The Green caldron - University Library

May, 1962 7
The seeker does indeed exist ; he is present on this campus in many forms
and to many degrees. Perhaps he is the freshman who saw his motivation
disappear when his girl decided that she was "too young to get serious." He
came to his reconciHation ; he joined the Army. Perhaps she is the junior
girl who came to a reconciliation in her belief; she became a convert to
Catholicism. Perhaps she is the sophomore whose life is her Russian class;
she has mastered the subject matter through a triumph of self-discipline.
Perhaps the seeker is the junior boy who wants to stay, but doesn't know why.
The task of the seeker is the answer to "Why," the search for cause
and effect, the establishment of relationship between "what they say is good"
and "what works for me." The trick is no longer to talk Dad into letting
him go out on a weeknight ; the trick is to stay in. The student must suddenly
assume responsibility for himself ; he must accept the same relationship of
his reason to his desire that his parents bore to him when he was younger.
In order to organize ways and means—the tools of search—the college
student must first know what he is seeking. Further, he must have the
courage to recognize and accept the goal when he sees it. Only then, when
he has established for himself a goal broad enough to include all his aspira-
tions, can he begin to find the methods. He must know, through study and
discussion, what others have considered, and do consider, primary. The
seeker must have a goal and a viewpoint broad enough so that no idea is
outside the realm of consideration and so that any good idea can be incorpo-
rated into his working philosophy.
Concurrently with the absorption of new ideas must come the reconsidera-
tion of the old ones. "What Mama said" must be examined in the light of
Mama's background and the success of her life. Sentimentality must be
discarded, for in every penetrating analysis man stands alone. The success
of a life is judged on that man's fidelity to his own ideas. He will be asked
"Why?" and he must know.
From the tower-view of life that the University provides—so much a
part of life, yet removed from it—the student watches and thinks and develops,
taking probably the most objective look at the society he is about to enter
that he will ever have. In a sense, university life is a taste of eternity : the
singularity of the soul is so apparent.
"Is such a search necessary for all men ?" someone asks the seeker. "There
are those," he answers, "who are unaware of it. But once a man tastes the
fruit of curiosity, and sees the tree of peace-in-full-knowledge, he cannot rest
until he sits under that tree."
This is the function of the university : to excite the curiosity of those
who have not yet begun to search, to offer knowledge to those who are search-
ing, and to provide a place where those who have sought and found can en-
courage the seeker with glimpses of a wonderful tree of peace.