 | The Cavalier daily Friday, March 22, 1968 |  |
Ave Atque Vale
When considering what final remarks we
might make after a year of writing this
column, we thought of adding some final
pronouncement on Vietnam or the ghetto
crisis, two subjects which have figured prominently
here of late, and on which our
opinions have been many if our information
second-hand. It then occurred to us that
about the only topic we might treat with
any authority was what it is like to be a
student in the spring of 1968, particularly
at this University, and on this we offer
the following reflections.
There seems to be a consensus among
the young and old that the nation has
fallen on bad times, morally if not
economically, spiritually if not physically.
This malaise is particularly felt by the
young, perhaps because they were not
hardened by the Depression and the war,
perhaps because some of them are not
yet as enamored with the material things
which we as a nation seem to pursue.
Despite our wealth, there is a vague uneasiness
on our part about the third or so
of the nation that does not share the comforts
and security of middle-class civilization.
Despite the politicians who still spout
the old Jeffersonian slogans, there is a fear
that we have sold ourselves out, as far as
the nation's values go, whether it be in
Southeast Asia or in our shocking neglect
of social problems at home. There is also
a suspicion of the older generation, best
represented by the President, a man regarded
with bitter hatred by a few but
accepted rather fatalistically by the majority
—particularly the draftable—who can only
sit in bewildered silence while he manipulates
their futures.
These national concerns perplex the student
at the University, although we tend to
be somewhat out of the mainstream of
protest and react rather slowly to national
trends—the present debate over drugs is a
good example; it was in full swing at many
other schools four or five years ago. Despite
all our social graces, we at the University
lack a certain intellectual sophistication.
We are like those University of
Texas students Willie Morris describes in
"North Toward Home":
It was a matter, at the age of eighteen or nineteen,
not of discovering certain books, but the simple presence
of books...Where an Alfred Kazin at the age of nineteen
might become aroused in the subway by reading a review
by John Chamberlain in the New York Times and
rush to his office to complain, we....were only barely
beginning to learn that there were ideas...The University
of Texas had, in its haling, unsure, and often frivolous
way, to each those of us with good minds and small-town
high school diplomas that we were intelligent
human beings, with minds and hearts of our own...
That there were some things, many things—ideas, values,
choices of action—worth committing one's self to and
fighting for...
What so often holds this development
back is the reluctance of many persons at
the University to countenance change. If
there has been any common theme running
through our editorials this year, it has been
that the University to prosper had best
learn to discard the outmoded in its traditions
if it wishes to preserve the best of
the old alongside the new. This was the
lesson the Bourbons never learned, but which
the British Whigs did learn in 1832 and the
American Democrats in 1933. That it is
not an easy task is well expressed in what
Eugene, Genovese wrote about his fellow
historian of the South, U. B. Phillips:
He knew he had to make hard choices, and he made
them. But he know too that if much of the old were not
preserved, nothing of the new would be worth the battle;
that if much of the new were not accepted, nothing of
the old could long be endured. Without tears, or pretense,
or whining, he demonstrated how one could
accept, while refusing to surrender to, that melancholy
wisdom so trenchantly offered us by Santayana: "The
necessity of rejecting and destroying some things that
are beautiful is the deepest curse of existence."
Because there is something unique about
the University it is easy for a student to
form a lasting affection for it; we should
be certain, however, that this attachment,
however strong, is never uncritical. It hurts
us deeply, for example, to see a beautiful
and, in a sense, historic place like Lambeth
Field scheduled for destruction, and we protest
this vigorously, but we are heartened
at the same time to realize that in the long
run the University is becoming an exciting
place intellectually—a process that has been
reflected, we hope, in The Cavalier Daily—
and at last is living up to the ideals of its
founder.
Despite all our shortcomings and confusion
and disaffection, we see great promise
in our generation. The majority, of course,
are as stolid and unconcerned as their
parents were, but there is enough spirit
and talent among the rest to do great good
for this country.
Likewise, we are optimistic about the
future of this University, despite the growing
pains and the resistance to change of those
who have succumbed too much to what is
unreal in its atmosphere. We can take great
pride in the glories of our past, but the
golden age is yet to come.
| The Cavalier daily Friday, March 22, 1968 | |