College campuses, at least when the weather is temperate, have a lot to recommend them as walking destinations. Green space with expansive trees, good-looking or at least interesting buildings, the possibility of public art, inexpensive museums sometimes, a youthful vibe but also historical tidbits, and overall no admission charge.

And the certain knowledge that you (I) don’t have to show up for class, finish assigned reading or write papers. That’s all done.

Before we dropped Ann off at her dorm on Sunday and returned home, we all took a stroll through Illinois Wesleyan University, which is in Bloomington, though not to far south of ISU. I’m glad to report that its motto is still in Latin.

Even better, I knew what it meant without looking it up because of the long-ago Latin teaching efforts of Mrs. Quarles and Dr. Nabors. But I have to say that even a little knowledge of the etymologies of the English words “science” and “sapient” would be enough to guess “knowledge” and “wisdom.”

Illinois Wesleyan, which as far as I can tell is only tenuously connected to the Methodist church, is pleasantly green though not quite the arboretum that is ISU.

A good many buildings were newer-looking than I expected for a college founded in 1850.

But not all of them.

There was a scattering of artwork, such as “Aspiration” by Giles Rayner (2015), a British artist specializing in water sculpture.

For whatever reason, no water flowed when I was there. It would have been cooler, literally and figuratively, had it been.

Elsewhere is “Family With Dog” by Boaz Vaadia (also 2015), a Brooklyn-based artist.

That second picture is my own composition, “Daughter With Dog With Family With Dog” (2021).