May 13, 1960
THE SALEMITE
Page Three
Are Gazebos Threatening Our American Education
Editor’s Note: This is the entire
speech which Dr. Byers gave in
Chapel on Honor’s Day.
Dr. Inzer Byers
There is not much doubt about
it—this year should go down in
Salem history as the year on the
analyst’s couch. From the moment
last fall when the little do-it-your
self psychoanalysis kit arrvied from
the Southern Association, Salem
College has been engaged in study
ing every aspect of college life from
the needs for a Fine Arts building
to the structure of student govern
ment to the answer to the new
Jacobin cry, “Sauce for the broc
coli.” The final report for the
Southern Association is not yet
ready, but thus far I have heard
nothing about the problem I would
like to discuss today, the problem
of Gazebos.
As you will perhaps recall, in the
recent movie. The Gazebo, the item
in question was a turreted summer
house in which George IV had re
portedly dallied with his mistresses.
For a mere $1900, the happy couple
could buy and install this particular
gazebo in their garden. And, of
course, the implication of the story
is “What is a home without
gazebo ?”
College Gabezos
I suppose the same question might
be raised about a college campus
As a matter of fact, gazebos can
be extremely useful fixtures on
campus. For example, the Arbore
tum at Chapel Hill might be taken
as a gazebo of sorts. Certainly no
college in the United States can
boast a higher percentage of stu
dents with an overwhelming in
terest in botanical studies than the
University of North Carolina. At
my own alma mater, Randolph
Macon Woman’s College, there is
also a gazebo of sorts which goes
by the name of Engagement Tower.
No one is supposed to enter said
gazebo until she can enter it with
her fiance. Now this Engagement
Tower stands about fifteen feet
from a well-lighted dormitory front
porch, about an equal distance from
an extremely well-lighted library
courtyard. ' It is about two feet
away from the most heavily used
walk on campus, one leading to the
Science Building, to Main Hall, and
to the Music Hall. Under the cir
cumstances, a couple’s entry into
the Tower has all the secrecy of a
Hollywood star’s arrival at the Aca
demy Award Banquet. Needless to
say, there is little need to send
formal engagement announcements
to anyone on that campus.
Salem Gazebos?
The question is, “Are there any
gazebos on Salem Square?” Obvi
ously, if one means physical gaze
bos, the answer is “No”. To be
sure, there is the area felicitously
described in the Student Handbook
as “The Upper Pleasure Grounds.”
However, there is really nothing
which a self-study committee can
list as a gazebo among the physical
facilities of Salem College.
This does not mean, however,
that the student of Salem need feel
herself a second-class citizen. There
are gazebos and gazebos. And if
one’s college has no physical gaze
bo, there is always the possibility
that one may be able to turn one s
education into a sort of gazebo, a
summerhouse in which to dally
away four years of college until
the real business of life begins
This sort of gazebo does not de
pend upon any gift from alumnae
Without any investment other
the payment of the normal tuition
and board fee, the individual stu
dent may embark on the building
of his own private gazebo. And
throughout America today, the
sound of gazebo-building is heard
n the land.
Actually, the more obvious forms
of such gazebo-building are no great
problem to a college . . . Biuld the
gazebo high enough, and at some
point the exclusion law will prob
ably remove one from the scene.
It is the disguised forms of gazebo
building that are the real danger to
the life of the college. The signs
of their existence are many. It
may be the plaintive cry of the
first-year student: “I don’t want to
stay in this course. You have to
think.” From the sorrowful sopho
more or the jaundiced junior, it
may be the bitter vow, “Five term
papers a semester. It’s time I had
crip course.” From the weary
enior, it is probably the advice,
“Play it cool. Take things you al
ready know you can pass, prefer
ably all meeting Monday, Wednes
day, and Friday between 10 and 11
a.m.”
“Acceptable” Education
What that sort of gazebo building
involves is not an outright rejection
>f education, but a perilous dis
crimination in the kind of education
that is acceptable. The gauge of
success is the fulfillment of the let
ter of the law—obtaining the exact
number of quality points needed,
the exact number of semester hours,
and all with the least possible ex
penditure of effort. Today through
out America this form of gazebo
building goes on apace. No college
is so poor that it cannot possess
gazebos of this sort. No college is
rich enough to afford to have them.
In opposition to this concept of
education as gazebo-building is the
idea which I wish to discuss today,
the concept of education as a ven
ture in independent study. By “in
dependent study” I do not mean an
honors program, a formal program
of individual research carried on by
students of proved ability in parti
cular fields, though I certainly do
recommend such a program to
Salem College. The kind of inde
pendent study which concerns irie
today, however, is one which is
open to every student in every area
f study. In this sense, education
as independent study means educa
tion in which the initiative is in
the hands of the individual student.
“Do-It-Yourself”
What is involved, basically, is a
do-it-yourself” approach to^ edu
cation and to judgment-making in
general. Now it is true that the
fetish of “do-it-yourself-ism” may
be carried to ridiculous extremes.
For instance, a local bookstore ad
vertised a “do-it-yourself book for
the making of antiques. And a
New Yorker cartoon of several
years ago showed a small granite
shop outside the cemetery wall with
“do-it-yourself” tombstone kit,
complete with granite slab, hammer,
n d chisel. “Do-it-yourself-ism”
can obviously be carried beyond the
point of no return. There is much
to be said, however, for the cul
tivation of a “do-it-yourSelf ap
proach to education. Such an ap
proach encourages respect for the
intellectual material with which one
works, the appreciation for the
labor involved in the finished pro
duct, and the understanding of
creative techniques. It promotes
confidence in judgment indepen
dently arrived at. It shifts the
emphasis from an external to an
internal standard of achievement.
This is Honors Day. To you who
have met Salem’s standard of ex
cellence, congratulations are due.
And certainly the faculty and ad
ministration are pleased to extend
these congratulations to you. But
Honors Day involves basically suc
cess of an external standard of
achievement, the gauge of academic
success set by the college itself.
The crucial competition, however, is
essentially within you. And the
real gauge of achievement is not
how well you fulfill the letter of
the law, but how well you fulfill
the potentiality within you. Act
ually this Honors Day will have
missed its point if sometime today
each of you does not pause long
enough to compare what you have
attained with what is within you
to attain.
Independent Study
Education as a venture in inde
pendent study not only means ac
cepting individual responsibility for
intellectual growth. It also means
the accepting of individual re
sponsibility for reassessment of
values. If education really fulfills
its obligation, college life should
contribute in a vital and determin
ative way 'to the growth of values
and done. If so, no matter what
the degree acquired or the honors
attained, one’s education has failed.
If education has really succeeded,
there will be a growth not only of
knowledge but of values, not only
of facts but of insight.
All this is well and good, but in
the world of the gazebo-builders the
question is, “Why bother? Ten
years from now what difference will
it possibly make what grades I
got?” To be absolutely honest, ten
years from now it will probably not
matter in the slightest what grades
you got, as far as the grades them
selves are concerned. But insofar
as the grades are an outward and
visible sign of an inner attitude to
education, it does and will make a
great deal of difference.
Commitment to the First Rate
For one thing, it makes a great
deal of difference to Salem College
whether or not you accept the chal
lenge of education as independent
study. For the measure of an aca
demic institution is the degree of
its commitment to the first-rate.
The most valuable gift that you as
students or you as alumnae can give
to your college is your individual
commitment to this ideal. For it is
out of the sum total of individual
commitments that the tone of the
college is derived. As President
Jordan of Radcliffe College stated:
This intellectual climate—the
Want To Go
When Yon
Want To Go
CALL
and beliefs. This is one of the
majorareas of college responsibility. respectable to be interested in
But according to the survey by mind-is a
Philip Jacobs, this 1 sthe area in resource that cannot be pur-
which American colleges are most ■
seriously failing today. Ihe mind
of the student is being informed,
but as Jacobs notes, the college ex
periences are barely touching the
students’ standards of behavior,
judgment, and fundamental beliefs.
In part the responsibility is that of
the college. As Dr. Wallace M.
Alston, President of Agnes Scott
College, put the case:
College can contribute to the
growth of a student’s values only
when it penetrates to the core
of his life and confronts him
with fresh and often disturbing
implications, which are different
from those which he and his
society have taken for granted.
This means that if the college is
to fulfill its responsibilities, it can
not commit itself to the ideal of
education as “adjustment”’. It must
present the student with fresh in
sights and challenges to old ways
of doing things. If the college ful
fills its responsibility, the student
will be brought face to face with
the necessity for a reappraisal of
values.
Critical Reappraisal
But this does not mean that such
a reappraisal will occur. There
must also be a willingness on the
part of the student to submit his
accepted standards of behavior and
beliefs to critical scrutiny. It is
certainly possible to close one’s
mind and to go through college
unaffected in any important essen
tial of judgment by what is said
imperishable assets.
This is not an indorsement of
pseudo-intellectualism. It is simply
the recognition of flie importance
to a college of the individual’s ac
ceptance of the responsibility for
intellectual self-fulfillment.
Not only does it matter to the
college, it also matters a great deal
to you as an individual whether or
not you will accept education as a
venture in independent study. Such
commitment helps to provide the
inner resources with which to face
the private personal crisis of one’s
life. A statement in the old “Aims
and Purposes” of Salem College de
scribes this function well. “Higher
education should equip people for
the society of which they are a part,
but it must also prepare people for
their own inevitable solitude.” The
last phrase of that sentence, “their
own inevitable solitude”, has
haunted me since I first en
countered it. It may be true, as
John Donne suggests, that “No man
is an island entire of itself.” But
it is also true that only too often
in life one reaches the point of
isolation Rilke spoke of when he
asked, “Who would hear me if I
cried out, among all the angelic
hosts ”
It is particularly at this point of
inevitable interior solitude that
one’s education comes in for severe
testing. Education, even education
as a venture in independent study,
cannot solve the problem of inner
serentity. Such work can help,
though, to build up inner resources
(Continued on Page Four)
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