Pusey Stresses Need Of Moral Education

Speaking before approximately 200 members of the class of 1962 and their guests, President Pusey devoted the sermon at yesterday's Baccalaureate Service to the importance "of what used to be called moral education" and to the responsibility of colleges for supplying it.

"The spiritual capacity--or lack of it--in Occidental, industrial man" is Western society's basic concern, Pusey said, stressing that "what Harvard wants more than anything now to give our country and the world is educated men--and women--of character."

Further explaining his notion of "moral education," Pusey said that "it is [Harvard's] hope that there will develop here generation after generation--now as in the past--of thoughtful men who through their beliefs and actions will go on to renew and strengthen true quality in the world's life."

Improve Their Culture

He said these must be persons "of knowledge and faith who, ready to learn from others, will make an effort at honest appraisal of their culture, will recognize both its strength and its weakness--will try to see these aspects separately and fairly--and who then, not complaining, or criticizing unreasonably, or turning away in supercilious indifference, will steadfastly set about working where they can--first of all perhaps with themselves--to improve their culture and to make its goodness available to others."

To refute the charge that "moral" education no longer exists in Harvard or any other American college or university, Pusey turned for evidence to the College's extracurricular activities, and particularly to the "many and varied welfare programs" of Phillips Brooks House. He pointed out that approximately 600 students--well over ten per cent of the College--participate in these affairs each year.

Praises Project Tanganyika

Pusey praised Harvard's "Project Tanganyika," which sent about two dozen qualified teachers into Africa last summer. And he described students' performance in recent Combined Charities Drives as "impressive and heartening."

Noting that the extracurricular achievements of Harvard students were made under a heavy work load--over half the College now tries for degrees with honors--Pusey said that "surely the individuals who achieved this full record were not unconcerned persons, lost in the of their own private affairs and thoughts."

It is encouraging, Pusey felt, that such persons--"persons who care and do"--are found in colleges and universities around the country; because, he said, discipline and civic duty are not things which can be driven into a person from the outside." Instead, he said, "such qualities must be self-developed if they are to be had; or perhaps we should say rather such qualities may grow in a person in a favorable environment if the heart set upon them."

Pusey set his entire sermon against the background of the United States position in world affairs today. He said that Americans "must be constantly concerned for the quality of [their] life, and increasingly now, as this manner of life is exerting an influence making converts or repelling all over the world."