As a teacher of high school seniors, I would like to offer a few suggestions on what to take and what to leave when going off to college. I should mention here that even with my vast experience in this matter (I actually went off to college three times), I wanted to make sure that this year’s graduates received the most up-to-date information that diligent and time-consuming research can offer.
Some Expert Advice
So, after a 1.5 second search on Google of “What to take to college,” I discovered some interesting items that just might help them transition into college more smoothly. For instance, according to the experts, incoming college freshmen should bring the following: a plastic bucket, sponges, and a mop — for all of the cleaning they’re going to do; a lamp that clips onto a book — for all of that late-night reading they’re going to do; stationery, stamps, and envelopes — for all of the letters they’re going to write home to Mom; and a plastic juice container — for mixing all of their favorite powdered mix beverages (I’m not even going to touch that one).
The experts also indicate which items should be left behind, including the following: clothes that don’t fit — unless they’re anticipating the so-called freshman thirty; candles and incense — unless they’re attending a college seminary, where I think they’re required; and weapons — unless Charlton Heston is their college president. These rather curious suggestions notwithstanding, there was one item which seemed to appear on almost every list of what to bring, an item which deserves serious reflection, an item which, if taken to college and used, will undoubtedly lead to confusion, malaise, apathy, and even a general loss of intelligence. No, I’m not talking about alcohol or drugs, things very serious in their own right, and recommended by no one. The one thing you graduates of today must not take with you to college, despite the expert advice to the contrary, is an open mind.
This may come as a shock. An open mind, according to conventional wisdom, is supposed to be a prerequisite for learning. How can you assimilate all of those new ideas with a closed mind? Closed-mindedness is synonymous with fundamentalism, elitism, fascism, and whole slew of other “isms” — not to mention, for many people, Catholicism. It’s closed-minded people who condemn different lifestyles as sinful. It’s closed-minded people who keep poor, helpless teens from having safe sex. It’s closed-minded people who refuse to allow even one exception for abortion. How can having a closed mind possibly be a good thing for college students who need to widen their perception, deepen their social conscience, and enlarge their worldview? The short answer is, It isn’t. But for many today a closed mind is the only thing you can have if you don’t have an open mind. It sounds reasonable enough, too. After all “closed” is the opposite of “open.” But let me ask you to consider it another way.
An Open Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Use
Consider an open window. On a nice spring day you might open your windows to let in the cool, refreshing breeze, while simultaneously letting out the stale air which has been blowing through your heating ducts for the past three or four months. An open window can truly be a wonderful thing — unless there are bugs around the outside of your house, or if your neighbor has more than his fair share of cats. In this case you might consider the opposite of the open window as your only solution, namely the closed window. So there you are, stuck with two unpleasant choices, musty air, or an invasion of bugs and cats. Thankfully there is another option — an amazing new invention called (drum roll, please) the screen. With the technological advance of tightly woven wire mesh we need no longer settle for a house full of bugs, or those pesky cats. Now we can open the window and keep out the pests at the same time.
So it is with the mind. We need not settle for the extremes of open or closed as our only choices. There is another way — and unlike the screen this is no modern invention. Its virtues have been extolled by great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and many others. This middle ground between an open and a closed mind is the discerning mind — also known as the rational mind. The discerning mind works on the same principle as the window with a screen. It lets in the good ideas and keeps out the bad. Unlike the window, however, the mind does not filter out bad ideas with a passive device or appendage. Instead, the mind filters out bad ideas with an active principle called a rational judgment. It is this judgment that separates man from the beasts.
We don’t simply know things; we know the truth about things. Until the advent of modern philosophy this was such a common, self-evident principle that philosophers didn’t spend much time discussing it. Aristotle taught simply that man’s final end was to know. He understood this knowing to be a pursuit of the truth. The mind was like a magnet drawn to the truth. What purpose would there be in being drawn to untruth? A mind like that would be like a loosely woven screen coated in sugar, which would attract every bug within a mile radius. It kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? Those who advocate an open mind are really advocating just that — a self-defeating mind, a mind that does not discern rationally, indeed, a mind that lives in contradiction. Such a mind can only hinder the learning process.
Screening out Falsehoods
Furthermore, this self-defeating mind is not only a danger to your scholastic development, but, and this is more important, it is a danger to your spiritual development as well. Graduates, remember the words of our favorite senior devil, Uncle Screwtape, from C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape reminds Junior Devil Wormwood that as a result of the diabolical inroads into modern society, we have been accustomed, since childhood, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together in our heads. In order to maintain this diabolical situation, he advises Wormwood against the use of reason and rational argument, against the use of the discerning mind. Indeed, according to Screwtape, jargon is the devil's best tool for keeping us from the Church, and consequently, from God. Screwtape further warns Wormwood that rational argument would only move the battle back onto the enemy’s (God’s) ground. Our use of reason causes the devils to cringe precisely because the rational mind is made to seek out God. We come to know God not only through the gift of Faith, but through the gift of Reason. In fact, faith and reason, while working in different ways, share the same end, namely, truth. That is why faith and reason, together, have always been the preferred tools in the development of saints and, especially, martyrs. The men and women that the Church offers up as examples of holiness in this life have sought after one thing — Truth. Yet they have pursued truth through both faith and reason.
It is precisely this pursuit which marks both the scholar and the saint. Yet the world today, echoing the words of Pontius Pilate, asks that same infamous question: What is truth? As Christians, we answer that question with the words of our Savior who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” To deny the existence of truth, then, is ultimately to deny Christ. As beneficiaries of a Christian education, not only have you been given a share in the Truth that is Jesus Christ, but a share in the fruits of the Church’s dedication to the pursuit of truth in the arts and sciences. OK, so the pursuit of truth will make you a scholar and a saint — but a martyr?
Consider also that more than once in the Gospel Jesus warns His followers of the cost of discipleship. “The world will hate you,” He declares. Why? Why should the world hate you? After all, a world filled with so many open-minded people is supposed to be, well… open. No, the world won’t hate you simply because you believe something different. The world, the open-minded world, will hate you for holding to your beliefs as truths — unchangeable, life-giving, life-changing truths, truths which necessarily contradict the worldly falsehoods that are so abundant today. The truths which we hold make up the screens of our minds which filter out such ridiculous positions such as “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but…” This is the legacy and the fruit of the radical open-mindedness advocated by many today. It hates the truth, because the truth, in their minds, is limiting and restrictive. With Christ by our side, however, we know that the truth will set us free.
The education our young people have received in high school should have given them the tools to grow in the truth. They should have received an education based on the principle that truth exists and that the human mind can come to know the truth. They should have received an education designed to help develop the mind so that it can discern truth from falsehood. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. But for those who have been educated in the great liberal tradition pioneered by the Catholic Church, I issue a challenge: with high school done and college looming, do not simply turn off your minds and lay down the screen of discernment at the altar of open-mindedness. Hold fast to the tools of right reason and judgment which have been given to you. Use them to grow in wisdom and understanding. Use them to discern the truth, both intellectually and morally. Graduates, in addition to all the other things which the experts say you should not take to college, clothes you haven’t worn in the last two years, puppies, kittens, or other animals you won't be able to care for, and live Christmas trees, to name a few, I hope that you will remember to leave behind an open mind and take with you instead a mind suited to the pursuit and discovery of truth, and especially the Truth that is Jesus Christ.
Edward Hester has an MA in theology from Holy Apostles College. He currently lives with his wife Eileen, and their four (soon to be five) children in Tyler, Texas, where he has taught high school religion for the past five years. He will be teaching religion (and other subjects) at Providence Academy in Minnesota in the fall.
This article was adapted from the commencement address the author gave to the class of 2006 graduating from Bishop T.K. Gorman Catholic School in Tyler, Texas, on May 20.
