Was Booker T.
Washington Right?
Published in Marietta Daily Journal January 29, 2017
Why
did it not bother old Dad very much when his two sons left college, without
degrees, for other pursuits? After all,
Dad was a career teacher, a lover of the liberal arts, one who believes
knowledge can expand one’s horizons and promote understanding of our swirling
world. Why did I not resist my two sons’
re-set?
Oh, I remember urging them to consider seriously what they were
doing. I’m sure I said something about
how a college degree can stack the odds in one’s favor. I hope I didn’t argue that a college degree
“looks good on a resume,” such a reason for learning being superficial as well
as crass.
Jeff’s major was art, and he was
less than a year from getting his degree.
However, among other influences, his bull riding and love for rodeo
pulled him away. That’s right, a
bull-riding art major. A well-rounded
boy, that son of mine. His paintings and
drawings adorn our house, but I take equal pride in a photograph of him riding
high on a rip-snorting bull.
Pride? Yes, because while atop those bulls, Jeff was
following his heart. How often had I
told teens and college students to do just that? Could I now urge my own son not to?
Reagan left college after two full
years. His comments about his classes and
professors were positive, but other things beckoned. For one, the lure of work that took him
around the country and “out to sea,” even if no further than the Bahamas.
Interestingly enough, Jeff and
Reagan’s decisions came at the very time I was becoming troubled by the
emphasis being placed on college degrees.
Essentially educators were beginning to say that everybody should go to
college. Nothing could be more
inadvisable.
Early
this month I looked down and watched from a hotel window as two men built a Tiki
hut between the hotel and the beach. As
the construction crane ascended with huge beams resting on its fork; as the two
men moved hither and yon on the partial roof with hammers, a waist-strapped tool
bag, and an old fashioned carpenter’s square; and as heavy steel was put in
place by only two men and a crane operator, I marveled anew at both the beauty
and the science of manual labor.
Booker T. Washington once remarked
that “education has spoiled many a plow hand.”
Of course he was engaging in hyperbole.
His point, made at the end of the 19th century, was that
manual labor is a skill and a necessity deserving of honor, and that those
blessed with manual skills should be acknowledged.
As was true in 1890, so is it
today. We will always need people who
can repair engines, grow crops, construct homes and schools, raise cattle,
restore electricity, fell trees, and build Tiki huts. Washington was tipping his hat to such
crafts. All of his adult life he
extolled the working man, the artisan, arguing that “the worker” is the one who
keeps society’s wheels turning.
Strangely, Washington received sharp criticism
from other black leaders who accused him of betraying his fellow blacks and
minimizing college education. Strange
indeed since Washington was the head of the famed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
for the last 34 years of his life and worked tirelessly to provide higher
education for blacks.
Actually, Washington understood what
far too many modern educators don’t: that education should include and engage
the head and the hand, the head for thinking and the hand for doing. Our emphasis on doing took a hit decades ago
as schools abandoned industrial arts (or “shop”) and began pushing college degrees.
This emphasis has caught up with
us. According to David Gelernter,
computer science professor at Yale University, American colleges have become
“fancy-pants institutions,” whose commodity is “not education, but
prestige.” Gelernter, like Washington,
believes that many there are who want a degree who don’t want to work.
It’s time to honor and teach manual
skills again. Produce adults who can
read, write, and speak, we must. Produce
citizens who understand Western civilization generally and Americanism
specifically, we must. But Booker T.
Washington’s “plow hand” – in its various manifestations – is integral.
Prestige doesn’t feed the world.
Work does.
Incidentally, Jeff and Reagan are
both in their 30’s now, and are Godly, hardworking, skillful men with
families. They would make any parents
proud and any next door neighbor fortunate.
They also understand what is meant
by American exceptionalism, “the West,” and of course, parts of speech.
Roger
Hines
1/25/17
Excellent article. Well said. Each person must chart their own course and take responsibility for their journey. Thank you!
ReplyDelete