How the open college serves and preserves the open society was the topic of a talk last week by Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan to students at West Georgia College at Carrolton.

He said the open college “exists, of course, to preserve the knowledge and culture of earlier times; it is to teach this to new generations, not in boxes of formal subjects each carefully marked with the passing grade and all wrapped up with big bow from a diploma.”

The archbishop said the open college teaches so it may help students apply knowledge and culture to contemporary demands and issues.

“It must not merely inform; it must sometimes reform the past answers,’ he said. “It must not just conform to the prevailing mind-set of today’s society, but it is to form men and women who are impatient with today’s serenity—a serenity in the midst of growing poverty and senseless war and a voracious appetite for excess, serenity in the context of sin, serenity in a church which has tailored itself into a private club with private membership and dues, and a ‘no admission’ sign for ten million of our fellow Christians.”

The archbishop said a great deal can be done to control the present, but not the future. “But the hopes and ideas that come to you so passionately today can measure what manner of man or woman you will be. You will not be 19 or 22 very long—but your 30’s and 40’s will stretch out. For the person with a purpose, they will fly by, but for those who drift, they can become almost endless.”

Archbishop Hallinan also said an open college society should result in a generation of realists. He said a dream world is a dangerous one in which to sow visions.

He said vision can be improved by standing on the shoulders of the past. “This is not an easy posture to maintain but it surely improves the vision. The impatience of youth is usually directed at the masses – society their parents left them.

“At most moments of human history, this has been a fairly accurate diagnosis. You didn’t invent nuclear warfare. You didn’t buy up slums and rent them; you didn’t start to segregate the Negro; you didn’t prostitute your talents in politics by bribes and corruption. Our generation and those before us did it.

“But they did one thing that was a noble act—parents and teachers that they were, they produced you. No matter how humble you may be—no matter how low you estimate yourself—you began life anew, and you owe this to the generation that now holds the reins.

“For good or evil, you have our experience, our mistakes and our achievements to examine and to use, to renew or discard. If I may be permitted one ministerial quote it is this—so live that the next generation will gain by your experience.

“Because you have much to say that is worthwhile, we are listening. Because your capacity for curiosity and restlessness seems greater, we envy you. Because you have room for mercy and compassion, we can learn form you.”