In October, with the leaves turning red and gold, and students well-settled into their new year, fantasies and false memories of college drift through the air. We are not talking about the universities and colleges of our modern time and culture, but the idealized American "collegiate" world of the early twentieth century. It is documented not as much in "real life" as in books, songs, images, and films, as well as a whole tradition of advertising and illustration art. Classic American artists like J.C. Leyendecker and especially Norman Rockwell popularized the idyllic but strenuous image of "college days."

Interestingly, these fond fantasies rarely have to do with education. A look at the Rockwell (and other artists') series of "college-themed" Saturday Evening Post covers shows us images of graduation gowns and diploma ceremonies, social life, crew, singing, flirting, and an autumn bonfire, but few images of studying or learning. The main theme of these college images is football, football, and more football. What else is college for?

They wore raccoon coats and rode in open cars with rumble seats, waving bright banners with big block-letter names and initials on them. Young men learned to smoke pipes, and adopted the fashions which even now distinguish the intellectual class: tweeds with leather elbow patches or wool blazers, crew-neck sweaters, casual slacks, and even argyle socks. The Collegiate Girl is part of the whole scene, with her own wardrobe which, unlike the man's outfit, has almost completely disappeared.

I went to college in the early 1970s. This was, as those of us old enough to remember know, a time of major political and social turmoil. My college years had no crew, singing, bonfires, cheerleaders, block letters, seasonal ceremonies, Greek-letter organizations, and no football at all. Instead, college life was just as tempestuous, or even more so, than the chaotic American society of the later Vietnam War era. There was no cheering and bright banners, but picket signs, chanting, and the noise of anti-war and anti-whatever demonstrations. Instead of parties, there were cadre meetings and sit-ins. Instead of bonfires of autumn leaves, I smelled the burning of a more perennial weed. And I did far more studying than these carefree collegians of the Post covers and the illustrated ads. But I'm sure that one thing is the same then and now: those Rockwell boys and girls drank as much, or even more, than I and my fellow "collegians" did.

Some years back I did a series of guest lectures (on art and Zoroastrianism) at a big state university in Indiana. While on my way there, I visited DePauw University, a small but prestigious college located in the beautiful town of Greencastle, Indiana. If you have the time and the bandwidth, I invite you to take the "virtual tour" of the DePauw campus. You can see photos of their nineteenth and twentieth-century buildings in all four seasons. I saw them in the iconic college month of October, at the peak of the fall foliage season. It was my first trip out to the Midwest (I have since been back many times) and as I walked through the bright sunlight on the green lawns of DePauw, I felt as though I had somehow gone back in time to the 1920s or 30s. Unlike the grinding, arrogant, surly college life I knew in the urban Northeast, I saw what seemed like those Post covers come alive. There were cheerful, sweatered collegians walking on the paths carrying bookbags. The streets were lined with well-kept residences and cars, and there was no sign of unrest, demonstrations, graffiti, violence, or drugs. I could not help thinking that perhaps DePauw had escaped the harshness that I had known in my academic years, and that the colorful banners could still wave in the crisp blue sky.

But I knew better. Just because DePauw looked ideal, did not mean that it was ideal. No doubt behind those neat walls, students drugged, drank, cheated, and fornicated just as they do everywhere else, and professors engaged in those academic politics that are so bitter because "so little is at stake." I wanted this green castle in the distant, open Midwest to be better, more peaceful, more polite and well-behaved, and perhaps even kinder than my Northeast. I didn't stay around to have my illusions broken.

Now that I am studying "college" math, I think about college experiences, and I remember why I have not hastened to return to some institution of higher learning to work out my calculus and physics. I just don't want to go through those years again, or any part of those years. The sunlight shines on the golden autumn leaves on the campus of fantasy, but the campus of reality is a far different, and darker place.

Posted at 3:44 am | link