(Gainesville, GA) Every Brenau student, past and present, knows the Brenau Ideal. If they don’t have the entire thing memorized, they at least have memorized one part as it is their favorite. However, many students don’t know that there is also a Brenau Creed that was written by President H.J. Pearce.
“I Believe in God, an infinite spirit, who has made and is still making the Universe of which I am a part, whom I accept by faith as beyond knowledge. I Believe in education not only as a preparation for life but as a continuing process of living, whereby experience and learning evolve into character and that this process will not cease while life lasts. I Believe in culture not merely as a refinement of conduct, but also as an enlargement and perfection of I Believe in knowledge and in all books as the record of the experience and the expression of the hopes of humanity, and as the record of the attempt of humanity, however imperfect, to ‘think God’s thoughts I Believe in all of the fine arts as media for the expression of human ideals, aspirations and emotions, and that the cultivation of an appreciation, at least, of these is essential to the fullest life. I Believe in beauty, as the ideal of the Creator, both of body and spirit, and conceive it my duty to attain as nearly this ideal as possible, both in my own person and in all of my surroundings. I Believe in social unity and cooperation, and that the highest attainment of the individual is to be found in his fulfillment of his proper function in the social organism.”
–President H.J. Pearce
With seven different main points, the Brenau Creed is similar to the Brenau Ideal in this fact. The Brenau Creed can’t be found anywhere on the campus, other than on a single sheet of typewriter paper in a box in the Brenau Archives. It is uncertain why the Brenau Creed is not used, but it can be speculated that the Brenau Ideal was derived from this creed and thereby the Brenau Creed became obsolete.
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