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<br />EDUCATION AND TOMORROW <br /> <br />byR. G. GUSTAVSON <br /> <br />SOMETIMES IT IS THE PART OF WISDOM to step back from even <br />the broadest lines of human endeavor and ask simple questions of why <br />and how. This is what I propose to do in this informal, very personal <br />essay, which is drawn from my own experience and reAections, as one who <br />has spent most of his life in university teaching and administration. In <br />setting these things down I have constantly been mindful of the problems <br />of natural resources, though I say little about them directly. IVIy con- <br />cern here is with an intellectual and moral climate in which a high civiliza- <br />tion can grow and endure, and without which no constructive activity- <br />including resources research and education---can have permanence or <br />point, no matter how much brilliance and effort go into it. I am concerned <br />with education in its widest sense: a continuing inquiry into the mean- <br />ing and possibilities of life on this planet and the imparting to new <br />generations of knowledge gained along the way. <br />Father A. W. Forstall, S.]., professor of seismology at Regis College in <br />Denver, Colorado, told me that, as a priest, every year during retreat he <br />asked himself three questions. Who am I? \Vhere did I come from? <br />\Vhere am I going? These three questions may well be asked with re- <br />spect to our social structure. Who are we? What is our history? \Vhere <br />are we going? The present panorama of world events surely calls for con- <br />templation and for men and women who can, as :l\1atthew Arnold said of <br />Sophocles, see life steadily and see it whole. <br />All around the world people are grappling with new forms of an old <br />question: how to build a good life out of their natural environment. Spe- <br />cific problems differ from place to place and programs sometimes clash, <br />but the basic striving for something attainable, but better, is the same. <br />