Address at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, New York City, December 29, 1947
Education for tomorrow must serve three purposes. It must create in the student a high sense of responsibility, a cooperative spirit and a deep feeling for the ideals of a free democracy. Essential to the fulfillment of these purposes is a sense of belonging: -- a student to his college or university, a citizen to his town, stat or nation and to his world. The human being who does not feel that he belongs to something bigger than himself cannot be a participating member of a free and democratic world.
Baccalaureate Address at Dartmouth College June 12, 1949
The great purpose of education is to help young men and women to become self reliant, responsible citizens in a cooperative community. I am not at all sure that self-reliance and responsibility can be taught in the same sense that physics and history can be taught. Initiative, imagination, cooperation and responsibility can, however, be learned, given the environment of the academic community. He who spends four years in the presence of such an opportunity and does not learn to carry his citizen responsibilities, to cooperate with his fellow men in the maintenance of the commonweal, and to strive constantly for freedom under law, has failed in his proper education. … There are two suggestions I could make to you as you mark the transition from learning to doing –from receiving to giving – from less to greater responsibility. The first is that in your thoughts and in your actions you shall be radical. By that I mean no more nor less than the true meaning of the word. I once heard a judge of the Superior Court of one of our great mid-western states say that he wanted to be known as a radical – not a liberal, not a conservative, but as a radical -- because he wanted always to be recognized as one who sought the roots of all problems -- the roots of the issues of his time. He wanted to develop his opinions upon an understanding of basic and fundamental factors. He wanted to cut through the emotional over layers which so often hide the truth, he wanted to be able to dig beneath the prejudices and stereotype opinions of other men and discover root causes.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Phillips Exeter Academy Alumni Association, at the School, May 27, 1950
"...Schools like Exeter--and the colleges and universities of our country--have three purposes:
1. To educate at varying levels of maturity young [men and women] for the responsibilities of living in the world of their future.
2. To educate these same young [men and women] for all the responsibilities of making a living in the world of their future.
3. To mold the world of our future by the enthusing of young [men and women] with ideas and ideals, and patterns of thought and habits of conduct, measured to increase individual and group responsibility, strengthen cooperative endeavor, and develop integrity, develop feelings of community, and enlarge the opportunities for freedom..."
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