Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1921-09-23
RECORD MIDDLEBURY
UNDERGRADUATE BODY
Continued from page onel

powerless to move either the cars at
of restraints like the restraint the rails
offer a locomotive. Only by observing
these restraints do we get anywhere in
life at all. Many a youth looks for
ward to getting to college as a breaking
away from certain restraints, only to
find that these have been absolutely es-
sential
knowledge means freedom 1t was
not Aristotle or Socrates who declared
that men should know the truth and
the truth should set them free. 1t
was the greatest of all Teachers and
the wisest of all guides. For true free
dom means freedom from limitations.
knowledge is the key which opens
door after door to us in life. We stand
| constantly before doors forever closed
to us because we have not the key to
open them But there are doors to
which we may have keys and college is
concerned with slipping keys to future
doors onto the keyrings of our minds;
not always a pleasant process either
for the owner of the key ring or the
one who is concerned with getting the
key on the ring. This is the freedom
for which you should seek; not the
freedom from restraint, but the free
dom from the limitations which ignor-
ance imposes.
Now most new things are danger
GUS, and freedom has usually been
dangerous to men and to institutions.
Freedom was dangerous at first for the
slaves freed by the Civil War. 1t was
dangerous for France freed from the
tyranny of the Bourbons 1t was dan
gerous and is still dangerous for Rus
STA released from the most complete
autocracv the modern world has
known. For individuals it is no less
dangerous, The great classic instance
of this is the story of the Prodigal Son
But every one OF us could name other
more modern if not more typical in
stances of this men who interpreted
freedom as lack of restraint and who
plunged wildly out on path which |.
meant trouble and disaster.
Now it is to safeguard you against |
this very thing that | want to mention |
three things in which you must not |
make any mistake
The first is the matter of regulations. !
When you are travelling along a road |
you will see a sign, Danger Go Slow"
or Dangerous Curve Ahead! If you
are driving a car you do not resent
this sort of sign for you realize that
1t was put there for your benefit, and
that YOU are only being warned for
your own safety But it is another
matter when you see a sign Keep Off
the Grass" That always arouses in
most of us a desire, perhaps until then
lacking, to walk on that same grass
The sign is there not for our benefit
but for the sake of the grass and the
man who owns it, and we are irritated
by it,
You will meet regulations in college
as you will throughout life. Ii is ma
tural l happen to know for most of us
to dislike regulations and to resent
them. We may treat them as arbitrary
things imposed to limit our pleasure,
as keep off the grass signs to show us
our place and to make us feel small and
under authority. Or we may see in
them the wisdom of those who are
more experienced than we are and re-
allze that they are there because of |
the dangers on the road. There are no |
regulations connected with the college
that you have to keep. You can al |
ways 60. But there are regulations /
which you have to keep if you are 60 /
ing to remain in the college But do 4
In0l lrl / rur h
imposed for your discomfort, but rath-
r as rising out of study of your own
lest interests.
| believe from all | know of Middle
)ury that this second warning is not \
% necessary. But as a teacher myself
or some years, | always believe in re-
beating it at the beginning of every
'ear, to remind myself of it. The fac
llty are not, as some of you will in
vii moments be tempted to think
our sworn hereditary foes; but they
re your best friends and they are Is
more than that, they are your servants. is
t you were so endowed with this
lorld's goods that you could with pri- Il
ate tutors gain all the ends that now s
GU will gain with your instructors, IL
on would feel and quite rightly that is
our tutors were your servants and II
he hours when you studied together
'Ould be arranged at your convenience.
he principle is the same though you
re meeting in classes and the arrange
rents of the classes are not for the
reatest convenience of the professor,
ut for the students OF necessity, the is
reatest good to the largest number
ictates some deviations from the E
ethod that could be pursued if each ID
structor were your own private one s
one. But the method is the same s
nd we are your servants here. You y
D not exist for us, but we for you. D
'e do not pay you, but you pay us. &
do not want to stress this idea too E
UGH for commerCialism does not enter 2
to the true teachers mind. The real s.
acher teaches more for the love of E
lie subject than for the salary he gets. Il
is just because we are here to sell is
Oh what you want to put it on the E
west plane, that we are going to see Z
lat you get it, The youth who wants 5
get the most out of Middlebury, the E
st out of college, will find nowhere a IL