MAD HATTER PAGE 30

 

 

DOUGLAS COLI EGE

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I would like to sum up what my argument has been this evening. I began by
saying that the humanities need care and feeding even in this evil age of 6 & 5,
Reaganomics, and diet beer. The humanities may not be of utilitarian value in the
immediate future where the question of how to make a living is the only one visible.
But apart from the rigorous intellectual training the humanities provide, the fact
that they can shift a student's attention from a preoccupation with how things are
done to the demands of why things should be done may make the difference between
the unreflecting industry of an insect and an awareness of meaning and value that
is humanity at its best. Curiously enough in this struggle for truth, the closest
allies may well be mathematics and the real sciences for while they are sold to the
public as the bringers of practical benefits, one finds in a scientist like Einstein
a devotion’ to and contemplation of truth very close to religious or even mystical
experience. Amongst other unpopular opinions I hold is the conviction that there is
a great deal of sense in requiring a graduate in humanities to have had some first
hand acquaintance with a physical science.

But given that the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness is not a great vote
getter, it may be that in hard times only smaller institutions like the federated
universities can devote themselves to caring and feeding the humanities. This is
not the only role we may play, but it is the most important one for university life
today. With this in mind I look forward to fruitful relations with Laurentian
University or its successor - not that we shall always agree, least of all about
money ~ but that in our heart of hearts we all know that only in the passing on of
the wisdom of the past and engendering a taste for it in the present, is there any .
hope in the future for a humane civilization or perhaps even human life itself.