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lesson is clear even to a beginning freshman : if architecture is not business, it is obviously politicsthough clearly it is politics because it is big business. The point is not in the least trivial. Education and culture cannot acquire any reality or any base in Texas until they are genuinely respected, treated as valuable in themselves, not merely as commodities to be packaged in the name of Texas sophistication or economic power. No genuine culture can long survive a gross disparity between theory and practice, between pretense and reality ; certainly no large or generous notion of human culture can be built on it. And at the moment this disparity is for me the unmistakable tone of culture in Texas ; on the one hand, the lavish, handsome, sumptuously endowed theaters, museums, and civic institutions; on the other, the immense lower middle class slums created by opportunistic builders; between professions of excellence in education, and a policy of continued stinginess and publicly permitted graft; between the imported, showy, nouveau-riche culture of the Texas wealthy and the dreary Biblebelt-and-hamburger culture of the poor and depressed. Culture in Texas lacks a center, lacks continuity; it is either imported “high” culture or debased “folk” culture. There is far too much chrome, and far too little car. And there is far too little realization, especially on the part of the wealthy, that culture is anything more than chrome. T WILL DOUBTLESS be objected that I am too severethat Texas no more than Rome can be built in a day, and that if Texas still lacks cultural depth and originality, it nonetheless possesses any pressure on Redditt or any other regent. He said he does not consider architectural appointments as “valuable gifts.” He said the jobs should be “passed around.” Erwin accused Redditt of “violation of confidential communication” and said that “I said merely that in my opinion the governor would prefer to approve competent architects who were friendly to him” and that “Any public official in his right mind would have that view and no one else in his right mind would criticize him for it.” Nesmith said the rider was “a political axe” and that the contract had been rescinded because he was a Republican. Texas GOP national committeeman Albert Fay of Houston said Erwin should resign. “The position of regent is too sacred a trust to be involved in partisan politics,” Fay wired Erwin. The same day, a committee of the regents recommended a new architect for the Texas Western building. Nesmith’s firm did not get the contract. On Dec. 14, in Lufkin, Redditt told the UPI that Connally is a “king” who is trying to “lull the people of Texas to sleep.”Ed. r 11011111.14111101141111311.041104101411041101114111111111 1 i J. W. Tucker, Appraiserl I I 1 Fine Arts and Literary Properties I 1 1 i I 3317 Montrose Boulevard Houston i ! 1 1 I JAckson 4-2211 1 I 1 1 11.11111{1111.01,0.111.1111.111111.1011111111.4111011.1111.11.1.41111.111.1W=1.141 the context which might enable culture to be created. This is doubtless true. I should not be in Texas if I thought the situation were hopeless. And I don’t in the slightest wish to impugn or deny the advantages the state possesses in its cultural endowments. But I speak here as a humanist. Nothing but evil can come from the demotion of the individual and the distrust of men which seems to be the corollary of Texas munificence in providing for cultural buildings and trappings. Unless we are careful, we shall destroy the humanities and all hope of culture here by institutionalizing everything that is inimical to man in Texas attitudes and economic realities. Much in Texas attitudes is inimical to the human spirit, and the worst thing of all is the rockbottom conviction, expressed in stone throughout the state and in the hearts of politicians, that what counts is always and only wealth, that everything is for sale and can be bought. The purpose of the arts and the humanities alike is to involve the student in the belief in human greatness, the most turbulent belief there is, a greatness that cannot be boughtbut a belief that can be terribly corrupted by a society which enthrones meanness and dishonesty. The classics all tell the tale of turbulent greatnessthis is why they are classics. We teach them to the young because they provide, as nothing else does, an indication of the size and range of the human spirit. They are not to be revered as monuments, their purpose is to lay bare the size of the future: any young man worth his salt will, if he understands them at all, also understand that his life’s business is competition with the classic. The enlargement of the human spirit is what great men do, and it is something they learn above all else from the past. If every man does not have the opportunity or the power to be great, he can at least admire greatness when he sees it; he can cherish it when he sees it in others. He can foster it. It is precisely this that I think teachers, especially university teachers, are forto foster greatness in others; to help others realize themselves. Therefore, whatever prevents greatness, whatever makes self-realization difficult, is intolerable and must be resisted at all costs. To my mind there is no greater enemy than the appalling divorce between pretense and reality, between theory and practice, in the state of Texas and in the country at largethough it is, I think, worse in Texas than elsewhere simply because the impact of great wealth on Texas has been INJ1^IAilaNJWV\\ItIt A1111.1%/%1Wl MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 %./VVIJVVVVVUN.IVVVVVIIVVMAJWr\\n/IJVV\\n”/V VVV\\n/l/V%/A/ especially corrosive. Humanistic education does not thrive in Texas because public hypocrisy is so widespread and the young are so quickly corrupted by the prevalent dishonesty. Now and then our politicians hit out at the University for what it calls “corrupting the youth,” but the University cannot hold a candle to the politicians in this matter. According to the politicians, the real crime committed by the humanists at the University is that they try to teach their students that there should be no divorce between theory and practice. If you teach Antigone, say, and you are convinced that Antigone was right in disobeying Creon \(and who can doubt honoring every manifestation of individual conscience and courage, and encouraging your students to do the same. The worst intellectual treason of alland it is regrettably a very common treason among professors, who as a class have rarely been noted for braverywould be to suggest that study and life are very different things, that the classics are worth readingbut should not be carried into action. My point here is not political but educational. What matters is that greatness should be possibleand the possibility and the necessity of human greatness, as I have said, are what the humanities are really about. Only the humanities can assess, and, by assessing, enlarge the human spirit. The purpose of scientific education is knowing, the purpose of humanistic education is being. If possible, great being. The humanities are unique in that they are taught above all by personal example. It is personal influence that matters. The great teacher is invariably, and quite probably, confused with his subject by the student, because knowledge in the humanities is a way of being or it is nothing. Socrates was what he knewit was because he lived greatly everything that he knewand he June 11, 1965 23 Classified REAL ESTATE Owner will trade good, clean, six-room home, desirable location, Northwest San Antonio, for Austin home. GR 2-4518, Austin. POODLES AKC REGISTERED POODLE BREEDING SERVICE. Tiny White Toy Starlight Line: Miniature Silver Vendas Bloodline. Fee $50.00 or puppy. 904 Brentwood, Austin, GL 3-2951. MEETINGS THE THURSDAY CLUB of Dallas meets each the DOwntown YMCA, 605 No. Ervay St.. Dallas. Good discussion. You’re welcome. Informal, no dues. MONDAY LUNCHEON CLUB meets on 3rd floor, McFarlin Auditorium, S.M.U., Dallas. each Monday at 12:00 noon. Join us if you are in town. WORK PARTIES every Sunday afternoon in Austin, 2:00 p.m., Texas Society to Abolish Capital Punishment, 3014 Washington Square. ITEMS for this feature cost, for the first entry, 7c a word, and for each subsequent entry, 5c a word. We must receive them one week before the date of the issue in which they are to be published.