George N. Shuster

Good, Evil, and Beyond:

LATO thought that the gods would Pnever desert a man determined to be just. Where for our time are the gods? And what is justice? These are the same questions our fathers asked, but it is harder to answer them now, for we have found out much more about the world than our ancestors ever dreamed of. It is important to note that the spade work has not been done by the physical sciences only. The careful scholar has, for example, dug into every stratum of historic time and has charted the devious courses of human thought and instinct. Whereas, to use one illustration, no person writing five hundred years ago in any literary language now spoken had so much as dreamed of the Americas, though these had brought to flower at least three rich cultures, any one of us who cares to do so may learn in detail the customs by which Tierra del Fuegians lived three thousand years

American Scholarship: Nostalgia and Prediction

For Some reason, understandable by Providence only, it was decided that the most ancient member of Phi Beta Kappa roundabout should talk for a while to the second group of students elected to nearly the youngest chapter of the Society. I consider it an imposition on you but insofar as I am concerned it is an honor. To be sure, there really is no generation gap here insofar as Notre Dame is concerned. It could have had a chapter long ago had it not been for temporary obscurantism in high places. I like to think that the spirits of the distinguished men of learning and inquiry who lived on this campus during times long past, Zahm, Nieuwland and Scheier among them, may be watching in Our Town fashion what we are doing this day. Perhaps Emerson, in spite of his absentmindedness, has come along to join them. For it was he who fixed the imprint of approval on the whole enterprise.