But there are other motives for education, besides bread winning and
bettering one's material condition. I remember at Harvard how Charles
Eliot Norton, Prof. Thayer, the New Testament Greek scholar, and Dean C.
C. Everett, of the Harvard Divinity School, impressed students by the
grandeur and nobility of their character. And one, knowing them
instinctively, felt that they realized our ideal of personality. I can see
again the cultured Norton, whom Ruskin said was the only American he met
who was a gentleman. I can see the tall, handsome, erect Thayer, with
musical voice, gracious manners and buoyant walk, whom the boys called
"the captain." I can see again Dean Everett, who blended the wisdom of a
Nestor with a transparent simplicity who blended granite strength of
character with a Christ-like tenderness. And I can see again that trio of
famous Harvard professors, James, Royce and Palmer--the first
distinguished by his buoyancy of spirit, the second by his serenity and
the third by his refinement. And then I can see that famous Yale
philosopher, George Trumbull Ladd, a descendant of Elder Brewster and
Governor Bradford, who came over in the Mayflower, and who himself was a
splendid representative of modern puritanism. These and a score of other
professors in my college days were what ex-President Timothy Dwight of
Yale would call men of high character, and they made the students feel
that merely to achieve character was something worth the effort and
striving. And Dr. Alexander Crummell thought so too. One of the blessings
which this terrible war brought to the world was the lesson that there are
other values in life besides the piling up and the hoarding of money.
I realize that this is a materialistic age. But I am an optimist, not so
much because I believe in the Englishman or the American, as because I
believe in God. I do not believe that the universe is the product of the
blind play of atoms or the chance concourse of electrons. But I believe
that the intricacy of the structure of the atoms, the law and order that
is enthroned in the heavens above from farthest star across the milky way
to farthest star are silent but patent witnesses to the fact that a
Universal Mind is back of and behind and manifests Himself in the
universe. I believe that this Universal Mind works in the hearts and
consciences of men and that He is the ground and source and fount of their
noble impulses and higher aspirations. And I believe that "Eternal Power,
not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," will continue to stir in the
hearts and minds of men until they see the sin of damning a man because of
the color of his skin.
If we believe in God and believe as Crummell believed that the black man
can scale the heights of human achievement and gain the summit, if we
believe that we do not represent a stage in the evolution from the monkey
to man, but that, in the language of Terence, Rome's tawny-colored poet,
we are men and that nothing that is common to humanity is foreign to us, a
spirit will be generated in us that no oppression can crush, no obstacles
can daunt and no difficulties can overpower. Quicken in the Negro youth of
the land a belief in the mighty hopes that make us men and we will write
deeds upon the pages of history, as our black brothers wrote theirs in
letters of blood upon the sunlit plains of fair France, that will command
the attention and compel the recognition of a hostile world.