was no urgency for such a course

are limits to the application of

Page Four . SCARLET AND BLACK Friday. May I5, I970
M
} leeral Ed.

Continued from Page 3
students is that of the complete
to the incomplete, not oi equals
to equals. A father does not take
a vote in a family, a doctor does
not vote with the nurses, and the
directors do not vote with the
employees on the advisability of
building a new plant. in educa~
tion, where knowledge is one aim,
knowledge should be the guiding
principle even more so, and if
this is abandoned, other prin-
ciples will take its place, such
as oratory, emotion, politics,
violence, etc., and then there will
be only a semblance of knowl-
edge. The argument that
sometimes students‘are right and
administrators wrong does -not
disturb the relation between the
rule and the exception; for
doctors too are sometimes
wrong, but is is still they who
should make medical decisions
and not the nurses, who are more
numerous.

Concerning the advisability of
a discussion course on ethics
dealing with the development or'
character. perhaps colleges
today should be thinking more
about it. For many years there

} Letters

Continued from Page 2
can doubt that Grinnell students
arecapableofcondemnation’!

Are Grinnell Students capable
of affirmation? Could we have
said that we will continue classes
to honor those who died? That
we will continue classes because
we believe that education alone,
not just the education of the
classroom but also die education
of exposure 0t many ideas and
worlds, produca that tolerance
which we hope will lead to
brotherhood? Could we honor
their lives above their deaths?
If we must sacrifice to show our
sympathy for what the Kent State
students sacrificed, and what the
soldiers in Indochina sacrifice,
why must we always sacrifice
our classes? Why not the time
outside of our classes? Is our
time spent in private pursuits of
pleasure and education unworthy
of sacrifice, or is it too important
for it?

Will it be more impressive to
the world. to Iowa, to the friends
and families of those who are
sacrificed, that we can organize
pickets and protests? 1 think we
would be saying and meaning far
much more if we held a service
— a communion in which both
liberal and conservative could
participate 7 to stand for life,
for peace, for liberation, rather
than against death, against war,
and against repression! l

Life, Liberty, and Peace to the‘

Peoplelll
Jane Daniel
—-———

Women performed better
academically during the first
semester than men of
coeducation at Yale University.

A breakdown of grades at four
levels revealed: “Honors"
women 27.5 per cent, men 23,9 per
cent; “high pass” e women 46
per cent, men 39.6 per cent;
”pass" a women 18.6 per cent,
men 23.4 per cent; "fail” —
women 0.9 per cent, men 1.4 per
Cent.

The percentages represented
the grades of 3,254 men and 566
women at the university.

for the college atmosphere for
proper habits was strong enough
to discourage improper habits
But that atmosphere is dis
appearing now, and there is
nothing left to replace it, except
“personal conscience," a polite
term for individual caprice,
which is nothing more than a set
of contradictory thoughts and
actions. What is needed today.
then, is the reinstatement of
proper conduct through the
awareness of the principles
which justify that conduct; for
to change just the habits is
neither easy nor intellectually
convincing.

Finally, although divergence of
opinion should be allowed, it does
not follow that every opinion
which is different should be given
an equal hearing. There are also
opinions which are obviously bad
or obviously harmful or obviously
destructive, and to honor them
as if they were equal alternatives
or equally controversial is
ridiculous and unwise. If men
with different opinions have truth
as their aim, they should be like
friends trying to determine which
of the opinions are true; so there

the terms “Controversial" and
”divergence of opinion.” So since
the pursuit of important truths
is good, and this is one of the
aims of a liberal education,
administrators and faculty and
students should be like friends
trying to discover and impart
that which is true. Friendship,
even more than justice, is a basis
in any community which is
formed for the sake of some good.
As Aristotle says, ”friendship
seems to hold a state together,
and lawgivers care more for
friendship than for Justice; for

when men are friends,
justice is not wanting, but when
they are just, they still need
friendship, and the action which
is most just is considered to be
the one which is done in a friendly
man." If so, then, friendship is
even more important in an
educational community, for here
truth and goodness and beauty
are pursued to the highest
degree. The lack of this quality
in the educational institutions of
a nation is a strong sign of a
grave failure, for if thﬁe institu-
tions cannot promote this quality,
no others can, and the whole
lation suffers.

—§

To The Editors:

An educational institution is not
a political institution. Colleges
should not be used or dominated

by political purposes and goals.
The resolutions passed by the
faculty on May 5 and May 8 were
morally unjust in their Violation
of individual and academic
rights. My direct plea, made in
the name of individual freedom,
that the May 8 resolution be
circulated as a petition which
faculty members could sign if
they so desired, Was ignored. 1
deplore this spirit of intolerance
which violated the tenets of
academic and personal freedom
by insisting that many voices be
heard as one voice. When a
majority so deliberately forces
its will on a minority the very
existence of freedom is

threatened

Beth Noble
Spanish

To The Editors:

On Monday morning, May 4th,
an etching by David Petta was
stolen from the Student Show in
the Fine Arts Center. It seems
likely that the thief was a Grin-
nell College Student, so I direct
my remarks to this community.

For a number of reasons, Ifind
this particular kind of theft
thoroughly revolting. implicit in
the theft isan' appreciation for
the product of a fellow students
labor which, far from being a
subtle form of ﬂattery, smacks
of a total disregard for the stu~
dent Whose work it is. This thief
is a parasite who sets himself
so far, above his fellow students
that he feels it his right to appro-
priate their labor for himself and
his action strike at the root of
mutual trust upon which this
community must rely for its con
tinued openness.

I ask him to Consider the
destructiveness of his theft, and
to the college community at
large, I suggest that the
protection of such a thief is self
destructive.

Henry F. Klein.
Instructor in Art

Open Letter;

Tonight I am sick with the
events of this day. Isee this insti-
tution as a number of people,
some who have acted in good
faith for a cause in which they
believe. But I see many others,
students and faculty alike, who,
through the emotional intensity
of the moment, have been co~
opted into a movement and an
action which will destroy this
school.

It’s all in your priorities, you
say, and 1 agree. But my priori
tiesare different. Anyone who
really knows who I am knows
that I favor the political views
of the people who want this
place closed. But I
have watched these people
take both the student body
and the Iacultyof this college and
herd them like sheep into an
action that sets a very dangerous
precedent for future activities on
the campus. What are you going
to do the next time something
like Kent or Cambodia happens?
Where are you going to draw the
line the next time?

What really hurts is to see how
so many people, who normally
offer lots of debate to any propos-
al on this campus, can accept
with so little question a badly
thoughtout, radical proposal,
perpetrated by a radically re-
pressive campus. Who is going
to answer to my friends who are
seniors, who will miss the cul-
mination of their college
careers? Who will answer to my
friends who came to mis place
to learn to think? Who will an-
swer to people who don’t know
what they are going to do with
the sudden burden of three empty
weeks, some who have no place
to live until June, many who must
try to resettle without the benefit
of much»necde'd student employ-
ment checks for the month of
May? Who will answer to the
students who see the action as
irrelevant to die larger issues
that face our nation, yet must
explain to their parents what is
happening here'! But most im-
portant, who will answer to the

Collection Increases

Grinnell College has received
three original prints from Watson

Powell, Jr., president of the

American Republican Insurance
company 01 Des Moines,

The prints — by Max Bill,
Michael Challenger, and Ernest
I‘rova — will be added to the col-
lege’s permanent art collection
and will be included in a group of
new acquisitions to be exhibited
May 8731 in the Schaetfer Gallery
in Grinnell's Fine Arts Center.

The prints, all dated 1969, are.

— “Drei Hallerta Wurful," a
color lithograph by Bill.

7 “I command you to vanish,”
a color serigraph by Challenger.

7 A color serigraph from
Trova’s “Study Falling Man”
series.

Grinnell’s permanent collec-
tion was begun in 1952 and now
includes some 280 items of sub
stantial merit. Many of the works
are on permanent exhibition in
college buildings.

.—

faculty members who are
educators. nut political tools to
be used for a political purpose?
I’m sick of you, all 660 of you,
if you happen to be 'a student,
and all 91 of you, if you happen
to be a faculty member, If you
can’t see that ﬁns is the first step
toward me death of Grinnell
College, then this school no
longer has the right to live.
Mike O‘Connor

To the Editors:

Throughout this century we
have been waging a war as costly
as any World War. Yet the battles
are not taking place in the jungles
of Vietnam or on the hills of
Korea but on America's own soil.
It is the Americans struggle
against America. We are witness»
ing the Second American Revo-
lution. This belief is no longer
me rhetoric of a radical few: the
violence in American cities, the
suppression of free voices every-
where, and me deaths at Kent
State and across the nation all
attest to an imminent revolution.

America has progressed past
the point where protest can be
a playful pastime: our individual
rights and very lives are in
jeopardy now. Sending delegates
to Washington and Des Moines
and placing advertisements in
die New York Times are noble
gestures, “But when moral

ADDRESS:

gestures, however emotionally
satisfying, become mere sub~
stitutes for effective policies, or
when they might even help to
worsen a particular situation,
they are robbed of moral
validity.” (Colin Legum, London
Observer, on the Nigeria Civil
War.)

What purposeful measures can
we take out in Iowa? In light of
die tragedy at Kent State, we
could take steps to prevent such
a confrontation from becoming
catastrophic here. The time and
money put towards preparing
students to protect themselves
would be well spent, Firstraid
against mace, gunshou, or simi»
lar hazards and rudimentary
self-defense methods are good
things for all of us to have at
our disposal. The past has shown
that these measures would have
been beneficial; the future will
show whether more drastic pre-
cautions are necasary.

Paul Rothmsn

COULD IT HAPPEN?

An unidentified student
was arrested last night
and charged with breaking
and entering Burling Li-
brary. The student pro-
'Iested that he intended
only to read.

 

