The Educated Man Address delivered at the 63rd Founders Day Convocation, August 28, 1964,Silliman University, Dumaguete City. Salonga, Land of the Morning , ReginaPublishing Company, 1967. Long before your distinguished President invited me to speak on this our day of days--in point of fact, as far back as the tender years of my childhood--Silliman hadbeen vividly impressed upon my memory. Every once in a while, my mind would catch,however faintly, strains of music from long, long ago, when my elder brother, fresh fromwhat seemed to me then a wonderful adventure in a world far from home, used to singthat sweet song with words I can still remember - Silliman Beside the Sea.I felt, even as a child, that there was some strange fascination in that song, for arestless, unyielding urge to go back to Silliman seemed to possess and haunt my brotherall the time. He studied here in what he must have considered the best years of his lifeand he has not quite recovered from the incredible charm and magic of this lovely,blessed place.Many years later - that is, after the second World War - your then President, Dr.Arthur Carson, learned that I was going to the United States to pursue graduate studiesin law and he very kindly gave me letters of recommendation addressed to twooutstanding universities in America. I would like to let you know - and I have beensaying this many a time - that those letters were given the highest degree of consideration because the schools there considered Silliman as a university thatpossesses the highest traditions of scholarship and excellence.When I learned some three years ago that my former classmate and good friend, Dr.Calderon, accepted the offer to become the President of this University, I was happyboth for your President and this institution, convinced as I was, that an enduringpartnership had been forged and that Silliman could look ahead, for even brighter days,in the unending quest for truth and goodness and beauty.I am therefore grateful for the opportunity to be with you on your 63rd Anniversary.The journey started by Horace Silliman and Dr. and Mrs. David Sutherland Hibbard onAugust 28, 1901 has been in a sense, a long and tiresome journey. Were we to call theroll of the men and women - from the highest officials to the humblest teacher andworker - who have dedicated their energies, their talents, their hearts and even their very lives to see that the journey is not interrupted, so that the quest may not stop, so that thetradition of excellence may go on, against seemingly endless odds and obstacles withoutnumber, we would have a fair measure of the kind of quiet heroism that went into themaking and building of Silliman.But, in a deeper sense, the journey has not been long, it has not been tiresome. The journey has just begun and the thrill of wonder and adventure will never end. Sixty-threeyears is a long time, but you are still young. For in the language of a General who hasfaded away -Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is notwholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or supple knees. It is a temperof the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, afreshness of the springs of life.Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. Peoplegrow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin,but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust,fear and despair - these are the long, long years that bow the head andturn the growing spirit back to dust.You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young asyour self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as oldas your despair. In the central place of your heart, there is a recordingchamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer andcourage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and yourheart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism,then - and then only - are you grown old.May I take the liberty of reminding you that the capacity of Silliman to get into thestream of things and contribute to the life and the spirit of the nation has not been fullytapped? True it is that from the ranks of Silliman graduates great leaders have emergedin the field of thought and action, in the arts and sciences, in government and in privateenterprise, but we would all be committing a tragic mistake if we were to look back onlyto the glories of the past and forget the new challenges of our time, if we were to countin detail its achievements and overlook the massive tasks that would require of you morethan just planning and effort, but the vision and the dedication of a lifetime.For when we begin to look around us, we see that amidst the physical reconstructionof towns and cities, the rebuilding of homes and factories and shops, there has crept in aserious case of internal breakdown. Buildings and edifices have gone up, but the edificethat constitutes the real soul of the nation is beginning to shake and unless everyone of us does something about it, the national structure may collapse and go down.There is a feeling of despair and hopelessness amongst those who are overwhelmed by the immensity of our problems - the fact of widespread, grinding poverty, theproblem of massive unemployment in the context of a society that possesses a high rateof population growth, the fact of graft and the paralysis of initiative in public service,the chronic problem of moral breakdown and the wastage and neglect of humanresources.But those who continue to hope and refuse to give up the good fight look primarilyto the institutions of learning to provide the guidance and direction in critical days suchas these. For it is in the schools, the colleges and the universities of the land where theyouth who will pilot the affairs of tomorrow are being taught and trained and equippedfor what we trust will be a better kind of leadership.It may well be that society is placing an impossibly difficult demand on thecapabilities of institutions such as this. For it is evident that the schools and theuniversities cannot, by themselves alone, do the job. Nor can they mean much unlesssociety itself comes to grips with the paradoxes that confront the youth.For the youth is a witness of many glaring contradictions. He hears democracyextolled in every forum, but wonders whether democracy is worth fighting for if itmerely means the freedom to out-shout and out-promise and out-smear the other fellow.He is told in school that honesty is the best policy, but he sees how artfully societylionizes and pampers the fellow who made a clean million with a couple of clever tricks.He is made to believe that it is a great thing to serve his country, but he begins to doubtthat considering how shamelessly those in power have abused it and earned the well-deserved contempt of the people they profess to love so well. He is told that honest toilis good and most rewarding, but he sees his elders engaged themselves in the mad,breathless drive to make a pile through fast and dubious means. He is taught that incourts of justice, rich and poor are treated alike and that the poor man with the rightcause will win out in the end - but he never quite recovers when a crime committed inhis presence is lightly disposed of, because there are no witnesses and those in authorityare only too willing to look the other way. He is told in public schools that merit alonematters, but he finds a confirmation of his deepest suspicions right in school itself - theteacher with the best preparation and who knows how to teach and discipline is notpromoted, because he has no backing and the student who cheats and bluffs his waythrough school is considered smart, because he does not get caught. And when in hiseveryday world, he sees that it is not what you are, not what you know, but whom youknow and how much you are worth that matter in the end, he becomes a hopeless,helpless bundle of confusion and unbelief.Shall we, the school officials and teachers and students, throw up our hands inresignation and defeat and pass back the whole burden to society? You in Silliman cannot do that, even if you wanted to. For you are an institution of learning wedded to a mission you cannot abandon without denying your own existence.Yours is an institution that serves the highest end of a free society, namely, to help mendevelop their potentialities to the fullest extent possible so they may live meaningfullives in a social order that accords first priority to the intrinsic worth and dignity of thehuman personality. It is precisely because the problems of this our world and time are socritical and the tasks so demanding that it becomes your peculiar, unavoidableresponsibility to get into the stream of things and relate your assets and resources to theneeds of the nation. Yours is a work of great relevance.And in that task, your main function as a University is to produce, as you have doneso in the past, the educated man.When I say educated man, I do not refer to the individual who has read a thousandbooks and magazines, however important reading may be to the life of the mind. One of the most unfortunate things in this country is that so much is read by so many who donot know what to read. Because of cheap paper and printing, comics, pulp magazinesand cheap literature have replaced t he classics and the great masterpieces. As aconsequence, an enormous mental garbage has been piled up beyond our collectivecapacity to liquidate. Writers of history a hundred years from now, in assessing thequality of education in the Philippines, may have ample reason to say that our schoolshave produced a vast population able to read, but unable to distinguish what is worthreading. It was Mark Twain, I believe, who said he never allowed his schooling tointerfere with his education.When I use the term educated man, I do not mean the individual who hasmemorized a thousand facts and assembled in his mind a million data, on the basis of which he has earned a string of academic degrees. I do not mean to minimize theimportance of memory, for it is stating the obvious when I say we should be able toobserve, sort out and remember relevant facts so we may have a sound basis for each judgment. Of Themistocles, it has been said that he knew by heart the names of twentythousand citizens of Athens; and Cyrus, it is recorded, knew every soldier in his hugearmy. Indeed, how refreshing it would be for our youth to learn by heart Jesusinimitable Sermon on the Mount, the magnificent soliloquies of Shakespeare, theunforgettable dialogues of Plato and in our own land, the lofty language of Arellano andLaurel, the trenchant outbursts of Manuel Quezon and the elegant prose of Claro M.Recto. How inspiring it would be for our young men and women to remember thehistoric landmarks in our struggle for freedom - from the heroism of Lapu-lapu to thelonely battle of Del Pilar at Tirad Pass, from the field of Bagumbayan where the youngRizal met his tragic death to the dark dungeons of Fort Santiago, where the youth of theland suffered a thousand times and met a thousand deaths! Nor do I minimize the significance of degrees and diplomas in a degree-conscious society such as we have,except to emphasize the danger of mistaking a degree for intellectual worth. A collegegraduate has once been described as one who at the end of his studies is presented witha sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.When I say educated man, I do not refer to the skilled engineer, the able triallawyer, the talented musician, the gifted writer, or the expert surgeon. Far be it from meto underrate the importance of skills and talents. Sometime ago, I made reference to thefact that while we have abundant natural resources in this country, we do not havesufficient skills to make this country great. Japan is relatively poor in natural resources,with land scarcely enough to sustain her tremendous population, but despite a war thatlaid waste her towns and cities, she has recovered and come back with greater vigorbecause she has a people of abundant skills.But I would like to submit the proposition that one becomes a great scientist, an ablelawyer, or a noted writer, only because he is first - and pre-eminently - a good man. Anabundant talent employed to serve an evil end is a prostitution of divine endowment.What, then, is the educated man? Is he the man who has read a lot? Partly yes,because his reading is serious and discriminate and uplifting. Is he the man whoremembers many facts and events? Partly yes, because the training of memory is awholesome discipline that requires effort and application and because one cannot makea sound judgement without respect for remembered facts. Is the educated man, then, onewho because of his skill is able to provide for himself and his family? Partly yes, sinceeducation should teach us how to make a living. But there is one thing we should alwaysremember and it is this - that far more important than the making of a living, is a livingof life - a good life, a meaningful life, an abundant life.The educated man lives this kind of a life, because he has opened the windows of hismind to great thoughts and ennobling ideas; because he is not imprisoned by the printedpage, but chooses to make a relentless, rigorous analysis and evaluation of everything hereads; because he is less interested in the accumulation of degrees than in thestimulation of his mind and the cultivation of a generous spirit; because his interest isless in knowing who is right but more importantly, in discerning what is right anddefending it with all the resources at his command; because he can express himself clearly and logically, with precision and grace; because he is not awed by authority, butis humble enough to recognize that his best judgment is imperfect and may well betainted by error or pride; because he has a deep reverence for the inherent worth anddignity of every human being, as a creature of God; because he has a healthy sense of values, a breadth of outlook and the depth of compassion which a purposeful educationgenerates; because whenever he talks about good government he is prepared and willingto sacrifice himself for it; and because he lives a life of relevance to the world in which we live, a sharing in the problems of his time and doing whatever he can withintelligence and fairness and understanding.In short, it is the responsibility of Silliman, as in all other institutions of learning inthis country, to produce the educated man and to produce him in such number and of such high quality of excellence that Silliman products will be a leavening influence in atime of great challenge and in a world of countless perils. But Silliman is not just anyother university - it is a Christian institution. The message of Jesus has a wealth of meaning it cannot afford to ignore - Be ye the salt of the earth... Be ye the light of theworld. And when Silliman produces, as it has in the past, these kind of men, we maybetter appreciate the truth and beauty of the words of Emerson: -Not gold, but only men, can makeA nation great and strong.Men who, for truth and honors sake,Stand fast and suffer long.Brave men, who work while others sleep,Who dare while others shy.They build a nations pillars deep,And lift them to the sky. *
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 04:41:57 +0000
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