The Archives of The University of Notre Dame 607 Hesburgh Library Notre Dame, IN 46556 574-631-6448 [email protected] Notre Dame Archives: Alumnus The Notre Dame ALUMNUS Vol. 22 JUNE, 1944 No. 5 3,000 Acuud ^nMHeel an AaUe ^ame Cc Standing at attention on the mall in front of the Rockne Memorial on the Notre Dame campus are the 3,000 young men of the naval training stotion at Notre Dame as they appeared this spring from a plane of the Civil Air Patrol. In the foreground are the mid­ shipmen who were commissioned as ensigns May 31. Directly behind them are members of the N. R. O. T. C. at Notre Dame. In the center section are the Marine trainees and back of them are the Navy students enrolled in the University's V-I2 program, now a year old. fi^^ r/'//^V,'/y. ?2=^ffl,' ". - The Notre Dame Alumnus eally drugged with the vapors of dogma, superstition, and pseudo- . logic as to fall at the loieest at­ AIMMUU Relifi04U BiilletiH tribute levels. =z BY REV. JOHN P. LYNCH, CS.C., 'M : "Man-made concepts, such as devils, witches, totems, taboos, hell- "SCIENTinC" EDUCATION They have been taught they are just fire, original sin, divine right, pre­ destination, • reincarnation, salvo- The educators are all upset over the animals and it isn't very hard to live down to that standard. tion-througlirdeath-in-battle and di­ current delinquency of youth. They have vine revelation, related to no genet­ spent billions giving their "scientific" You can't blame the kids—^the respon­ sibility belongs to the "scientific" but ic patterns, but kept alive in an un­ education, i n - ending chain of emotionally tinged eluding emphasis fuzzy-thinking educators. spoken and printed words, have dis­ on self - expres­ • torted the intellectual processes of sion and health, INTELUGENCE? millions of persons over the cen­ t o produce the Here is what the Commissioner of body beautiful. Education for a large state says in a re- • turies. ." • . One would think cent book entitled The Meaning of In­ that they at least telligence. COMMISSIONER OF MIS-EDUCATION would have "Feeble in mind are Hie persons The Commissioner writes on intelli­ turned out phy­ whose intact brains, giving the gence. He shows his lack of it by clas­ sically perfect highest promise up through child- sifying dogmas, devils, hell-fire, original specimens. But Iwod * * * have been so systemati- (Continued on Page 22) FrndHT I«ack the "scientific" educators have flopped even on that. Draft records show a very high rate of rejection for physical unfitness and this despite our boasted highest stand­ AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER POET TALKS TO GOD ard of living in the world. Look God, I have never spoken to You, But it is in the field of mental devel­ But now I want to say How Do Yon Do; opment, or soul development if you You see God, they told me You didn't exist. wish, that the flop is most evident—^^vith And like a fool, I believed all this. an enormously high percentage of youth being rejected or released as neuropsy­ Last night from a shell hole, I saw Your sky, chiatries—unable to face difficult situa­ I figured right then, they had told me a lie; tions, particularly discipline, and the Had I taken time to see things You made, necessary regimentation in the first six I'd have known they weren't calling a spade a spade. months of service. I wonder, God, if You'd shake my hand. Do you remember at N.D. when we Somehow I feel that You will understand; felt the system was too tough and old Funny, I had to come to this hellish place. fashioned, not up to progressive stand­ Before I had time to see Your Face. • ards of "Sweetwater University," where the fellows were allowed so much more Well, I guess there isn't much more to say. freedom and to do as they pleased? Our But I'm sure glad God, I met You today; education was old fashioned, but not un­ I guess the "Zero Hour" will soon be here. scientific, because we were being pre­ But I'm not afraid, since I know you're near. pared by a real Alma Mater, a nour­ The Signal—well God, 111 have to go, ishing mother, for life, which has lots of I like You lots, this I want You to know; difficult situations, including war. Look now, this will be a horrible fight. We were being taught "to take it" Who knows—^I may come to Your house tonight. though at times we did doubt the wis­ Though I wasn't friendly to You before, dom of that philosophy. I wonder God, if You'd wait at Your door; MICE—NOT MEN Look, I'm crying—me, shedding-J;^rs! You can't blame the neuropsychiatries I wish I had known Yon these many years. for wilting before difficulties nor the Well ... I have to go now God-^goodbye! kids for wilting in the face of the Strange . since I met You—I'm not afraid to die! temptations and war excitement. They have been taught that they aren't men The verse- abovCg author unkTiown, taken from tfie and are not expected to act like men. CHAPIIAIN'S DIGEST, was found on the body of an Amer­ They've been taught they are just little ican after a battle fa Italy. The poet's pseudo-scientific animals with responsibilities to no one educators had failed him. He had to find God in a fox­ except to themselves—and that is to get hole. as much fun, ease and pleasure out of life as possible and to avoid any denial, suffering or hardship of any kind. I tV('iYnwjVltWli\*i»\=( »i-, »v, »r, »!•, kv, 1, *,;,»,;,*,!( »A»,i,*,i,Jiw», The Notre Dame Alumnus This mazazine is pnbliihed bi-mantbly by the Ucivenity of Notrt Damt, Notsa Dame. T"**"* Entand ax leeond daxs matter October 1, 1939. at the Ponoffiee. Hotn Dame. T«ii«.»«, mdir the act of Ansnst 24, 1912. Member of the American Alumni Cbondl and of the National CathoUe Alumni Fadcratlan. Jamas E. Aimatrong. '25. Editon William B. Oeolar. "Zt, Maaogiag Editor VOL 22 JUNE. 1944 NO. 5 (Editor's Foreword: If any alumnus ago a student said to me, and a priest thinks that the current liberal arts, and had said it independently, that the peo­ general educational, turmoil has passed Invasion ple, the mere hoi polloi, cannot be humanists, by which I could only under­ Notre Dame's calm and centuried cur­ stand them to mean that the people riculum by, let him mention the subject oftAe cannot be richly and profoundly hu­ at his own risk. The Editors, knowing manized. that at least Uvo faculty groups had A hang-over like that from an un­ launched intellectual offensives, ap­ Professor's democratic, tradition is something we proached tlie leader of one of these need to examine. In a Christian democ­ groups. Rev. Leo R. Ward, C.S.C., for racy, what is a liberal education, and clarification. Father Ward's answer for whom is it, and how can it be? The Mind very idea of "liberal" as attached to which follows is indicative of the live education was, in some earlier contexts, interest on the University campus iii essentially an aristocratic idea. But the the trend of modem higher education. question is whether it also has in it a The ALUMNUS hopes to keep all alumni meaning that makes sense in every man's life. At least the Greeks meant informed of the developments here theory and it made very good sense by "liberal" that which is proper to the •which will without question reflect fac­ within their aristocratic societies. To aristocrat, the only man then free, the ulty and administrative study of current some extent we hold on to it, too, of man who wouldn't dare to soil his hands course in an unconscious and not very academic problems as they are related with work. Is it people of that sort that intelligent way. But we are supposed to our colleges and universities nurse and to Notre Dame's welfare and progress.) be within a democracy. What sense then want to nurse? can the old educational ideals, so far as we still have them, now make? This is one of twenty vital questions that come up every time we go over one DEAR ARMSTRONG AND DOOLEY: President Hutchins, like Cardinal of the educational classics. So, Mr. Arm­ Newman before him, has said the strong and Mr. Dooley, yon have asked You think things have certainly gone schools should develop the intellectual me what it is that a few of nsaie doing bad when a crowd of professors set out virtues or perfections. This is the lan­ in our tiny and cell-like and quite in­ to read and discuss the classics on edu­ guage of Aristotle. We should like to formal studies. Nothing aristocratic, I cation, and you want to know what we know whether Aristotle has neverthe­ can assure you. Didn't we invite you! are up to. Not very much at all. We only less dealt here with realities that are All we do is to study the elemental edu­ want to find out where the professors valid and possibly important for all so-, cational classics, and then in group dis­ and the colleges are and what they cieties. cussion to let questions appear as they might best be doing in these rough days will and to go as a body at them.