1 66 UNVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



think of the new life in the words used by the dearest and most 

 prescient dreamer of the nineteenth century, when he was describing 

 the Dalesmen of Burgstead : " Thus then lived this folk in much plenty 

 and ease of life, though not delicately nor desiring things out of 

 measure. They wrought with their hands and wearied themselves; 

 and they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry : tomorrow 

 was not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing which they would 

 fain forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid." 



Ill 



Herewith it has been suggested that scientific development and 

 economic advance will bring to the children of men not only material 

 comfort, but gladness and joy in everyday life. If this be not true, 

 then the new age were almost as well unborn. But it is true. Not 

 only will Science multiply a thousandfold the permissible pleasures of 

 the ordinary type, it will reveal new horizons of enjoyment and make 

 men capable of the highest intellectual delight. The joy of learning 

 and knowing will be recognized as fundamental, and be evoked to 

 its fullest potentialities. Even in the Middle Ages dear old Thomas 

 Aquinas saw and declared that beatitude was the action of man's 

 intelligence rather than of his will, albeit his religious argument did 

 go on to explain that the knowledge constituting happiness must be 

 knowledge of God. Again and again the Angelic Doctor returns to 

 his text, Beatitudo est gaudium de veritate. Moreover, quite apart 

 from philosophical authority, it is patent to all that learning is a 

 natural joy, nor need we any longer adduce such dignified names as 

 Aristotle and Albertus Magnus in support of a truth on which they 

 insisted so convincingly. 



And what an infinity of opportunities will be made accessible by 

 progress in knowledge and education! From the inconceivably great 

 in astronomy to the immeasurably small in sub-atomic chemistry and 

 physics the mind will range through an unending variety of delight, 

 such as today could be enjoyed only by a handful of favored students, 

 who can weigh the sun and compute the life period of an atom of 

 radium. The glowing, vari-colored parterres of the sky may become 



