Office of the President

New Student Convocation — September 6, 1998

Master Singers

One hundred thirty years ago in Munich, Richard Wagner brought to the stage for the first time his newest opera, entitled Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. It enjoyed quick success, and has remained a staple of the operatic repertoire ever since. Later this coming season, the Lyric Opera of Chicago will present it yet again. At the height of his powers and prejudices in the 1860s, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for the opera. Many consider it his greatest work. Using an actual historical character and historical institutions of Renaissance Germany, Wagner created a music drama, advancing his own personal values and beliefs.

Let me tell you a little about the opera. As you listen, I encourage you to reflect on the possibility that Wagner's themes might have some application to your upcoming years here at Carthage.

The story is straightforward, even plausible as operatic plots go. A young man and a young woman fall in love, yet must overcome obstacles erected by their elders and by society in order to be together. Wagner's sympathies clearly are with the young couple, and he is impatient with the rules and regulations that get in their way.

In the early sixteenth century, the economic and social order of Nürnberg, as of cities across Europe, was determined by the guilds. In a pre-industrial economy, a guild was rather like General Motors and the United Auto Workers, or Northwest and the Airline Pilots Association, being rolled into one organization

The guilds were alliances of craftsmen exercising a monopoly in their trade. They determined who could or could not make and sell shoes, or pots, or virtually any other product or service. The members strictly controlled admission to the guilds. A young man (women did not come into question) had to spend many years as an apprentice and journeyman before he could hope to become a master and therefore a full-fledged member of a guild. He had to obey his master and do things "the right way" if he ever hoped to succeed.

The habit of organizing into guilds extended into social and cultural life as well. Nürnberg's guild of master singers encompassed men whose hobby it was to compose and perform their own songs. Every year here at Carthage, students get acquainted, form their own bands, and play at various events around campus. The impulses of contemporary Carthaginians and Renaissance Germans are not all that different.

But the forms are. No one here prescribes rules about who can participate or what the music must sound like. The guild of master singers, however, limited their competitions to their own members and enforced very strict and detailed regulations about how a song must be composed and performed. The winner was the contestant judged to conform best to the guild's expectations.

As Wagner's opera opens, the city of Nürnberg is preparing for a contest of the mastersingers. The father of our young heroine, Eva, is a goldsmith by trade and himself a master singer. He offers his daughter in marriage to whoever wins the contest, with the proviso that she be willing to accept the winner. Everyone seems to think that fair enough. The trouble is that Eva already has fallen secretly in love with a dashing young knight, Walther von Stolzing, who has just come to town and who, just as instantaneously, loves her. It is a classic case of love at first sight.

Walther is a very talented poet and singer himself. He decides to apply for membership in the guild so that he can compete in the contest and win Eva for himself. The master singers let him try out, and, in his audition, Walther sings his own beautiful song of spring and love. He is passionate, creative, fresh, vital. The trouble is that he breaks about every rule the master singers can imagine. They are bewildered by what seems to them a formless mass of words and sound, and they refuse to admit Walther into their guild.

You can imagine the disappointment, bitterness, and resentment of Walther and Eva. Her father says she has to marry a master singer, yet Walther cannot get into the club. They can see no solution except to elope, and leave all those stultifying rules and restrictions behind them.

Let's stop the action right here for a moment, and ask ourselves a question.

What do we think about their eloping? I bet the vast majority of you would say they would be doing the right thing under the circumstances.

Seen from the standpoint of a college faculty, Walther and Eva are very much like many students entering college in these weeks. Most professors yearn for students like them. Walther and Eva would be challenging, stimulating, just plain fun to teach. They are bright; they are creative; they are open to new ideas; they draw inspiration from the best of sources. They see through hypocrisy and pretense very quickly; they are impatient with hollow conventions and outdated beliefs.

Many of you have been looking forward to this day for quite some time. Admittedly, these hours can be a little overpowering with all those good-byes and hellos compressed into a brief interval. When the families drive off toward home later today, there will be some feeling of emptiness and uncertainty (in the cars, as well as here on campus). But there is that bright side as you take a very significant step in your lives. Most of you are acquiring greater freedom than ever before. To a great extent, you will be able to do what you please when you please.

That spirit carries over into the best of college classrooms. Your professors are here for the purpose of asking you questions more than giving you answers. You must use your own mind to think through the issues they pose and to draw the conclusions that make the most sense to you. The curiosity, the creativity, the spirit of free inquiry that Walther and Eva represent in the opera are the qualities that will make you successful students at Carthage. By my second and third years of college, my own favorite topic was rebellion. I talked habitually about "the need to rebel," boring my friends and disturbing my parents mightily. That idea was a logical result of my new-found freedom, and an indispensable stage in my crystallizing self- definition.

Let us pick up the action of the opera again.

The anti-hero and the chief antagonist of Walther is the town clerk, whose name is Beckmesser. He is a stickler for regulations, just as one would expect of the keeper of official records. Although a master singer, he shows no creativity or originality. He does know and apply all the rules of the guild in excruciating detail. Beckmesser approaches a song as an assignment he has to master, but he apparently derives no joy or inspiration from his work. He is a pure pedant. Worse yet, although already in middle age, he also has designs on Eva and hopes to win her by winning the contest. Beckmesser and Walther abhor each other from the moment they meet.

Beckmesser leads the opposition during Walther's audition. Making a mark on a slate board every time Walther breaks a rule, Beckmesser scratches so loudly and constantly that he practically drowns out Walther's song. In Beckmesser's view, Walther is only a naive and arrogant young man with a tremendous amount to learn.

Let's stop the action and think about our own experiences again.

Have you ever had a teacher like Beckmesser? One who has mastered all the detail of a subject, but who can do nothing with it? One who is actually threatened by the raw creativity of a student? One who could never inspire students to want to learn? One who grades by the forms, but never by the content of a student's work?

I have, and can attest that such professors are deadly. But after many years as a professor, let me suggest that one can find Beckmessers among students as well as teachers. They are those students who never fall in love with learning. They are those students who never want to know and to understand something just for the sake of knowing and understanding.

My own pet peeve is the question: "How much is this test going to count in my final grade?" For years, I have responded: "39-5/8%." Invariably, the student's response is satisfaction, quickly followed by bewilderment. Did he or she get an answer or not? After a pause, I smile and say something to this effect: "Trust me to understand that grades are important for your future. Trust me to have your best interests at heart. Allow me enough room in my grading that I can give you the benefit of the doubt. Realize that I understand you are at Carthage so that I can know you personally, and not treat you merely as another social security number. Comprehending all that, let's put grades aside as much as possible, and enjoy learning, discovering, and understanding in and of and for themselves." In the back of my mind, I simultaneously am saying to myself: "If this student learns how to learn, and develops a joy for learning, he or she will have learned something far more important than any subject matter I can teach."

Let us return to the opera one last time and bring the plot to its conclusion.

Walther and Eva do not elope. Their plans get foiled by the hero of the opera, who then comes to their rescue. A shoemaker and a master singer himself, Hans Sachs has a different kind of mind from his colleagues. He is the one master singer who sees merit in Walther's song; he is the one guild member open to new ideas and capable of recognizing creative talent among the young.

Hans Sachs protects Walther and Eva from themselves. By preventing their escape, he does not let their marriage become a divorce from their community. He does not allow them to ignore the claims of others on their lives, or their own need for family and community. He keeps them from simply making up their own personal rules for life. Such would be only a self-destructive enterprise doomed to failure.

Instead, Hans Sachs coaches Walther on the rules of the master singers. Walther proves willing and able to learn. He actually improves his song by adapting it to the traditions of the guild. Walther's willingness to learn is a side of himself he has not previously shown. Hans Sachs manages events so that Walther does enter the contest. Once Walther has that opportunity, the song he sings simultaneously sparkles with the fire of his creativity, and communicates to the master singers in the forms and conventions they can understand.

They respond enthusiastically, and unanimously judge him the winner of the contest. Operas being operas, Eva herself crowns Walther with a laurel wreath. Joyously, they will be united. Then comes the final event. Eva's father steps forward to award Walther the gold chain, which will symbolize Walther's own entrance into the guild of master singers.

Walther's pride and willfulness flash again. He refuses the chain and the acceptance it signifies. Hans Sachs intervenes one last time. Taking Walther aside, he praises the traditions of the master singers, noting that their values have been built up through times good and bad across generations. Once again, Walther listens. He relents, accepts the gold chain and the membership, and through that action evinces new-found grace and maturity.

Through all this action, the orchestra is soaring with Wagner's lyrics and then the curtain comes down.

What are we to make of this conclusion? I suggest that Hans Sachs provides a model of the ideal professor in a teaching college. Time and again, students say that the qualities of a good professor are enthusiasm for the subject matter and personal interest in the students.

Through his coaching, Sachs displayed his concern for Eva and Walther, their success, and their happiness. He also was open to Walther's new ideas, and celebrated Walther's natural talents. At the same time, he understood the value of the master singers' craft, and honored traditional standards that had been built by thoughtful and sensitive people across generations.

Sachs is not the only role model, however. The new Walther ? the Walther who is willing to learn something new, the Walther who no longer dismisses rules without bothering to understand them ? that Walther is a model of the ideal student. There is an old saying that you cannot learn something you think you already know. Walther had to realize that he did not know before he could become a true and effective learner.

As the opera closes, it is clear that Walther is going to shake up the guild. He still has his own ideas, his native talent, and the vigor of youth; in addition, he understands the traditions of the master singers and will be able to assess what is strong and what is weak in their practice. An enlightened agent of progress, he will bring new vitality to the guild.

If Carthage can do for you what Hans Sachs did for Walther, if you can do for yourselves what Walther did for himself, this period in your lives will be a striking success. As you season your talents with knowledge acquired from others, you can become master singers whose songs excel all those who have gone before.

Welcome to Carthage!