Hello! My name is Larry Arnn. I’m the President of Hillsdale College, and I’m standing here in the place where you will have your first experience with Hillsdale College. Right behind me, by Central Hall, you’ll pick up a packet on Sunday, August 23rd. Now normally I would address you for the first time on August 24th, and I will this time too, but I value that experience, and I value that it’s first.
Well, now we have to do this unusual thing. And the reason is, there’s a bunch of astonishing stuff happening in the world. Of course the virus is astonishing, but another astonishing thing is, first of all, some colleges are announcing that they are not intending to have in-person classes in the fall.
It hadn’t occurred to us that we wouldn’t have college—but now it has, because people ask us. Well, of course we’re going to have college, and I’m going to give you the reasons. There are several, and they are very powerful reasons.
And the first one is, this is what we do. When you come here, you’re going to meet the challenge of learning what things are, in reality. Any fundamental thing. That word fundamentally means down at the foundation.
We are humans. What does that mean, to be human? It means we have to work! We’ll starve if we don’t!
Also, by our work we shape our characters and inform our intellects. And so we are supposed to be about our work.
I am astonished that there’s this abstraction called the economy, and the thought is we can turn it off and turn it on at will. Because that’s not how it works!
We have to live! We are beings in motion with a contemplative side. This is what we do! We’ve been doing it for 175 years. We are going to keep doing it. And of course, in the 175 years there have been many obstacles — the Civil War. Right over there is our War Memorial Statue from that war; and we had a big part in that war, and all the big wars, and the Great Depression. And we weathered those, and we’ll weather this. In fact, we’re going to weather this easier than those.
The second thing is this thing we do is beautiful. That word beautiful is a big word. It is in certain classic works the perfection of the word good. And the good is the being of anything, what it is. You’re going to find out what you are. You’re going to approach the study of that and every fundamental thing as if there is a reality. And that’s a very strange thing to do because what colleges teach today is things are just whatever you make of them: You should recreate yourself. Be your own god. Well, we don’t think that we’re actually going to get to do that, because here we, these bipeds with a rational soul — what is that? How does that work? And to learn that.
Of course we’re going to get back together and do that. And if by some wicked chance the law doesn’t let us do it, then we won’t. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But if that does happen, we’re going to find a way to turn that to good. Just like we found a way this time.
So look around here. Right? I look forward to seeing you on August 23rd.
This video was posted on You Tube on May 15, 2020.