"All along the meadow where the cows grazed and the horses ran, there was an old stone wall..." Frederick by Leo Lionni

I love school. I love learning and being inspired. It makes me want to work harder. I love our campus...Even when it is -30 outside. In my 4th year political science class we have over 50 people in it...In a 4th level course! Everyday I see the impact of the lack of investment in the arts...the way the faculty has to cut back to save pennies.

This morning I was in my Kiddy lit class we were discussing Aesop's fable about the Grasshopper and The Ants and the moral that you have to be self-sufficient. The fact that the ants would not offer up "welfare" to the Grasshopper and The prof wondered if we thought that was still a moral we should teach our kids...Shouldn't we help others in need? He pointed out that the Ants are much like the Alberta Government and reflect the "pull yourself up by your boot straps" mentality they possess. That is a good thing to teach kids too though, no?

Then our prof read aloud a children's book to us. It was very comforting and a little nostalgic...it has been a long time since a teacher read aloud to me from a story book. He carefully read each page and made sure we could all see the illustrations...just like in grade one. The story was about a wee mouse, Frederick, who spends all his time soaking up the sun, looking at the colours (saving them for the grey of winter) and making up poems while the rest of his small group works diligently to gather food for the winter. When winter comes they ask him where his contribution is and he asks them to close their eyes and imagine the sun...Warm on their fur and they all feel a little warmer. He reminds them of beautiful colours and then he recites a beautiful poem. They all thank him for that and praise him for being such a great poet. He uplifted them in a moment that they were feeling mighty low, and that was just as important as gathering food.

Over the last years of my education I have heard many people defend the arts and try to voice how important arts are to the quality of life. And yet I live in a province that has little respect for that line of thinking and seemingly little money to dedicate to preserving the arts. The story of the wee field mouse Frederick seemed to me to be an allegory for the situation we have in The faculty of Arts...Sometimes it seems like everybody thinks Arts makes no contribution to the world around us. I hope one day people will see the importance of Political science, Comparative Literature, and English, etc.... I wonder if Arts will end up being something I just talk about nostalgically when I am older...a long, lost faculty that taught us such important things...