Legacy of GI Bill: Offers lessons

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

June of 1944 was an historic month.

June 6th marks the 60th anniversary of D-Day. On June 22, 1944, Franklin Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights into law. Among its provisions was that of providing a free post-high school education to any veteran of the US armed forces who served in World War II

Six decades later, this program stands as eloquent testimony to the benefit of using public resources to foster human potential.

Under the GI Bill

Millions of former servicemen who would not otherwise have attended college or vocational schools did so under the GI Bill. They became business owners, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers and scientists. By one estimate, over 35,000 others entered seminaries to become priests, ministers, and rabbis.

The legacy of that program is still with us. And it is worth recalling as we ponder questions like: What is the value of government? Are those we help truly deserving? Should affordable higher education be a priority?

To say that the idea that taxpayers would pay for the higher education of millions of people was at odds with the "rugged individualism" that preceded the Great Depression is an understatement. But the sacrifices of those who served in the war made the soldier-scholars seem deserving to politicians and the idea of government subsidized schooling became politically palatable.

Investing in people

The experience of the GI Bill attests to the value of investing in people. While the GI bill was not targeted to ex-service men and women based on income, the vast majority of those who benefited were people who were economically needy.

A disproportionate number were Catholics raised in working class families. Before World War II, higher education - and the opportunities it provided - was beyond the reach of most of them. For men and women such as these, the GI Bill opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed and made once distant dreams truly attainable.

Their wartime experiences may have matured these men and women but it did not infuse them with talents they previously lacked. The intellectual and creative energy let loose by their education had been there all along. All they lacked was the opportunity to develop it.

Served general welfare

Making college accessible to the working class did not incite class warfare. Rather, it served the general welfare.

The GI bill was one of the best investments our nation ever made in its future. The human capital developed by this unprecedented access to higher education was repaid to the nation many fold.

The inventions, advances in technology, artistic contributions, and economic achievements of those who took advantage of their education have enriched the lives of all of us. It is frightening to contemplate what our nation would look like without them.

Similar potential

Six decades later, far fewer Americans serve in the armed forces. But the young people of today, regardless of the economic circumstances of the families into which they were born, hold similar potential.

Given the same opportunities as the GIs of 60 years ago, their contributions to our society can be as enriching as those of their grandparents. They may not be "deserving" in terms of what they have done yesterday, but like those who went to school on Uncle Sam's nickel after World War II, they are "deserving" in terms of what they can contribute tomorrow.

This legacy of the GI Bill is worth recalling as we weigh decisions about the capacity of government to make a difference in people's lives, the importance of affordable higher education, and the value of investing in people who lack the resources available to the rest of us.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

For senior citizens: The joys of being a parish

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

It is no wonder that life after 65 is often referred to as "The Golden Years."

Granted, we spend so much time on repairs and upkeep of our bodies, sitting around in doctors' waiting rooms, keeping fresh batteries in hearing aids, working out in cardiac rehab, that just staying healthy seems like a full-time job.

Still, we can find some time for socializing with God and humanity. And what better place for that than the church?

New hope

This morning I had the privilege of attending a Friday Mass in our parish where all of the school children were present. The occasion was the last day of school for the year.

It is always an uplifting experience to hear the sweet voices of children raised in praise to God. They sing bouncy, bright songs full of a joyous love for Jesus. I couldn't help noticing the seventh graders singing, "New hope, new hope, is what we have been given by the Lord."

New school

These were the same seventh graders who just yesterday gathered at the site where we are building a new school and church. They wanted to get a feel for the hallowed ground recently blessed by Bishop William H. Bullock, where next year at this time they will be the first graduating class from the new St. Joseph School.

There's not much to see yet, just the footings and mud, mud, mud. But they have new hope.

Building committee

I have come to a new experience in my old age: building a church. And the more I get involved, the more exciting it is.

I was spared the four tough years of planning and tension as we debated the issues of building on a new site or remodeling in our present cramped quarters. Only four or five gentlemen in our parish have struggled through more than 375 meetings in the past four years. They were the original building committee members.

Now that we have broken ground I have been asked to edit a newsletter that will keep everyone in the parish informed and inspired about the building progress. That makes me a latecomer to the building committee. And what an education I am getting!

As I sit in meetings with our pastor, architects, contractors, and parishioners representing every kind of building skill and every area of finance, I am humbled. It is overwhelming to see the scope of their knowledge and their steadfast dedication.

The entire committee welcomes any contribution of time and labor that will lower the overall cost of building.

Working in harmony

One of the jobs of the newsletter is to let people know where we need volunteers as the jobs come up. Last week when the torrential rains washed sand and mud into the footings, a calling committee brought out workers to shovel out the pits.

The response was overwhelming. In one day our parishioners supplied more than 50 man-hours of labor, saving the church thousands of dollars.

And this is just the beginning! Before this job is finished we will be working side by side on everything from landscaping to wood finishing.

Even senior citizens (like me) will find jobs they can do and memorials they can purchase. It is a powerful tool for bringing people together.

As we put our differences aside, we are working in harmony with one another, enjoying the fellowship and the satisfaction that comes from working for a common goal.

It seems to be a kind of blessed therapy for old bodies and troubled souls.

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging at P.O. Box 216, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.

Divine and human wisdom:
Should be connected in universities

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

A 100 years or so ago, in a spasm of precocious political correctness, the Overseers of Harvard University dropped "pro Christo et ecclesia" from the university crest, leaving the unadorned motto, "Veritas."

Evidently, the Overseers thought that the pursuit of truth "for Christ and Church" too confining in an age on the cusp of a new maturity tutored by science.

Within a generation, of course, that great hope was dashed in Flanders fields, as science (in the form of the machine gun and barbed wire) contributed mightily to the colossal act of civilizational self-destruction we now know as World War I.

Cambridge notables

I thought of Harvard recently when visiting for the first time the lovely university town of Cambridge (England, not Massachusetts). John Harvard, who endowed the school that bears his name, was a Cambridge man; so were Isaac Newton and a parade of scientific notables that continues down to Stephen Hawking today.

Cambridge history is not without its saints, too. John Fisher, the only bishop to defy Henry VIII's theft of the Church of England, spent a lot of time there, being involved with Trinity College, Queens' College, and St. John's College, to which he gave lands originally granted him by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII; the brilliant and holy Fisher was Lady Margaret's spiritual director.

I went at 5:30 to King's College Chapel to hear its marvelous choir. On May 21, the choir sang a requiem service for King Henry VI, the college's founder, who had died on that date in 1471. The choir's "voice" is extraordinarily pure: the best of the English choral style.

Then there is the chapel itself rendered ethereally light because of the greatest fan vaulting in Europe, which embraces the entire ceiling.

Connection lost

Anyone who cares about beauty in its choral form owes an enormous debt of gratitude to those who support and maintain institutions like the choir school of King's College, Cambridge.

And yet, on leaving King's chapel that splendid May afternoon, I couldn't help feeling a tinge of sadness that had something to do with John Harvard and what the Overseers of his university had done to his motto. That sadness was a byproduct of my sense that King's College chapel is, in many respects, a museum.

Yes, the choir boys get a first-class musical education that they'll carry with them throughout their lives. Yes, Christian worship still takes place at King's. But the organic connection between chapel and college - the intuition about the relationship between divine wisdom and human wisdom that led John Fisher to ask Erasmus to come to Cambridge and teach Greek, so that the New Testament could be read in the original - has been lost. As it was at Harvard.

Christian humanism

When "pro Christo et ecclesia" is understood as a constriction on learning, rather than learning's true liberation, the chain that links medieval and renaissance universities (offspring of the church) to contemporary centers of higher learning breaks. The result is King's College chapel: splendid architecture, fine music, but not essentially different from The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum's recreation of a medieval monastery in New York.

Fisher invited Erasmus to Cambridge, and Erasmus came, because both men believed that the great humanistic revival to which they were committed was a Christian enterprise. If Christ reveals both the face of the merciful Father and the full truth of our humanity, then the truest humanism is Christian humanism.

John Harvard's secularizing heirs, denying that, changed their motto. In doing so, they stripped higher learning of its soul.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.