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.._,I t-- -- - ____. HERITAG~ROMISE W~c#~o/~~,-~~~ ~ Vol. 3 7 No. 4 April 1991 This special issue of Wake Forest University Magazine is dedicated with appreciation to Jeanne P. Whitman. Contributing writers: Kerry M. King, Adele LaBrecque, Cherin C. Poovey, Bernie Quigley, and Jeanne P. Whitman. Contributing photographers: Susan Mullally Clark, Julie Knight, and Grigg Studio. Typography: Rachel Lowry. Mechanical design: Lisa Kennedy. Production supervision: Teresa B. Grogan. Printing: Fisher-Harrison Corp. WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY MAGA­ ZINE (USPS 664-520, ISSN 0279-3946) is published five times a year in Sep­ tember, November, February, April and July by Wake Forese Universiry. Second class postage paid ac Winscon-Salem, C, and additional mailing offices. Please send letters co the edicor and alumni news co WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE, 7205 Rey­ nolda Station, Winston-Salem, C 27109. POSTMASTER: Send address changes co the WAKE FOREST MAGA­ ZINE, 7227 Re ynolda Station, Winscon- alem, C 27109. ~ ¥~ ~ te~ ~to- aff~ ~ fYde iJ%teM. @if .MJZ.W o/~ and ~~ ta /te4£' i?v de edt - od/ and~/ /te4,-f and n&f/. ~ ~ ~ o/rf)f/de iff~~~~ 7/Ubt& de ~yo/~ and~~.· ~ ~~ pt fYde @%;-~ tudfjv~ o/ ~ o/cwt tejueae~ ~. ~t eduw-~ ~ ~de~t?vaffo/~. ~~~aff~ ~ ~ ~ cldicaM tfei,t ~ to- de .iju;td o/~ ~. 1 These remarks were delivered informally He looks back at them, and, think­ and without a 'text. They were meant ing partly about himself, he says about to be listened to rather than read. So these boys , " I hope that when they please do not expect a formal essay. It grow up, when they become men, they is really just a talk to friends who think will receive an education. I hope they of Wake Forest as I do. -EGW. will acquire knowledge.'' (He says this in poetry, of course, not in prose, but Remarks by Edwin G. Wilson this is the burden of what he has to Saturday, July 21, 1990 say.) Then he goes on to say, "I hope The Homestead that the knowledge that they acquire Hot Springs, Virginia will not be accompanied by a loss of power. I hope that they can receive knowledge without losing power." II@!~ a (U &w Wb ~~~ My remarks today are going to be This is a strange use of the word ~d:dk~~ built around five words. The first word "power." Obviously he is not talking is the word "heart," which is in the about the power that we associate with CVl'l£! ~ m,e,. @!~ &w a title of my remarks. The title, by the the White House or that we associate way , was prepared not by me but by with the Kremlin or that we think of l~ nd~~~ Kay Lord or Bob Mills, who must have when we think of Wall Street. He's not realized that it was a title that I would talking about the kind of power that ~o/~.'" happily live with. The second word is appears in the very popular notion of a " heritage" and the third word is ''power lunch.'' He is not talking "promise," and you know where those about power as in the movie, "Do the two words came from because they are Right Thing, " when voices cry out, very much in our minds these few days " Fight the power." He's not talking at The Homestead. The fourth word is about that kind of power. But what "knowledge," and the fifth word is kind of power is he talking about? One "power." Most of what I say today will interesting thing is that when he says be built around " heart," "heritage," to these boys, "I hope that you acquire ''promise,'' ''knowledge'' and ''pow­ knowledge without losing power," he er." You might ask why knowledge? really is saying that power is something Why power? Why do I use those words that they already have which knowledge today? must not be allowed to diminish. The There is a line in Wordsworth's boys already have power. poetry that has always captivated and In what sense does a young person haunted me. The line is "Knowledge have power? In what ways did those not purchased by the loss of power. ' ' A boys in the freedom of the Lake Coun­ strange line, I think, and I don't pre­ try have power? In what way does every tend fully to understand it. Let me tell freshman class that comes to Wake you why it appears in Wordsworth. In Forest have power - from the begin­ the fifth book of his autobiographical ning? Wordsworth says that these boys poem The Prelude, Wordsworth, who were like leaves in the wind, moving as when he wrote this poem was about 30 they chose. One thing that the boys years old, is looking back on his boy­ had, and one thing that I think fresh­ hood - a very happy boyhood when men have (and I'm always impressed by he played, ran, fished , swam , climbed this whenever I speak to an incoming mountains, lived in joy - and in his freshman class) - one thing they poem he is thinking about himself and have is freedom. Freedom from dogma, his friends as they were when they were freedom from routine, freedom from any 12 , or 14 , or 16 years old. And in his commitments that later on in adult life mind he looks back at his old school may well impose upon them, causing them companions, the boys he knew. to lose their power. 2 Dr. Edwin G. Wtfson It has always struck me as very everyone there was a Baptist. As an they did come, they came because strange about Wake Forest that those Episcopalian, I was in a very distinct Wake Forest-educated students and early people who founded Wake Forest minority, but even then, oddly enough, Wake Forest-trained faculty and staff such a long, long time ago, in such a Wake Forest was hospitable to all who wanted them there and believed they divided society, well before the Civil came there. Wake Forest believed in should be there. And when they came, War, chose as the motto of this new "humanity" even then. When Peahead they came without large incident in the institution ''Pro Humanitate.'' It has Walker went North to recruit good life of the institution. So Wake Forest always struck me as not only being very Catholic boys for the football team - has always been a free place, knowing strange but also as being prophetic in a Tony Gallovich and John Polanski and that knowledge cannot be achieved way that the founders could not have the rest - they came to Wake Forest without freedom . realized. I suppose that what they and found a home. And I remember Last Sunday, I was on the old Wake meant by ''Pro Humanitate'' was that with gratitude that one of the two or Forest campus, a place that I love a Christ lived and died for humanity, be­ three young men of my time at Wake great deal and a place that I go back to cause their notion of humanity was Forest who was most loved and most once in a while. And I walked about related to the religious mission of the admired was a debater from Wilming­ the campus, and I saw on the campus institution. But through the years, ton named Bob Goldberg, who was only two people that I knew. I saw whatever the founders may have meant, later to be killed in World War II . Mrs. Grady Patterson, the widow of the that motto has come to stand also for When women came in 1942 we wel­ man who was registrar for many years . something else. comed them, at least figuratively, with She was walking up near the chemistry When I went in 1939 to little Wake open arms . It took us another 20 years , building, and we stopped and talked a re Forest College, almost everyone there like most Southern institutions, to while. And I saw a fairl y recent Wake was from North Carolina. And almost admit and welcome blacks. But when Forest alumnus, about 27 years old, 3 who had just received his master of to me, "Were you scared? Were you divinity degree from Southeastern Semi­ worried? Did you think that your world nary. I stopped and talked with him, was coming to an end? Did you think and I asked him what he was going to you would be drafted into military do. He said , ' 'I'm going to get out of service?" And I said honestly to him, here just as fa.."t as I can because this "I don't think I was scared or anxious place has changed so much." Most of at all" - not because I was I, but you know what has happened at because I was 16. And I had the Southeastern. The grass on the old courage of 16 as well as the freedom campus is still green, the buildings look of 16. good, but the spirit of academic free­ The journalist Joseph Alsop tells a dom that characterized old Wake Forest story about those same years. He said ts gone. that he was in the Far East on Decem­ I think that one of the most beauti­ ber the 8th, 1941, I think in Singa­ ful things about the last two years of pore. The Japanese, of course, had world history - and President Hearn attacked Pearl Harbor the day before touched upon this yesterday - has and he was listening to a radio, and on been the way in which people from that radio way out there in the East, Eastern Europe have come to Washing­ with the Japanese forces not all that far ton and have told us what freedom away, he heard Franklin Roosevelt ad­ means to them.

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