1945

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IntroductionSince the GI Bill radically changed U.S.higher education, the question arose as towhether (then) AAC was involved in theplanning and implementation of the GI Billthat brought service men and women to collegeand university campuses. The answer is thatthe Association was deeply involved, if onelooks at the guest speakers at AAC’s AnnualMeeting of January 10 to 12, 1945, held inAtlantic City, New Jersey.

At this meeting, the presidents in attendanceheard about postwar planning from suchspeakers as Archibald MacLeish, poet and as-sistant secretary of state, who spoke about thedemocratization of communications after thewar. General George C. Marshall, chief ofstaff of the United States Army, spoke “off the

record” (because hedid not want his talk

in the press before he had presented this pro-posal to Congress) on the topic “CompulsoryMilitary Training.” Charles H. Bolte, chair-man of the American Veterans Committee, adisabled veteran and alumnus of DartmouthCollege Class of 1940, spoke about the impactof the GI Bill on the nation’s campuses.

There are several papers taking a variety ofangles regarding the returning veterans enter-ing the colleges and schools. AAC memberswere persuaded of the merits of the GI Bill;they also recognized the personal and educa-tional difficulties involved in veterans’ entryinto higher education. Although it was deliv-ered on January 15, after the meeting, overthe Columbia Broadcasting System, a paperby Francis F. Gaines, president of Washingtonand Lee University and president of AAC for1944-45 (Guy Snavely was executive director),was published with the proceedings. It is asuccinct statement about veterans’ educationincluding liberal education. —EDITOR

Opening the Doors of Opportunity: Liberal Education in the Veterans’ ProgramOne historic event in this epoch that hasrecorded much history is an unprecedentedcompliment paid to education.

Through all the centuries peoples in crisishave turned to education. Twenty-seven cen-turies ago, to an Israel that was in blackest nightof military disaster and economic depression,Isaiah offered as ultimate comfort: “Thoughthe Lord give you the bread of adversity andthe waters of affliction, nevertheless shall thyteachers be not removed.” In our own crisis ofmilitary peril, this nation turned to the schools.In direct service to the maintenance of thiswar, the whole educational system of America,and particularly the institutions of higherlearning, proved a resource comparable with thetraining facilities of our enemies, though wehad certainly not matched them in planningfor military efficacy. Our schools trained multi-tudes of men and women, some in uniform andsome in the ranks of specialized production; ourschools made available laboratories for variedresearch; our schools sent from faculty ranks agreat group, perhaps the greatest group, of spe-cialists for expert inquiry; our schools developedon the campus an alert and energetic youngcitizenship, which worked with distinction inits own field and proved influential in stimu-lating effort among other zones of our society.

The compliment paid education, however,does not rest upon a recognition of this war-time contribution. The tribute to education isin the fact that the government provides forfurther training of these veterans as securityand promise for the days of peace. Never be-fore have so many doors of opportunity beenopened to hundreds of thousands of Americanyouth. Never before has a nation so com-pletely vested its hope of a better, as well as asecure, future in the training of its youth.

For a better worldThis program has met with what is practicallyunanimous accord. The American people feelthat the provisions of what we know as the “GIBill of Rights” are just an attempt at restitution—as far as any restoration is possible—of the

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FRANCIS P. GAINES was president of Washingtonand Lee University. This address was firstdelivered over Columbia Broadcasting System,January 15, 1945. It was printed in the Bulletin,Volume 31, No. 1, 1945.

Opening the Doors F R A N C I S P. G A I N E S

The colleges regard it as

at once a privilege and a duty to serve

the veteran

of Opportunity Liberal Educationand the Veterans

Ubiversity ofMissouri–Columbia

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requisitioned for national de-fense. Our people feel, more-over, that society needs torecapture the talents, the po-tential, of all the boys andgirls—by now two full academicgenerations of them—now inuniform. But there is something more in thenational accord on this bill. It is more than acompliment to education, more than an en-dorsement of education, more than a creden-tial that the educators can present to theseyouths themselves. This bill is a kind of mutedpetition, an unuttered plea of the heart of apeople—“O, take our boys and girls and withthem, and for them, build a better world.”

Adaptations neededTranslating this legislation into orderly proce-dure will involve, of course, manifold problems.Most of these difficulties will be includedwithin the academic routines and may not bematters of concern for the general public. Therewill be, for example, the question of articula-tion, just where and how the veteran may bestpick up again the task of training. There will beendless confusion as to credits that may be

granted upon the college level for variouscourses pursued under military auspices, evenfor various types of military experience. Therewill be the challenge of campus cohesion; forthe colleges want to absorb these veterans intothe normal processes, particularly those that de-velop personality, and yet there will certainly bedistinctions. Imagine a veteran exchanging anoverseas cap for a freshman cap! Upon the aver-age college green of the next few years there

may be three clearly definedgroups: the veterans, enjoyinggovernment subsidy, with wideexperiences behind them;young war workers who inter-rupted their career for a patri-otic service but have notgained the subsidy or the glam-

our or the psychology of this adventure; and theyounger boys and girls, the “regulars,” enteringfresh from the secondary level, without subsidyor experience, compelled to plan for the sameunpredictable world. Educators will be chal-lenged to merge these elements into unity.

There will be one problem, however, perhapsthe supreme problem, which will have widestsocial implications. It will be the concern ofeverybody interested in the future. Bluntlystated, this problem may be posed as a ques-tion: How much of a hurry will the veteransbe in, and how much of their haste will be atthe expense of liberal or general education?

Undoubtedly many compulsions of speedwill operate in their thinking. They will feelstrangely old; no cogencies of the elders willever persuade the 25-year [old] veteran that heis not far, far along the path of life. They willhave had tensions and responsibilities andlong contemplations and even proximity totragedy that we know nothing of, and thusthey will feel that much of the academic pro-cedure is trivial, a kind of child’s play; indeed,these veterans may have a maturity of life be-yond that of many of our instructors. The boysand girls from the armed forces will have asense of momentum lost, and may want to ac-quire at once a new confidence of job-ade-quacy and job-security; particularly will theywant to be able to get in on the ground floor,as it were, of a strange new world taking shape.

If they are in great haste, moreover, they willbe but following a pronounced American ten-dency. For years we have had a kind of maniafor the short cut. In certain realms of life thismania has justified itself; our amazing industrialand scientific progress results in part from ourintolerance of the tedious, our dissatisfactionwith the established process. The iconoclasmof the frontier has been a factor of power as wehave explored many new sectors of promise.

Reserves of powerBut we must stop occasionally to remind our-selves of a stubborn truth. We may praise the

34 L I B E R A L ED U C A T I O N FA L L 2004

Liberal education proposes certain

fundamental skills that make all

subsequent knowledgeboth easier and more significant

Stephens College

short cuts of production, even the short cutsof social relationships. There is no short cut tothe comprehension of the largeness of truthand there is no short cut to the creation ofgreatness in personality.

These ends, comprehension of truth andgreatness of personality, are the declared pur-poses of liberal education. To be sure there arephases of this general education that if not ex-actly practical are reserves of power for practicalapplication. Liberal education proposes certainfundamental skills that make all subsequentknowledge both easier and more significant.The power of analytical reading, the basic com-mand of language, the logic and the imagina-tion involved in managing the mathematicalsymbols, these capacities may prove fundamen-tal for the acquisition of definite efficiencies.

More importantly, liberal education seeksto make the man at home in the realms ofideas and ideals and thus make him happierand more nobly influential in the total impactof his life. There is a larger and a graver facthere than this hint of consequence to the in-dividual. The destiny of the world, possiblywithin the generation of these veterans, maybe decided in this world of ideas and ideals.

Truth and freedomI give you twelve words, a little formula of im-mense portent. They contain more of theessence of democracy and more of a definitionof education than any similar statement I know.They are the words of Jesus: “Ye shall know thetruth and the truth will make you—” What?Well informed, entertaining, impressive? Possi-bly so, but this is not what He said. Culturedand graced in appreciation for life’s enrichment?Undoubtedly, but this is not what He said.Competent for the mastery of great forces andthus successful in life’s ambition? It may be so,but this is not what He said. The assertion hemade is: “Ye shall know the truth and the truthwill make you free.” In that statement is some-thing more than analysis of cause and effect,something more than a permission or even apromise. There is a mandate in those words. Ifwe would be free—free from our doubtings andfree from our distortions, free from our fears andfree from our furies—if we would be free men ina free world, we must know the truth.

Liberal education intends to lead youth tothe sources of truth and to make youth capa-ble of understanding truth.

There is no single source. Ultimately thisthing we call truth may prove in each individ-ual life a mosaic of beauty. Truth will be foundin some insight into the past, such as a chapterof American history that gave us the Declara-tion, and truth will be found in some timelessprinciple enunciated by Plato or by Job, andtruth will be found in the apocalyptic vision ofShakespeare’s fancy. Truth will be found in theabstraction of Descartes’ law and in the disci-plines of mastering that utor group of verbs thatcry out for the ablative. Truth may come en-chantingly upon Handel’s strains or may pene-trate our hearts as we hear the immortal cry ofpain from David’s heart. Truth may be ugly in avision of the murk of the city slums and truthmay be holy as the illumination of candlesburning before an altar. All of it is truth. Hewho would be free—and he who would be aguardian of freedom—must know it.

Out of such comprehension will come a newrecognition of ideals and a new sense of theirimportance and a new allegiance to them. Inthe face of threats to these ideals men gladly of-fer their lives, if need be; but in the commonhope that springs from these ideals we have notyet enlisted the same measure of devotion.They are simple things, justice and toleranceand sympathy and the higher liberty. Meneverywhere of the democratic persuasion ac-knowledge their authority. But the proceduresof enforcement, the processes of making theseideals effective in the ordinary human relation-ships and activities, remain one of the supremedifficulties of life.

Liberal education dedicates itself to a solu-tion. This type of education undertakes notonly to lead men to the sources of truth but alsoto train men for the understanding of truth.Liberal education seeks to make men loyal tothe great truths that are the only foundations ofsecurity, the only authentic guarantees.

The colleges regard it as at once a privilegeand a duty to serve the veteran. These collegeswant to be more than storehouses of informa-tion or apprentice shops for efficiency or evencustodians of the ancient idealism. They wouldprovide both the knowledge and the dynamic forempowered persons who will order the circum-stances, the hard and the complex circumstancesof our age, into a brave new world. ■■

To respond to this article, e-mail liberaled@aacu.org,with author’s name on the subject line.

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