Black Mountain College...AND BEYOND THE DURATION

Brochure for BMC answering "why college?" during wartime. Advertises classes, The Work Program with emphasis on Pan-American Affrais and politics. Includes BMC Seal and images of the work program and studies building under construction. Brochure made of single sheet of paper folded three times. Matte paper with images. Date- on or after 1941 (based on dates of images).

…AND BEYOND THE SURATION
FOR THE DURATION America wants soldiers of its men and women. Then, why college? This is one answer. It was conceived long ago in a time of peace as a challenge to an age of comfort. Of a sudden, on a certain day in December, we were no longer in a time of peace and this answer was no longer heretical.
The basic function of a college is still the same, for the duration and beyond the duration, in war and in peace: to teach men to understand and to act. Not to act is cowardice. Not to understand is suicide.
The war will not be won by a knowledge of Latin. The problems of a devastated world will not be solved, nor the values of a people determined, by a knowledge of arc-welding.
But the learning of a skill may be the implement by which one comes to general understanding. And this is reciprocal, for the greater the mastery over new skills.
Accordingly, the skills-listed opposite- are brought into the classroom, not as substitutes for education, but as part of the knowledge which will be both immediately useful in military life and at the same time contribute to the understanding.
The skill leads to the general principle. Both are necessary.
ART & ARCHITECTURE maps drafting and lettering photography
AGRICULTURE farm machinery general principles
BIOLOGY 7 PHYSIOLOGY first aid public health hygiene & sanitation weather
CHEMISTRY explosives fuels & gases munitions
DRAMATICS GOVERNMENT & ECONOMICS economics of war martial law governmental agencies military organization
HISTORY LANGUAGES LITERATURE
MATHEMATICS trajectories surveying & compass map-making
MUSIC PHILOSOPHY
PHYSICS gasoline engines photography electricity telescopes & lenses aircraft principles
PSYCHOLOGY propaganda analysis
THE WORK PROGRAM began with the college. It was conceived originally as a necessary addition to bookish education. Now, suddenly, a work program has become an imperative demand for all colleges- and rightly.
The work is voluntary, by both men and women, regardless of whether they pay a full-maintenance fee of $1200 or $450 to the college. It is run by the student work committee.
Three large college buildings have already been constructed and a 100-acre farm begun. The work is not artificially fabricated; it is of practical value to the community.
The coming work program anticipates:
An extension of the mountain pasturage for beef and dairy cattle; planting and harvesting of feed for cattle, hogs, dairy cows, and poultry; four ‘war acres’ of vegetable gardens; quarrying and lumbering, carpentry and wiring and plumbing for completion of the college buildings.
In conformity with the principle that time and age, like credits and hours, are no adequate measurement of the maturity and understanding of the individual, BMC will accept as freshmen certain younger students who have not completed high school.
To qualify for such admission a younger students needs:
A genuine desire for higher education for its own sake (not the superficial trappings of a paid football team, luxurious surroundings, or sorority life); evidence of real ability (not necessarily high marks but a demonstrated competence for knowing and understanding himself and the world about him).
Because secondary schools may be justifiably skeptical of any acceleration of the educational program, BMC extends this offer only in co-operation with high school and preparatory school principals, in the belief that in most cases they are best able to judge which students are mature enough to go to college at an earlier age. Write for special application.
Beginning in June 1942 BMC will offer four quarters of eleven weeks each, in order that students who so desire may finish college in three years. As heretofore, students will continue to graduate when they are prepared to do so, since there is no fixed residence requirement.
For further information: Registrar Black Mountain College Black Mountain, N.C.
This war will end. There will be a “beyond” to the duration. It may come while high school students are still in college. It may come long afterwards.
One thing is certain. In and beyond the duration we will require all the knowledge, skill, and strength that can be mustered.
An in and beyond the duration one of the particular problems is the study of
Pan-American Affairs, particularly the cultural achievement, so frequently overlooked by callous “yanquis.”
The Language, the Literature, the politics, and the Art of the 21 Republics, to be the basis of a concentrated study, integrated with the regular Liberal Arts program.
You, the generation now in the schools of our country, are asked by history to be heroic and wise at an age when you would ordinarily be still preparing for a comfortable existence.
You will have to wage and to win a war and you will have to create the world order of the future.
It is no light task; there is no easy answer. Yet the problem of deciding is inescapably yours. This pamphlet, like others, merely suggest. Look to it.

Captions read:
Outside of class
Top- November 1940 Built by Faculty and Student Labor
Bottom- September 1941 First Wing of Study Center Completed
On Current Events