Page Eight

SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday, February 1

 

Grinnell‘s Jim Mifflin goes up for two points in Saturday's
73-71 victory over Coo. Mifflin scored 23 points against the
Kohawks and is currently third in the conference in individual
scoring with 20.7 points per game. '

 

) Kuniz Leller

Continued from Page 2

the refusal tlo be obliged to any-
one for anything. In this con»
text, that of learning, such a
meaning of “independence”
_would imply that each of us
can learn nothing or should
learn nothing from anyone
else. If this is absurb, then
where may well be sense, very
good sense, in saying: there
are opportunities to learn un-
der circumstances freer in
some respects than those you
have known heretofore. Why
should an administration and
{acuity say, for a short period
to students and faculty: no
classes and no attendance re-
quired; no course grades, no
course texts? The point is to
focus on topics of maximum
Importance: — the nature of
man, his use of symbols, the
nature of planetary system and
motion of its parts,

Mr. Fullmer has missed the
educational bus if he thinks
that the interim speakers are
solely to entertain, solely to pre-
yent death by boredom, or that
the writing of essays is solely
to consume excess paper, or
that senior comprehensives are

iven as punishment. Of course,

e is speaking ironically, pos-
sibly as spokesman for those
who miss the bus.

The job of learning to be
your own boss, to formulate
a design for learning and to
carry out a project is diffi-
cult. or course it can't be
taught as training in read
ing, or learning about the
city (reference to the history
bibliography.) Requiring stu-
dents to present a plan would
indeed help many students to
avoid intellectual vagrancy or

simple truancy. But won’t we
have to rely on the individ-
ual‘s desire :0 learn for its
own sake?

There is no perfect system
of education; any system will
fail to be the best for every
scholar involved in it. Some
will go home during interim,
some will sleep rather than lis-
ten and discuss, some will be
bored and seek diversion, We
can say sourly that these types
shouldn’t be here, and we’ll
have to pick Students Who will
appreciate being weaned from
the educational breast or bottle,
and ready to outgrow spoon

feeding of pabluml It would be ‘

better to say that no system
can be completely successful.

 

After all, in consolation after
each of the 36 semesters 1 have
taught, I say that lawyers lose
half their cases, and physicians
eventually lose all their pa-
tients, and ways of salvation
are also ways of damnation
(a “perfect hell,” required log-
ologically, says K. Burke, as
well as a perfect heaven).

As for submitting u “pr0<
gram" to an adviser—why
not now adopt Howard Bow-
en’s proposal that each stu-
dent ke e p an intellectual
diary through his four
years? It‘s the task of each
of us to ensure that our win-
ter interims and semesters
and summer interlms add up
to a pattern of coherence be«
yond the ability of any test.
The results may not appear
quickly or be recognized
swiftly. The excellence of
George Berkely‘s student
diary took more than 200
years to be appreciated.

The catalogue uses the ideal
of ”independence” in an intel-
ligible sense — developing the
abilities to formulate hypo-
theses, to judge whether the
evidence confirms or discon»
firms, to imagine what we are
not told, and to go beyond all
received opinions. This is
called becoming a person oi
“independent” judgmen .”

“Liberal’ education is too
much conceived as “general"
in contrast to “special and ap-
plied or technical.” Whether
this plan will work to free us
from “servile bonds," from
“envy,” from "‘rumours,” as
Sir Henry hoped of his scholars
at Eton, depends on how‘seri-
ously we believe in it, we ens
sure that it won't work. it we

do act on the belief that it will,
very likely it will some of the

time, I’d rather see it work
some of the time, so I choose
to stress its promise.

Paul G. Kunlz

 

Informal Student-Faculty Discussions
Are Insiilnied by Board of Religion

By Suzanne Gelber

“A grass roots attempt to
solve a grass roots problem,”

stated Board of Religion presi-
dent Paul Courtright, charger
terizillg recently formed stu-
dent-faculty discussion groups.
Genesis of the groups lay in
student and faculty concern
with factionalism and aliena-
tion within the college commu-
nity.

Instituted and organized by
the Board of Religion, some
thirty discussion groups now
exist, each possessing one
faculty member and approxi-
mately six student partici-
pants. Eager to promote an
“honest exchange of views"
between students and faculty,
Courtright hopes the meetings
will “clear the campus chan-
nels of communication.”

Speaking frankly, the Board
of Religion president noted that
uncreative attitudes t 0 w a r d
rule changes and student-facul-
ty dichotomy seriously affect
Grinnell’s public image. “The
college community should be a
unified organism. We don’t
know exactly what the college
problem is, so these discussion
groups represent an attempt at
direct definition. and indirect
solution," maintained Court-
rightl

Set up to provide variety of
class and gender, the discus-
sion groups have draWn a
slightly heavier response from
freshmen and sophomores than
from juniors and seniors, and
from women students, rather
than men

“What is important,” stated
Courtright, “is that student and
faculty response to discussion
has been genuinely critical and
open.”

Originating from a discussion
between Roger Eldridge, col-
lege chaplain, and Courtright,
the groups were conceived with
the express idea of airing view-
points on facultyrstudent rela
tionships

TO SELL: l-pair of men's figure
skates, size 91/2 e good quality.
Art Arnold H No. 461,

Courtright mentioned that
the administration image of
Grinnell seems to stem from
identification of the college
with schools such as Oberlin
and Carleton and results in a
feeling that Grinnell‘s rules

are liberal by comparison. 0n
the other'hand, students tend
to compare Grinnell with in-
stitutions such as Swanhmore
and Reed, by whose stand-
ards college rules appear
restrictive.

Explaining that such conflicts
contribute to alienation, Court»
right expressed the conviction
that discussions held under
auspices removed from faction-
alism would provide a form [or
objective consideration of dif-
fering viewpoints.

The twelve-member Board of
Religion itself operates on a
$1500 annual budget, drawn
from Sunday chapel contribu-
tions, which go to support the
college religious program and
Ahmednagar College in India.
Students servo two»year terms
on the Board, which Courtright
hopes will ”deal with broad
campus issues with ever-in-

creasing effectiveness."

 

'There will be no services
in Herrick Chapel this Sun-
day, due to the “between se-
mester" break. Regular col—
lege services will resume
next Sunday, Feb. 16. Mr.
Roger Eldridge, college
chaplain, will give the ser-
mon.

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“lr is cuxlous llmt our ideologues do
not reﬂzcl mm ollul on ills example:
in our lime, wllomin fhl sxsruiln
lirr won his 'libsralion from rm pm.
Iyxl'rlg grip of the roprrrenlsrm
assembly: There is no Paralysis in
Moscow, nor was thus in Berlin [or
. decade or so ills: 193:. No 'rclln-
dalous up in legirlsnon' Ius boihercd
Pravda. smln and Hiller,'l(llm:h.
Chev and Milo; no cobweb: in illeir
legislature hills,
not even in ”In
very darken
comers.“

wm. is Dopl. cm,
NAlIDNAl REVIEW;
I5l7 Eon is sworn
Now York lb, N.Y.lor
a m- relay.

 

