Waldemar Gurian at Notre Dame

Extract

Waldemar Gurian was a presence—physically, intellectually and spiritually—at Notre Dame. In the many years he was with us, a daily wonder of the campus was the sight of Dr. Gurian ponderously proceeding from his office to the library to the post office to the dining halls and back again, bearing with him as he passed—so it seemed to a number of us—all the light of the world as well as a large part of its darkness. He came to Notre Dame during a period—the middle and later thirties—when President O'Hara (now Archbishop of Philadelphia) was inviting to the university as visiting or regular faculty members a variety of scholars and writers from England, Ireland and the Continent: among others, Shane Leslie, Arnold Lunn, Christopher Hollis, Archbishop David Mathew, Robert Speaight, Desmond Fitzgerald, Charles Du Bos, Yves Simon, Karl Menger and Arthur Haas. Of all these Dr. Gurian, who was on friendly terms with most of them, remained; and his impact upon the life of the university has been the greatest and the most enduring. Among his achievements here, The Review of Politics is undoubtedly his most lasting. When he arrived at Notre Dame, a proper intellectual climate, created by not a few teachers and priests, existed, a climate which made possible the founding, the sustenance and the continuance of a broad cultural journal like the Review. Professors of philosophy, literature and history as well as of political philosophy and science—interested in generating what Professor Nef calls “the new scholarship of synthesis”—could understand the reasons for and the necessity of the Review's coming into existence at Notre Dame; and could and did cooperate in its founding, in its formation and in its growth to eminence. But the great and active form was provided by Waldemar Gurian. And the Review surely stands today as the embodiment of his genius and knowledge and immensity of spirit.