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Show Reflections on St. John's By Arthur W. Landsman The Collegiate Press Service At St. John's last year I came to a frightening realization. realiza-tion. I watched smiling students stu-dents entering and leaving their classes in their usual business-like manner. Watching Watch-ing their faces I guessed the men were dreaming of a fu: ture job at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the women were dreaming of marriage and spiritual tranquility tran-quility or perhaps, if in a more intellectual mood, they might have been juzzling out a vital problem like "Who wrote the Hail Mary?" After the crudest academic injustice within memory, me-mory, they did nothing. After the summary dismissal of twenty-one of the faculty in the middle of the fall semester, the rest of the year at St. John's became an unreal season sea-son of Kafka-esque horror. In Mr. Bernstein's History of Education course, the class learned about "the Catholic Reformation Re-formation and the Protestant Revolt." The students listened to stories about Martin "Lucifer" "Luci-fer" and they smiled some more. They sat there looking fresh and clean and dressed according ac-cording to the St. John's dress regulations. The boys proudly wore their ivy league jackets, white shirts, and conservative ties. The girls looked bright and shiny, dressed "according to the norms of Christian modesty." mod-esty." They were confident that the adult world judged them as refined ladies, not as Communist-type beatniks. Just think how splendid they were! Imagine their delightful illogic, rustic simplicity, and unguileful eyes. Think of sick cows, rusty gates, Irish country coun-try girls, and cold soggy country coun-try breezes. Ah! Yes, St. John's people lived in a separate world. They were just like children. It was bizarre. bi-zarre. They looked like children. chil-dren. They dressed like children. chil-dren. They talked like children. They even thought like children. chil-dren. They simply listened to 1 their parents who told tier, c forget such notions as acafc freedom, to be dignified an! 1 ignore the inconvenience : losing professors in the mil; e of the semester, having (( ered classes (without prci sors), and getting a final p . based on a two-week eviV i tion made by new .teachers It may not be kind to f dedicated scholars dismis i notices on the first day Christmas recess. It may t be just to convict a manic 1 out a- fear hearing and to: fuse letting him know tie: 1 ture of his "crime." It ie even be stupid. But the: John's administrators hat won their point. They have 6 1 right to maintain the sac quality of education to tl St. John's students are hot ; customed. They asked for nal authority." And indeed I do have the final authority have St. John's remain t it has now become, a dipte mill for unprincipled chilfe |
