FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Parents, Alumni, and Friends of Jesuit,
The current edition of Perspectives
is devoted to education
and those in our community
who have dedicated their lives to
education. The school closures last
spring and the gradual reopening
of schools this fall have led many to
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and its great importance for society
as a whole, especially the young.
The Jesuit tradition embraces
liberal education in its classic
sense, as a genuine opening of
the mind, tracing a path that frees
the liberally educated person
from the tyranny of immediate
material concerns, pressing
political needs, and the oft times
suffocating climate of conventional
wisdom. During the quarantine,
several people recommended to
me a lecture given by C.S. Lewis
during World War II. It was
titled “Learning in Wartime.” In
that lecture, delivered at Oxford,
Lewis asked how students could
justify their studies when the
nation, indeed the whole world,
was engulfed by a crisis of historic
proportions. Lewis answered
quite simply, “Human culture
has always had to exist under the
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more important than itself.” He
went on to suggest that "if men
had postponed the search for
knowledge and beauty until they
were secure, the search would
never have begun."
We too are living through a
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a world-wide pandemic, massive
economic and social dislocation,
and an extraordinarily tense
political season. And yet, each day
our students at Jesuit settle in their
desks to master Latin conjugations,
read Don Quixote, and produce
original works of art. In the midst
of cultural upheaval around them,
they learn math, study history,
conduct science experiments, and
2 JESUIT PERSPECTIVES • FALL 2020
make progress on their favorite
musical instrument. As Lewis
noted in that brilliant lecture, men
are different from other species
for “they propound mathematical
theorems in beleaguered cities,
conduct metaphysical arguments
in condemned cells, make jokes on
scaffolds, discuss the latest new
poem while advancing to the walls
of Quebec, and comb their hair at
Thermopylae."
But Jesuit education, of course,
offers something more than
leisure or freedom from pressing
responsibilities. While it embraces
the freedom imparted by liberal
education, and the freedom
enjoyed while pursuing it, Jesuit
education r Rev. Richard C. Hermes, S.J. ightly insists that