"It was a good speech, but something was missing, retired teacher Harry
Klugel recalled. Sitting near the front of the stage, Klugel, now 72,
saw singer Mahalia Jackson implore Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to say
something more. Klugel couldn’t hear her, but organist Yolanda Clarke
could, and remembers distinctly what she said:
“Tell them about the dream.”
Fifty years after the historic March on Washington, thousands of people
returned to the Capitol Mall Tuesday to commemorate King's “I Have a
Dream” speech and reflect on the work left to be done to ensure equal
opportunity for all. Much of that work depends on the quality of our
schools."
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National School Board Association - NSBA
Morehouse College Student Paper, The Maroon Tiger, in 1947
As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the
school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of
the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education
should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that
they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that
education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an
end.
It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform
in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is
culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to
achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.
Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective
thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very
difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions
of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often
wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great
majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and
scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the
pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths.
To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the
chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh
evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal,
and the facts from the fiction.
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think
intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with
efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous
criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
(Perhaps the most dangerous periods in civilization have been those periods when there was no moral foundation in society.
Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere. It is not enough to know truth, but we must love truth and sacrifice for it.)
The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the
better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta
Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically
and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those
the types of men we call educated?
We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence
plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete
education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy
objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will,
therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the
race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of
close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with
immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!
