Last week we held our ‘Admission of Scholars’ service in the Chapel. It was a wonderful celebration of their achievements so far and an opportunity to inspire them to always seek to fulfil their potential. Here is the script from Head, Jeremy Quartermain’s speech.
“On a remote mountain in Idaho, a young Mormon girl grows up with her parents and six older siblings. The girl’s parents have cast themselves adrift from the modern world and chosen to embrace radical survivalist beliefs. Their isolated way of life is reflected in their deep distrust of public institutions such as hospitals and schools.
The young Tara Westover’s world was framed by the distant horizon and built on fear of the outside. Her known world did not extend beyond that which she could see, which was a small patch of rural Idaho. Tara was not permitted to attend school until she was seventeen and her parents believed that their children would discover the important things in life for themselves. As Tara grew older, she became more curious about the world beyond the mountain. She brought an algebra textbook and taught herself the essentials of mathematics. It turned out that Tara was a highly motivated student who possessed a dazzlingly sharp intellect.
Tara won a place at the prestigious Brigham Young University before moving on to Cambridge University where she completed her master’s and doctorate degrees. King’s Parade must have felt a very long way from the mountainside of her youth.
Still in her twenties, Tara published a searing memoir of her youth entitled ‘Educated’. Charting the tenderness and brutality of life on the mountain alongside Tara’s growing estrangement from her family, the narrative is propelled forward by the writer’s relentless desire to learn more about the world around her. ‘Educated’ debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It remained on the list for over two years and, to date, has sold over eight million copies worldwide. It is a compelling story of courage over adversity and the desire for enlightenment over isolation.
Of course, the price of an education is not always to be counted in pounds and pence or toil expended; it can be much more expensive than that. On 10th October 2012, fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head whilst travelling on a school bus through the Swat Valley near the Afghan border. Malala was singled out because she had been a prominent activist who had campaigned locally for the right of girls to receive an education. The Taliban sought to silence her courageous voice with a bullet.
The Taliban’s actions only served to make Malala’s voice stronger and the callous attempt on her life ensured that her local campaign became a global mission. Malala was awarded the Noble Peace Prize at the age of just seventeen and then went on to win a place at Oxford University to study PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics). She later reflected that ‘the extremists are afraid of books and pens, so books and pens are our most powerful weapons.’
Two and a half thousand years earlier, Socrates was sentenced to death by the city state of Athens for supposed impiety and for his allegedly corrupting influence on the city’s youth. His crime was simply to encourage young people to think critically about the very nature of authority itself. Such intellectual activities were considered dangerous and subversive; especially by those looking for scapegoats to blame for the dismal political situation and the societal unrest that followed the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War.
The Church itself has often sought to suppress those who have challenged their teaching. Hypatia of Alexandria, an extraordinary female mathematician of the fourth century, was put to death by a mob of angry Christians and the thirteen century Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon (1220-1292) was held in captivity due to his work on the movement of celestial bodies and speculation on exciting subjects such as optics and alchemy. There are many more examples of scholars being persecuted by those to whom they sought to speak truth. Knowledge is the greatest defence against tyranny and truth serves to expose the lies and injustices perpetrated by oppressors.
Thankfully, it is highly unlikely that you will ever experience such dire consequences in pursuit of your own scholarly goals although, arguably, the baying mob of ancient times has been replaced by those who seek to discredit the work of others and spread misinformation online.
Becoming a scholar is a moment worthy of celebration and you should be incredibly proud of all that you have achieved. However, we would challenge you to see this moment as the beginning of an exciting new journey rather than a retrospective honour for past accomplishments. By recognising your superb potential, whether it be in sports, art, drama, music, or your chosen area of academic endeavour, we hope that you will commit wholeheartedly to excelling in all areas of your life.
Becoming a scholar at Bradfield College is about embracing a dynamic and positive attitude towards your learning and committing yourself to a process of enlightenment and continuous self-improvement. I hope that you will develop the values and attributes which underpin the school’s mission to provide you with an Education for Life. We want you to become confident, open-minded, resilient, inquisitive, innovative and accomplished communicators.
Scholarship is partly about creating moments of beauty and meaning. Of course, there is a real beauty to be found in the pursuit of truth but there is also a sublime beauty to be perceived in a finely executed pass on the football pitch or an outstanding performance in the theatre. The attributes and virtues that we encourage you to develop as scholars are transferable and universally applicable.
As a great scholar, you should seek to make a meaningful contribution to society. You should act as a positive role model and seek to inspire others to embark upon their own journeys of discovery. We challenge you to be generous in your scholarship and to share your gifts and talents as widely as possible.
As a scholar you should be a seeker of truth and architect of beauty. Scholars are courageous, humble and reflective but they are also ambitious and endlessly inquisitive. Scholarship is not about achieving perfection and there is no finish line to the journey that you have now embarked upon; for when you cease learning you cease living.
Embrace this moment and be inspired by the fact that you are joining an exalted company of Bradfieldians who have made a very significant contribution in fields of human endeavour as diverse as medicine, law, politics, technology and the creative arts. If you look at the images of inspiring Bradfieldians that adorn our dining halls, then it may seem initially that there is little that connects them and yet from filming animals in the Arctic tundra to performing a hip replacement operation in London and from pirouetting on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre to driving a UN truck through the arid desert of South Sudan, these Bradfieldians have lived lives that are rich in purpose, meaning, and adventure. What they share is a devotion to their chosen calling in life as well as the courage to pursue their ideals and goals with a steadfastness that serves to elevate them above the ordinary.
Bradfield College is a place that inspires you to step outside your comfort zone and when you have the courage to step outside your comfort zone you do not need me to tell you that your comfort zone will expand to fill the space that was once occupied by your fears. Make the most of the opportunities that you have here and enjoy what is a significant step upon your road to success. Finally, if I return to Bradfield as a very old man, then I hope that my heart will skip a beat when I see your images looking back at me from the Dining Room wall. Be brave and be inspired!”
