From Philomathean Society

Excerpts from:

"The Mind You May Find May Be Your Own" The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle

By Roy F. Nichols, Vice-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor of History, and Pulitzer Prize winner with his Disruption of American Democracy. Dr. Nichols presented these remarks at the dedication of the new Philomathean Hall, on the occasion of the society's 143rd anniversary, in 1956.

...In an effort to asses the significance of the history of Philomathean, I am going to do something which may cause you to shudder in anticipation of creeping boredom. I am going to make some comments on the purpose of education. For the moment, please read before you cry, "the usual tripe."

It is my belief that the objections of this University association of ours are more subtle and less obvious than are often conceived. So subtle in fact that they may be, and often are, almost completely missed by the easy operation of certain simple and superficial mechanism like our elaborate apparatus of lectures, laboratories, and extracurricular group activities where there is so much busy work and effort which leave little cumulative result.

This missing the point is all the more dangerous today as it is obvious to some of us that mankind is learning more to live not by wisdom and by understanding, but by the rote application of knowledge; to live not by direction of the mind, but by the application of the gadget.

The chief objective of education arises from the urge which is present in most individuals to penetrate the mystery of their existence and to bring themselves into some satisfying sense of self-definition which gives them status in the universe and faith in their capacity to reach some adequate self-realization. For what each wants most is a sense of cosmic security based upon a faith in his capacity to live. The desire to give or to enable one to secure a sense of the meaning and method of existence, to be human, is the highest, the humane purposes of education. The so-called humanities are designed particularly to provide this priceless ingredient of education.

But today, the humanities are being downgraded, deprived of needed support, in effect, being slain in the house of their own creating. And by whom? Let us face it without flinching, by their votaries, by those charged with keeping alight the sacred fire. The members of the cult have lost the spirit of the prophets who created the instruments to achieve the divine purpose.

...The history of Philomathean can be used as a thought-provoking example of those wrestling with the problem of the humanities in modern education, because I believe its history is suggestive. Philomathean was created because certain youth at the University long ago sensed the problem which is not new today and sought to solve it. Their method can be described succinctly. When I first came to the University, I did not learn of Philomathean's existence for some time. and then one day I began to be aware of placard on the bulletin boards which bore the somewhat unconventional invitation, "Raise hell with your brains." This invitation was issued by Philomathean. The youth of the 1930's were in effect repeating an invitation which their predecessors had issued in 1813, though in language more academic. But that was precisely what the class of 1813 was going to do, they were going to solve the problem of the fate of the humanities by raising hell with their brains. They were going to create a means to aid their preceptors in attaining education's great objective.

The University of Pennsylvania and Philomathean then and ever since have been primarily concerned with the problem of aiding youth to achieve as early and as completely as possible the great goal of self-realization. In this great adventure of the self, there are three stages: self-discovery, self-identification, and finally, self-realization. As the chief instrument which enables each of us to attempt this task with some hope of fulfillment, there is an element or series of elements in the nervous mechanism of each which enables him to recognize himself and to locate his position in a universe of his own defining. Whatever else this mechanism may be called, and despite some of my psychological brethren, I call this mechanism the mind. I believe it is one of the chief duties of the educator to aid the student to discover, to use, and to develop his power.

It is my belief that every person who is likely to seek an education is guided by an instinctive urge for self-discovery, for self-identification. This means that in some fashion he must locate himself in the world in which he lives. He must be able to find in himself something which he recognizes through comparison with that which is outside himself. This means further that he is helped in his quest for self-realization if he can discover patterns which intuitively or consciously he can use to shape his own understanding and definition of himself. Until he finds such patterns, he is quite apt to be troubled by insecurity, by lack of confidence, and thus be deprived of faith.

...One of the chief responsibilities of those dealing in education is to stimulate students to seek to discover these patterns, in order that they may aid their disciples in discovering their nature and their creative potential. But how much of a liberal education, so called, does more than teach the student information and ways of applying it? To what extent are students taught to do more than to receive? To what extent are they taught to give and particularly to give that which they themselves create?

The whole program of Philomathean as it was conceived by its founders and as it was developed in certain periods of its existence depended upon the formulation, the expression, and communication of ideas, concepts, products of man's own creation. These college men of the early nineteenth century, whether consciously or not, felt that their classroom experience left something to be desired. And so eager were they to have that which was left undone that they were willing to devote their spare time to attempting to secure it. So they met not to play football, not to have bull sessions, not to roam the streets of the town, but to express ideas, to debate, to present ideas in essays and orations, and to hear the ideas of each other. They found that this program of formulation and communication gave them a sense of great satisfaction, of recreation, not from aimless play or idleness, but coming from the exercise of their own creative facilities which in tern enabled them to display what they had achieved in discovering their own capabilities, and thus to gain a sense of status, a greater sense of security. This they did by learning the potential of their own personalities as creating and communicating individuals. In other words, they progressed along the road toward knowing themselves.

The fact that this was done after hours, extra curricularly, meant that they were using their minds not as professions but as amateurs. They were not learning just law or medicine or theology. These exercises were not consciously designed so much to increase their professional capacity, as to develop amateur intellectual sportsmanship. That they and their successors have found this form of adventure through their association after hours satisfying, the longetivity of the Society and the adult interest of so many indicate. More important is the fact that many of those who participated in this activity found in it a constant challenge, and looking over the roll of those who have been members of this society, it is quite obvious that many continued these creative interests, continued the search throughout their lives.

...If we who teach the arts and sciences ad humanities are to do our best, we must succeed in developing the humane way of life, the search for self-identification through the development of the mind which, by my definition at least, is the chief instrument for that purpose. We should awaken the zest for intellectual exercise, for exploring the world of wisdom, and for conditioning one's capabilities on the playing field of the mind. We must aid the student in the discovery of this instrument, the whole mind, at that age when his nature is demanding that he discover his whole body. So many live in a state of no mind or half mind. They either miss self-realization altogether, or grasp it only vaguely.

We must kindle enthusiasm for seeking knowledge of the self and for realizing its greatest potential as a form of amateur sport, as a form of recreation, not merely as professional training.

Philomatheans, this search in the welter of men's ideas, their creative urge, this continued enthusiasm for intellectual contest and interchange may well establish new scales and loftier values, new opportunities for more humane and thus more satisfying living. If this search is continued, the reward will be an ever greater degree of self-realization. The mind you find will indeed be your own. The battle of life may well be won, or lost, on the playing fields of the intellect.