North Carolina Newspapers

Juesday, January 5, 1965 Volume 72, Number 68 Chancellor Paid F. Sharp In Th& dbm' O p rmn 72 Years of Editorial Freedom I! Stir iCtag T T T! 0L1IDLO. taut attltamiuty Offices a the second floor -of Graham Memorial. Telephone member: Editorial, sports, news S33-10C Business, cir culation, advertising 933-1163. Address: - Box 1080, Chapel Dill, N. C. Second class postage paid at fixe Post Office in Chapel Sill, N. C, Subscription rates: $150 per semester; $3.00 per year. Published dally except Mondays, examination periods and vacations, throughout the aca demic year by the Publications Board of the Unirentty of North Carolina. Printed by w Chapel Hill Publishing Company, Inc., 501 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, N. C. i An address delivered before tn twisting the "British lion's lions in commercial dryer a the UNC Faculty Club -on Dec. tail, in frightening our Ameri- student can survive rather than 8, 1964. - can nieghbors with sword-rattl- to what he faiows about t h e By PAUL F. SHARP ing jingo talk or in manipulat- forces of revolution at work we Americans noia curiously ing the tariff for partisan poli- throughout the modern world. ambivalent attitudes toward in tellect and toward intellectuals. Most of our definitions are both precious and pretentious and thus unsuited for our use this afternoon. I want to speak to you of the role of the American intellectual in that realm we shall -choose to call the King dom of Mind. This Kingdom is unique since its boundaries coincide with those marked out by the fellow tical advantage. Similarly, the commercialism of our 19th century cities, ex panding, dynamic, overwhelm ing in its impact, left intellectu al enterprise to a small band of men and women, u s u a 1 ly thought eccentric by their con temporaries. Indeed, "culture" was left mainly' to the distaff members of the community and took on a feminine cast , from which it has only recently freed itself to take on a new life of On top of this, new groups most total collapse of commit ment to anything. This" species, I am told by personnel officers, must be treated with tender, loving care or it does not long academic commitment to scholarship in teaching and research t h a t makes a university great. In appearance scholars come in all sizes, shapes and forms. Fat, lean, tall, short, blond, swarthy - physical characteris- survive in an academic com- cla tv Admittedlv. the ecologi- citizens of the Kindnm nf th cal data are as vet incomplete tics, except perhaps for horn Mind. The group to attract most and these findings are purely rimmed glasses, a receding attention, of course, is that tentative. - , hairline and stooped shoulders, fringe element known as Beat- The behavior of both groups are of little value in ldentifica- niks whose esnressn rnffpp reminds us of Dr. Johnson's fa- tion. , it must be admitted, shops on the campus are their mous parable of "Rasselas, stamD of aDDroval nf thp intpl- Prince of Abvsinnia in 1759." In in all candor, that few in this group are ot me n.rroi riynn lectual vigor of the institution, this story, the Prince created a type. But this is so negative an Tfc 1 O A i . a. J TjVrrTOWlj shiP of the scholars, its citizen- itself to take on a new life of JtSOD OP CctriKlclli: AH UUtStanClinff JCiXampit; ship includes everyone devoted respectability. Today even those JL ' O A to the search for knowledge and most devoted to the market Robert Worthington Spearman is a young man whose accomplishments have long set him apart from his contempo raries, and it is indeed fitting that he :Sanford To Cabinet? One of the best proposals to be con sidered in-the 89th Congress is the ele vation of the Office of Education to mm . , mt "V A 1 cabinet status, rne onice is presently a division of the hydra-headed Depart ment of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). The past decade has discovered that human beings are a most valuable capi tal resource. Economically, humans are producer items just like any other IBM machine. And the economics that apply to IBM apply to humans. One must invest to improve the producing product. Education has come to be regarded as the method of investing in "human capital." There is no better way to im prove the stock of this resource, and thereby improve the economy, than to make it more productive through in creased education and training. Moving the Office of Education up to' department status would help channel sucn investment ana enmniate wasie. Education funds are handled presently by 40 different agencies of, the federal government. Not only is the financial effort diffused, but the planning of edu cational policy is hamstrung by numer ous cooks, many of whom are more con cerned with other programs. . . If the promotion is made, we would like to see Governor Terry Sanford, now known nationally as an "education gov ernor," considered as the first Secretary of Education. Present Commissioner Francis Kep pel, one of the Kennedy Harvard im ports, is the front-runner because of the excellent job he has done thus far and his professional ties with education. But new blood never hurts, and San ford has a knack of coming up with really new programs such as the ad vancement school and the Learning In stitute. Perhaps he is what is needed to in fuse some quality with the new quan tity of federal investment in education. PETE WALES should have been named one of 32 Rhodes Scholarship winners on Dec. 18. At 21, Bob Spearman's list of ac complishments is long. He is an honor graduate of Groton School, president of the UNC chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, president of the N. C. State Student Legislature and, of course, president of the UNC student body. His perfect (4.0) average, compiled largely in honors courses and advanced classes, would be a phenomenal accomplishment for a full-time academician, much less f or a busy, active student leader. But this is hardly the time to speak of Bob's academic and political honors, important as they are. His unique stu dent history is probably known to a greater proportion of the University community than that of any Carolina undergraduate since Charlie Justice was the darling of the athletic world 15 years ago. Rather, we might pause for a moment and consider the less tangible assets which go into the making of a Rhodes Scholar. Primarily, there is character the approach to life which allows one man to grow and prosper a little more fully than his fellows. Bob Spearman, pos sessed of a sincerity which never lapses over into selfishness and a dignity set off by quiet humor, has such a character as his foundation. Add to that an ever inquiring mind and' a unique capacity to seek out the best in people, and you have some of the components which combine with sheer intellect to produce one of the 32 top1 college seniors in the sa nation. In summing up, ijt is sufficient to say that Bob Spearman has done much in his four years here to add to his own impressive stature, but he has also given generously of himself so that our Uni versity has also benefited. Such contri butions as the Fine Arts Festival, which will be reinstated this spring, will give concrete evidence of his foresight and imagination for years to come. Such generosity and intellect are un usual in this or any University, and we applaud the fact that the Rhodes Schol arship committee saw fit to reward them appropriately. As in the past, Bob Spearman can be counted on to bring himself and UNC even greater fame and rewards in the future. We wish him every success. Promises, Promises, Promises, Promises New Year's resolutions usually have the longevity, of a treaty with the So viets, but, like mistletoe, they seem to be one of the traditions of the season and duty calls upon us to make ours. In the past we have been moderately honest when it becomes time to imple ment the promises we made ourselves during the first day of the new year. Of course, we always forget a few, but that can be chalked up to our fuzzy nature the morning after the night before. Last year, for instance, we promised Wift 9atlg ar ?rrl Fred Seelyt Hugh Stevens Co-Editors t Mike Yopp Managing Editor Associate Editor I Business Manager Asst. Bus, Mgr. r Photo Editor 'Pete Wales Advertising Manager - Asst. Ad. Mgr. Sjyorts Editor Asst. Managing Editor Newt Editor : Copy Editor Night Editor u. Jack Harrington Betsy Gray Jock Lauterer Woody Sobol Jim Peddicord Larry Tarleton Ernie McCrary . Alan Banov Mary Ellison Str other ,- -, Fred Thomas Sports Reporters Pete Gammons Pete Cros8,.Tom Haney, Al Kaplan ,,:..,., ., Chip Barnard Bill Lee Ari Editor Intrajniwti Reporter not to go on any safaris, and we were true. We also pledged ourselves to ab stain from hashish, and so we did. So what's up for the coming year? With visions of sugarplums and hopes of attainment, we solemly promise: Not to join the Daughters of the American Revolution. To keep our daily beer consumption below the national average (of Ger many). To attend class regularly (well, once a week is regular, isn't it?) To do everything possible to avoid be coming a member of the Pepsi Genera tion. s To do everything possible to avoid Pepsi. Never, never to watch "My Favorite Martian," "Mister Ed," "The Beverly .Hillbillies" or. "Petticoat Junction" again. To try and find a crip course which our Dean hasn't heard of yet. Failing that, to try and find a new Dean. Failing that, not to fail everything else. Of course, we'll undoubtedly regret ever having put these in print, as people have a funny way of holding you to things you say will be done. But please, friends, don't turn us in to the Honor Council if we happen to slip up. After all, we did say we would try, didn't we? to the search for knowledge and its use in our daily lives. In deed, Jacques Barzun's defini tion of residence in the "House of Intellect" will do equally well place m u s t master a learning regarded a waster of time by their fathers. So too, the decline of relig- to qualify us for citizenship in ious dogmatism, always an ene- tne .Kingdom ot tne Mina: "per sons who consciously and me thodically employ the mind." This passport is sufficiently flexible I hope to include uni versity chancellors. I should not like to disenfranchise myself at the very outset! ' Provinces of this kingdom reach far into the hinterlands of many professions and activities. But its heartland is on the cam pus, for here the standards of the entire realm are created and nourished, here intellectual life is primary. Numerous institutions exist in our society dedicated to the en- my of free inquiry, has changed the environment for American intellectuals, particularly, with in the church itself. By the same token, it should also be noted that the lessening influ ence of the high priests of mod ern secularism, Marx, Darwin and . Freud, all of whom belit tled the force of reason as a factor in human affairs and exalted irrationality, has ma terially contributed to t h e de cline of anti -intellectualism in recent years. Finally the great schism be tween men of action and men of thought has narrowed some- Today's beatniks are sunris- trtopia of his own, free from ingly similar to the self - styled the distractions of ignorance, "Civilized Minority" of the suffering and want; far from 1930's that represented itself as the barbarisms of war and the sole residents of the King- prejudice; and unhampered by aom ot the Mind. There is some thing of the same combination of intellectual arrogance, inflat ed self - esteem and social ir responsible mingled with liberal doses of self - pity, un disciplined talent and preoccu pation with self - gratification. The "Lost Generation" of t h e the insistent demands of self discipline, work or self - re straint. observation as to be quite use less in identifying the species and so depressing to masculine morale that I shall not elabc rate. Nor is it really pertinent, how ever interesting, to dwell on the fact that nearly every novelist the endless round of pleasures that divitalized the few who had minds of their own and enslav ed the weak. Finally, accom- Twenties saw no hope for Man panied by t h e philosopher - Unaccountably tne rnnce ue- portraying intellectual i i i e m came increasingly bored with America represents the scholar and - with the Beatniks of t h e Sixties share the inspiring, though somewhat contemptuous, spirit of not give a damn. Undoubtedly great talent will astronomer, Imlac, the Prince deserted "Happy Valley" that 18th century version of a cold water flat in Venice West, to return into a world of "stub- emerge from this generation of born, irreducible fact." richment of personal, emotional, what, whether for good or ill. physical and spiritual develop- When captains of industry must ment. Only the university com prises a community oiniquely dedicated to intellect, to the power and dignity of ideas. Here the life of intellect is made attractive; here our hopes for candid and fearless thought get full play or it is nowhere. Central to the many and'eom- rely upon Ph.D.'s to provide the new processes that maintain margins of profit and keep the firm ahead of its competitors and when captains of com merce look to economists and others to provide data for in- young intellectuals. But I doubt if much of it will appear in the extreme ends of the spectrum of our youthful society. If clari ty of expression, economy of words and commitment to. truth are virtues, then there seems to be only Hobson's choice be tween the smooth, -calculated nonsense of Madison Avenue or the undisciplined effusions of the Beatnik writers. Now all this attention focus ed on a few unshaved, dirty, young men whose herd instinct drives . them into intellectual ghettoes really misses the plex functions of the university ferent world from that requir is the life of the mind. Any ing only audacity and greed to -1 - p j r , J , . 1 i uiner aeiimuon 01 our roie sug gests that other institutions are better equipped and more prop erly commissioned to perform the tasks we assume. The cam pus must truly be a "House of Intellect," to use Jacques Bar zun's phrase, or there will be vestment, marketing and plan- point. One can hardly apply for ning, we are indeed in a dif- citizenship in the Kingdom of , w bring economic - rewards and social status. In all this there is the real danger that the Kingdom of the Mind will become an occupied territory, a satrapy serving the needs of foreign masters. Free inquiry may turn to directed re- no habitation for rationality, no search, love of truth may de- the Mind simply because he wears smelly socks, a d i r t y sweat shirt and dungarees or reads second rate poetry. Nor is it really enough to recom mend citizenship papers on the basis of absence of personal property though this does seem to be a virtue shared by many citizens m good standing! Here, vividly portrayed in the life of the Pririce, is the dilem ma of the American intellectual. Can the Prince desert this Utop ian retreat, plunge into a world of "stubborn, irreducible fact" and remain an intellectual? Can he truly remain Emer son's "man thinking" or Bar zun's person consciously and methodically employing the mind? Our answer, I suggest, is con ditioned by the forces that created much of the anti-intel-lectualism of the 19th century and left a gulf of estrangement, rejection and withdrawal. With the decline of frontier crudities and the eaggerated sense of action at the expense of thought; with the penetration of industry and government by sci ence; and through the omni present influence of the expert in government, philanthropy, journalism, community plan ning, and political leadership, congenial home for the restless or inquiring mind. Raymond Fosdick's recent tri b u t e to Woodrow Wilson as teacher in" his autobiographical Chronicle of a Genera tion" will serve as my text: I speak only as a single stu- generate to self - serving and intellectual energy may be dis sipated on mental gadgetry or other trivia. Our own proved abilities to debase intellectual enterprise through the "publish or perish" doctrines demon strate that we sometimes do not as the hen - pecked victim of an ambitious and domineering wife. If tru, perhaps it is only the reflection of the national mores of the larger community and not a particular hazard of his profession. ' These conclusions, of course, could be much too optimistic. The powers of observation in such matters are limited and the filter of interpretation may have left us with the wrong pre cipitate. The possibility of error in observation is illustrated by the familiar story from old Fort Dodge: At five o'clock each af ternoon the OOD signaled, a gun saluted and the flag de scended. A visiting friend once asked how he knew when it was five each day. The officer re plied: 1 always set my watch with the jeweler's clock ia Dodge City. The jeweler has one of the finest regulators in the world." Kis friend, who was al so interested in research, check ed with the jeweler the next time he was in Dodge City. The jeweler readily admitted he had a fine regulator which his fath er had brought over from Switzerland. But when the visi tor asked the jeweler how he checked the regulator, he re plied, "I set it every day by the gun up at the Fort." Of this much we can be cer tain: Citizens of the Kingdom of the Mind are recognized by dent at Princeton of over fifty need outside leadership to lose years ago. For me Wilson lit a our course. lamp which has never been put We run the risk that rather out. All my life I have remem- than intellectuals we will play bered him as the inspiring the role of academic entrepre- our campuses though they .spurn leacner v. no mLroaucea us to the kingdom of the mind, and held up before our eyes what Whitehead later called 'an ha- bitual vision of greatness'." neurs. Indeed, today we auite the dirtv dungaree umform or often confront the choice of be- the scraggly teenage beard of ing intellectuals or academic the Beatnik, their claims to citi carpetbaggers, looting, rath- zenship are , equally spurious, er than giving, diminishing " Thev inhabit our campuses with When the campus ceases to be rather than enriching, enervat- the same intellectual pointless such a place, then the Kingdom ing rather than nourishing. This ness,, social irresponsibility and of Mind will become the King- is more than those obvious dis- self-gratification. And quite of- tmctions emphasized in a study such as Caplow and McGee's "Academic Marketplace." It is really the choice we make be- something of the prestige of the Citizenship in the Kingdom intellectual in the age of Frank- of the Mind requires energy of lin, Jefferson, Hamilton and the their activities and by the spirit intellect, an assertion which I Adams family may be restored, that motivates them, expect the members of a uni---. However active and socially Citizenship in this realm re- versity faculty will happily ac- useful the intellectual becomes, quires a serious commitment to cept. Scholarship or intellectual However, it snouid be admitted activity without a work product quite frankly that he win never quickly degenerates into pedan- be fully restored to that unique try. or dilettantism. , position conferred upon him by Far more distressing than the the fraternity of literacy, f o r- claims of the Beatniks to citi- ever destroyed by Gutenburg's press and by free, public edu cation. Certainly, few of us to day would claim "benefit of " clergy." zenship in the Kingdom of the Mind of beardless beatniks on the search for truth. It demands ..a, capacity for critical analysis that sets the intellectual apart and protects him with academic freedom, provides the financial resources for his work and sus tains him in his search. With out critical detachment and the highest order of objectivity the intellectual's plea for freedom Who are these scholars, these and respect is seriously weak dom of the Blind from which this vision of greatness will be banished and the one - eyed will be kings. Today the Kingdom of the Mind appears to be in great ferment. A decade from now we may well regard the I960's a watershed period in which a growing maturity forced us as a nation into a new appreciation of those who serve in the house hold of intellect. There are modest but en couraging signs that many of our fellow countrymen are slowly outgrowing the crude an ti - intellecutalism so character istic of our national behavior "Egghead" has lost something of its opprobrium. It may even be conferred today with a grudging admiration. Superficial observers, includ ing certain admirals and pub licists, credit Russian scientific progress for this growing awareness of intellect's re wards. Actually, deep seated forces have quietly transform ed our era into a national ex perience quite different from that of the nineteenth century when we equated the role of the intellectual with that of the French dancing master or with the circus barker and the hawk er of phony nostrums, all of whom an mdlscriminatiiig pub he called "professors." fJ3?0? of the Kingdom of the Mind, whatever their field of interest or intellectual enter prise, owe a considerable debt to the scientific revolution of our time. The transformations accompanying this revolution have outdated and swept into discard many time-honored and cherished American fetishes. Frontier mores, so honored as inadequate. The frontier empha sis upon egalitarian crudity and on action that took precedence over order or thought created an anti - intellectualism that s losing much of its vitality in our scientific age. . Today even the most obtuse n.Tffv118 Ig--e that with out taking thought of the mor- fJ2l!re may very weU be no you of the revolution in our conduct of foreign affair to derscore the great changes smce the 19th ten they oscillate violentlv be tween antagonism and conform These young men and women tween viewing the university as are of the species mononuclear, only a kind of boarding house - They suffer from an intellectual we pass through rather than an mononucleosis that infects the intellectual castle from which will and the mind rather than we make whatever forays seem the bloodstream. But it is ac appropriate from time to time companied by the same symp- m the discharge of scholarly du- toms of listlessness ana apatny. ties. Certainly, intellectuals find themselves playing anew and unaccustomed role.. I do not share, however, all the appre hensions of some of our col leagues that as this role takes on new meanings our intellectu als are necessarily further es tranged from our society. On the contrary the intellectuals' understandings of the profound changes in our society make them all the more valuable. This changing role of intellectu als is most marked on the cam pus itself. Indeed, when a mass, media magazine calls attention to the fact that the football hero is no longer the center of femi nine devotion but is replaced by the PBK key, we have turned a corner! . There are unmistakable signs of change on the American cam pus.' We are surely outgrowing much of the tomfoolery and humbuggery in higher educa tion in this country. Slowly, im perceptibly at any one moment we see a growing commitment to the serious purposes of edu cation. . , In spite of this, however, the mechanics of public information continue to emphasize on occa sion the exotic and inconse quential on the campus. It is still true that even the best pub lications will give more atten tion to how many students can fit into a telephone booth than how many students are forced into gracefully inadequate nation it is still true that fooa rio?snon the .camp iU get. bigger g-SlSrSf d'e sSed t soKe the food short ly throughout our starving raid-it is ; still true that more X10; oaid to the record attention s paia telephone lme -than to the quality conversation ini cLljtent of conversauon - Species mononuclear can readily be identified by a lack of will, an atrophy of intellectu al interest and social concern, and a lassitude of spiritual sen sitivity accompanied by an al- intellectuals to whom we must surely look for leadership in our confused and complex age? What do they look like? How do we identify them, even in their native habitat, the university campus? ' How do they behave, at "least while on duty? Obviously, the wearing of cap and gown is no certain identi fication. More than one gown has sheltered the cold heart of an anti - intellectual as he mounted the rostrum to receive his Bachelor of Arts degree printed on artificial sheepskin and not even in Latin anymore! And more than one brightly tas seled cap has adorned the addle plate of a Doctor more concern ed with the peripheral aspects of university life than with the X polltid eiited SnioT and to how many revolu- CHANCELLOR SHARP ened. Without these, his activi ties become little more than special pleading or artless prop aganda. Finally, this citizenship re quires that those who hold it must achieve an accumulation of knowledge. The folklore image of the scholar as a col lector of "dry and dust" facts has at base this truth: scholars do accumulate knowledge and much of it seems irrelevant or "dry as dust" to those unac quainted with intellect's de mands. Citizenship has other obliga tions as well. It demands a work - product that pays tri bute to the creativity ot the mind as well as to emotional vigor and physical energy. Bruce Truscot's famous indict ment of British intellectuals in Hed Brick University pictures the academic community caught in a web of pretense and only producing better gard ens or more elaborate hedge rows under the stimulus of more free time for investigation and research. Similarly Stringfellow Earr's recent Purely Academic not on ly describes Professor Schnied er's revenge against colleagues, administrators and students, it also satirizes the world of intel lect as inhabited by frustrated petty politicians who find es cape in the time honored refu ges of liquor, sex and gossip. Truscot and B a r r present overdrawn portraits, or at least we hope they do. They call at tention to the f a c t, however, that citizenship is no guarantee of escape from the frustrations and boredom that plague the generality of mankind. Life in the Kingdom of t h e Mind holds out the opportunity of disciplined crativity, intellec tual integrity, hard work and dedicated energies. With these, the Kingdom of the Mind is a glorious place to live in - a world of excitement, questing, and fufillraent. As Yale's President G r i s wold phrased it shortly before his death: "The American scholar is not Faust at his black magic or a gypsy in night from his- fellow men or a man of a philosophical habit caught in a philosophical vise. He is Man Thinking, hun gering and thirsting after the things that make men think. We nave xnose things at our dispos al. Let us give them to him, for our his. own sake as well as for