical systems that meet in this land, to combine and to fuse them into the high American spirit and truly American ideals. Especially in these days, when the darkness of medieval intolerance and racial persecution has engulfed a great European nation, it is essential to keep in mind the spiritual and cultural aspects of college life, and to find in them the true signif- icance of the years spent in a college of liberal arts and after these the years given to the com- munity. For every life, no matter how spent, is given to the community, is a living model for good or for ill; and his years at college become to the thoughtful graduate a responsibility and a pledge to something more than a spree at football re- unions, to a maintenance of the long tradition of spirituality and culture of which he has briefly partaken. but by which, we trust, he has been

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M A S M I D high structure of our national ideals. The spiritual strain of the seers of Israel, has been the golden thread in the continuous fabric of human unfold- ment to our day, marking in human history the pattern of progress, often crowded by dark or bloody threads, but ever gleaming with the glori- ous faith an d promise of human betterment. For the Bible is the source of living faith and the light of human love, and loyalty, to which nations as well as men must turn under the urge of the Divine Imperative. You are going forth into a world that will prob- ably offer no immediate opportunity to you all. We are still groping in the dark, however some may sense the approaching dawn. If there is soon to come the new day for which the heart of man- kind yearns, it must be marked, not merely by the rising sun of material well-being, but by the golden dawn of a reviving faith, a reaffirmation of trust in G-d and faith in humanity, a faith that com- forts, heals, strengthens, leads onward and forward, to a life of higher meaning, a destiny of greater spiritual enfoldment — in humble partnership with the Almighty — an illumination of the Infinitude within us, to a life spiritually aspiring and cul- turally creative. Never has the world been in greater need of moving faith in its ultimate destiny. Fear and distrust, and the sown seeds of many conflicts are spread wide over the world; only by such faith can we purge ourselves of the inequities and iniqui- ties of the passing ages. On such a faith, directed by such ideals, in the spirit of the eternal teachings of the Torah, rests the future of mankind. It is our hope, it is our prayer, that you, my dear young friends, may ever be among the guardi- ans of the ideals of mankind, that your life and your work may ever tend toward a more discerning restitution of the too often lost, the true and ulti- mate values of life, Israel ' s spiritual and moral truth, and inner happiness ; that your faith in hu- manity ' s great future will hasten the dawning for- seen by the seers of Israel, the day of a new heart — the day when minds and hearts will work in harmony, when the mighty shall be girded with justice, when all children of men shall be as one brotherhood of humankind beneath the fatherhood of G-d, with faith and love directing the counsels of all lands, all persons and peoples inspirited by the profound and intimate pulsings of a new heart.

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Sixteen MASM1D permanently inspired. It is in this connection that my thoughts turn to 1 eshiva College, of which I am proud to be the Dean. Situated on Washington Heights, Man- hattan ' s highest point, Yeshiva College is in a sense a symbol of the heights of liberalism and tolerance our country has achieved, for it was founded, six years ago, by the very people that through the years have been subject to persecution and repres- sion and are at this moment in Germany feeling the oppressor ' s hand. The only college of liberal arts and sciences in America under Jewish auspices, though it accepts all qualified students and its faculty consists of scholars, Jews and non-Jews alike — Yeshiva College is devoted to the creation of an atmosphere where the age-old verities and the fruits of modern knowledge may be coordinated and compatibly absorbed. The significance of this direct entry of American Jewry — long recog- nized by patrons and seekers of learning — in the field of higher education has been widely acclaimed, and at the coming commencement, the Hon. Her- bert H. Lehman, Governor of New York State, will address the graduates. Yet the ideal of eshiva College is but an expression from the Jewish point of view of the ideal of all the liberal arts colleges, of all schools of liberal arts and science in the great universities. It is natural that most of these institutions were denominational in origin, for they rose out of a concern, not for the individual ' s livelihood, but for the well-being of the community, which I need not emphasize, de- pends upon the state of being of the men and women who are its citizens. The times are out of joint. Individuals in high places, here and abroad, have bemired our trust that the common decencies of life, that honesty, tolerance, magnanimity, understanding — in short, that spirituality and culture, will dominate and direct our lives. It is for their fostering of the ideals inherent in these aspects of life, for their disinterested pursuit of knowledge and development of character, that we turn to the liberal arts col- leges, and hope that in their spirit, and bearing their ideals, will rise the country ' s leaders of to- morrow. CONFIDENCE To Franklin D. Roosevelt Through all the darkness that enshrouds Today And leaves behind its poison of despair. Through hopelessness, an unexpected ray Foreshows the utter banishment of care. An unforeshadowed ray, a tiny hope, More glorious than a nabob ' s opulence, Enlivens man, who need no longer grope Since he is fortified by Confidence. What peerless giant, what colossal force Has suddenly performed this miracle? To what great instrument had he recourse To help him do the unbelievable? A single word to those who seemed forlorn And with it hope and confidence were born. -Bernard Dov Milians