Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Bruce W. Cronmiller, Professor of French,1988
"Four hundred years ago this year, Montaigne completed his Essays, then during his remaining years he added to them, clarifying his ideas and strengthening the style. Like this French essayist who wrote that the teacher must never impose lessons on the pupil, you, Bruce W. Cronmiller, have invited your students to read with you, to reflect with you about their reading, and then to choose ideas for themselves. You have brought together unlikely groups of students--sometimes reluctant learners--and you have created in them--often for the first time--an interest in ideas and their expression. You have read French literature with them, especially Rabelais, Montaigne, Pascal and Moliere; you have introduced Lawrence students to the events that took place in France in 1968 and to the literature of French West Africa. You have invited them not only to read but also to listen and to look. Your students have listened to French as it is broadcast to the French themselves, and they have seen films just as they are seen in France. You have surprised your students with the imagery of Dante's Divine Comedy, the design of a Durer woodcut, the depths of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni,' and the taste of sauce bearnaise. For you understand as Montaigne understood that visiting foreign countries is marvelous not for bringing back this object or that fact but for getting to know the character and customs of those nations, and then in contact with them for 'rubbing and polishing our brains.' One of your students has said that you represent the best of scholarship, for you have used your intellectual gifts not as a weapon or a possession but as an enhancement of life. Like Montaigne in 1588, you complete today your essay at Lawrence, leaving yourself free to add to it and to embellish it.
By the authority vested in me, I now confer upon you the degree of Master of Arts, ad eundem, and admit you to its rights, its privileges, and its obligations."