From Boxcars to Great Books

by Raymond T. Multerer

I remember the sharp delineation between my life at home and what I did at work, and the world of the classroom. There was exploration involved - can you imagine somebody unloading boxcars, then going to study Ancient Greek Philosophy in a night class?

Dr. Silverman was my English instructor for the first year. They felt it was their responsibility to identify students who should be encouraged, and many of them did that. There was a sophomore class on Great Books, and he invited me. You got into that class by invitation only.

We read great novels . . . Dostoyevsky . . . Chaucer . . . Shakespeare . . . Greek classics . . . Euripides, Sophocles . . . and so on. This is pretty heavy stuff. It was presented in such a way, though, that I didn't feel that they were really taskmasters. It was presented in a way that challenged me to reach out, to accept, to comprehend, to make an effort, and really the process was one by which I gradually incorporated those things into myself.

It was like two worlds for my years as an undergraduate. Later on, as I became a teacher myself, then the world unified. I was making a living doing what I enjoyed, what I thought, and what I reveled in.