Pusey Looks for Concept Of 'Transformable' Future

The main accomplishment of a Harvard education should be to instill in each student the belief that his own life and the world in which he lives can be "transformed," President Pusey told 958 seniors and parents at the annual senior Baccalaureate Service yesterday afternoon.

Pusey refuted the belief that the student graduating today tended to cling to "the precious stability of his world" whereas the graduate of 1931 was blessed with "a vision of the world transformed." He said that the main difference between the 1930's and the 1950's is that the present generation recognizes that "we are in fact involved in the world," and it therefore should not be "surprising if we have become less insular."

Conservativism and liberalism were mentioned by Pusey as representing the so-called different points of view which were supposed to separate the 1930's and 1950's. He said that the two were not incompatible but, in fact, exist together at Harvard today, conservativism being a sincere respect for the past, liberalism being an "eagerness to build anew."

Pusey pointed out that modern developments in such areas as nuclear physics have made us aware that what may seem to be a satisfactory achievement today might be shown woefully inadequate several years later. There is no such thing as an "accepted view," he stated.

If there is a "mood of uncertain liberalism" in our times, it exists because of an intellectual awareness of the danger of opaque "fanaticism," Pusey claimed.

He concluded by saying that we must "recognize the world as a place of individually" and that "this conception of the world rests finally on mature and reasoned faith." He hoped that Harvard had given its students the faith and vision necessary to keep in sight "a world capable of transformation."