In the back of my phone case, wherever I go, I keep a little piece of paper. Emblazoned on it are three Latin words: “Veritas, Forma, Bonitas.” Truth, beauty, goodness. They’re words that have been part of my life since 2018 when I transferred into Stephen F. Austin High School, but I didn’t really understand what they meant until the last few years.
My high school was organized in a strange way. For some reason, starting with my grade, the whole of Austin High was divided into different, subject-based academies, and when I transferred in, I ended up in the Academy for Classical Studies. My thoughts on the actual setup (and many flaws) of the Austin High academy system could be a whole series of articles, but what’s important here is the motto of the Classical Academy: Veritas, forma, bonitas. Truth, beauty, goodness.
Over the last four years, these words went from something that was attached on certificates and email headers to a subconscious philosophy of my life. I’ve found, through my time at college reading, writing, learning, laughing, crying, loving, hating, and everything else that the Wesleyan experience has to offer, that these words can mean more. They jumped off the Classical Academy’s logo and became lenses through which I saw my life. (Yes, this is one of my more pretentious articles). So, now, you will all be subjected to me breaking down each of the values, how it interacts with my life, and what role I think The Argus has in upholding it.
Truth
Truth is one of the longest-sought and most elusive concepts in human history. It’s also something with which I have a ridiculous (often irritating, just ask my housemates) obsession. Looking at my articles in The Argus alone could tell you that. I never delete anything. That way, I can keep a record of everything I’ve done just in case I need to remember what was true about my life, and I never want any archives to go to waste in case history forgets what was true about this time. I love truth, I’m in awe of it.
This is not to say that I never lie, or that I never should lie (in fact lying is quite fun sometimes). Rather, I believe that my goal in life should be to seek out what is true and, as much as reasonable, speak truth into the world. Wesleyan has been a place where I’ve felt able to do that, sometimes in spite of what the school itself wanted.
The search for truth is arguably the basis of education itself, and as I have studied, worked, and lived here these past four years, I’ve gained both an enthusiasm for seeking out the truth and an appreciation for the relativity upon which it is based.
I mean, look at this paper alone. Something can happen on campus, and The Argus will report on it one way. Someone will write an opinion piece interpreting it differently, another person will write a letter to the editor countering the first person, and someone else will post on social media about how completely wrong everything we’ve published about it was.
The thing is, all of those people can be right. The pursuit of truth is not absolute, there will never be an end in the search for knowledge, and there will never be two completely agreed-upon truths. I hope that, in my time working on it, The Argus has stayed as factual as possible and has held firm to its pursuit of truth, but I know it is impossible to demand that it be absolute in this pursuit. Truth, much like beauty (see below), is in the eye of the beholder.
The Argus’ job is not to say what the absolute truth is, then. That would be impossible and, by its very nature, untrue to someone. Rather, its job should be to investigate. To explore. To search for truth, but never claim to have finally found it. No article should be taken as the end-all-be-all of a story, no matter how comprehensive it is. No writer should think they will find the final answer when they’re writing their piece; no reader should think there is nothing left unsaid. The Argus will not ever find the final truth, but it will try and find as good a truth as it can.
Beauty
This brings us to the second word in the motto: beauty. When I came to this school, I was pretty stuck-up. I didn’t think of myself as someone who valued the aesthetics of the world. I thought them separate from truth, from reason, from education. I was, obviously, wrong.
As my college career progressed, this narrowmindedness began to fall away. The forms and contours of the world—in architecture or in dance, in sculpture or in painting, in lyric or in nature—became more meaningful to me as I began to see them less as distractions from learning and instead as the vital parts of existence that they are.
I’ve had a series of challenging experiences, mentally and physically, throughout college. I’ve had my heart broken more than once, I’ve fought with depression and anxiety, and I’ve had long stretches of time where I struggled to see beauty in the world.
But then I’ll look at a smile on my friend’s face. A tree will blow patterns with sunlight on the ground. The stars will twinkle a little brighter than I thought they would. Someone I know will perform onstage and light up the room. I sometimes put moments like this on my Instagram story—so much so that certain editors of The Argus have come to expect my “Wesleyan can be a little pretty sometimes, as a treat” posts. Appreciating the quiet beauty of the world has pulled me through some of my darkest hours.
So, what is The Argus’ part in this? Put simply, I believe it is to both report on and create beauty. Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff are constantly producing so much beauty, and even being lucky enough to cover one raucous musical, publish one thoughtful poem, profile one brilliant professor, or muse about one traffic light is a gift.
At the same time, the role of The Argus is not only observational; it’s generative. I’ve certainly read articles in this paper that have made me burst into tears or erupt with laughter. The beauty of the words in this flimsy, often-recycled paper have impacted me as much as the things they’re written about.
Beauty, like truth, is a mysterious and magical thing. It’s fleeting, it’s myriad, it’s dependent, it’s everything, and it’s nothing. Looking for beauty, for the form something takes and how it harmonizes with itself and the world around it, has pulled me out of dark places in my life. If The Argus can do the same for someone else, if it can accentuate the beauty of Wesleyan or the world, then it is doing what it should.
Goodness
The final word: goodness. The quality of being good. This one is both the most straightforward and the most elusive. After all, what I think of as a good thing to do is almost certainly different to someone else (see again: the interpretability of truth). It’s very rare that two people have the exact same moral code, and yet I’d like to think we’re all trying our best to do good in the world.
I could get deep into the relationship I have to moral codes and religious doctrine (in fact, in the original draft of this article, I did), but I’ll spare you the details. The important part is that, in my upbringing, I was always told to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. This is what goodness means to me. Make the world a more fair place and work to fight injustice. Cherish kindness whenever it is shown to you, and repeat that compassion when you interact with others. Walk humbly knowing that you are not better or worse than anyone else.
I fall short of these ideals often, as I’m sure most of us do. It’s hard to be just, kind, and humble in a world that feels like it’s constantly falling apart and also sometimes attacking you. But to try is half the battle. To be conscious of goodness and seek to spread it is already a step in the right direction. Goodness is hard to find sometimes, but it can make all the difference in the world when it appears. I wouldn’t have made it through this school without the goodness of those around me.
The Argus is not an activist publication—it’s true. Its purpose is (theoretically) not to further an agenda or specific view of events. One of the cardinal rules of journalism is that you’re supposed to report stories, not become them. It is a good thing, in my opinion, but it makes it hard to make it a vehicle for goodness.
Yet, the way I see it, The Argus’ largest potential for goodness comes from the people who put it together. The community of hard-working, dedicated writers, editors, photographers, managers, designers, illustrators, and everything in between is what gives The Argus its goodness. They all love this paper, they want to make it great, and they want to do it well. Often, it’s easy to imagine The Argus as simply the final product—as a leaflet of paper to pick up every Tuesday and Friday or as a bunch of articles to read online between class.
The more I think about The Argus not as a thing but as a group of people, the more I see the goodness in it. Some of the best people I’ve ever known, virtuous and just and kind as can be, have worked next to me in our offices at 45 Broad St. Working on The Argus is (in all but very few cases) an unpaid, thankless, tiring job. The people who do it are amazing.
Veritas, Forma, Bonitas
I’m going to miss this place and this paper. I’ve spent countless hours, written almost 80,000 words, and edited more articles than I could have ever imagined for The Argus. It’s been the most defining endeavour of my time on campus by far. I love it, and I always worry about it.
At the same time, I know that it is so much more than me or the people who are on it right now. It is the oldest twice-weekly college paper in the country. It has existed and it will exist. I hope that it can keep truth, beauty, and goodness as its standards for years to come, but that’s not my decision to make. The world has changed since I was editor-in-chief, and it will change again by the time everyone who’s currently here has left. The questions of what truth is, how beauty manifests, and who defines goodness are always going to have different responses. So long as we strive and do our best to answer them, our mission is on course.
My last thought, before I go into the great beyond, is that each of these words are nouns (shocker, I know). They’re not direct, clear commands—rather, they’re things to value. Seek truth, create beauty, revere goodness is as valid an interpretation of them as speak truth, observe beauty, exemplify goodness. They’re mutable, but they’re not vague. Whatever truth, beauty, and goodness means to you—even if that changes—is core to who you are. I know it’s core to who I am, at least.
In my four years at Wesleyan University, I’ve tried to keep up with these values. Sometimes I’ve called them different things, or fallen short of them, or rejected that they exist at all. But I’ve tried. Maybe I’ll forget all about them in a few years, but for now, I hold them close.
Thank you all for listening to all my endless rambles over the past four years. Thank you to everyone I’ve worked alongside to make this paper run like clockwork. Finally, thank you to The Argus for providing truth, beauty, and goodness in my life. I am forever indebted to this campus, this community, and this newspaper.
Sam Hilton is a member of the class of 2025 and can be reached at shilton@wesleyan.edu.
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