p.145, BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS:
SCHOOLMASTER OF THE MOVEMENT, A BIOGRAPHY, by Randal Maurice Jelks
(University of North Carolina Press: 2012)
“Earmarks of an Educated Man.”
“The Morehouse presidency was not
simply a job to [Benjamin Elijah] Mays—it was his pulpit on the
national and world stage. Underlying his preachments to students was
a philosophy of education rooted in his principled democratic beliefs
and an ethical theological vision.
“Mays had long held that education
was more than professional certification. In 1928, in a speech before
a YMCA gathering in Tallahassee, Florida, he gave a talk titled
“Earmarks of an Educated Man.” He told the young men gathered
that to be educated is to be radical. A radical person is one who
thinks for himself by getting at the root of an issue, and in the
case of the black man, radicalism prompts him to acknowledge that the
“Negro is not an inferior.” The second mark of an educated man
was an “open mind.” It was important in life to always learn and
seek out new truth. The third mark was the “courage of conviction.”
To act on a belief, whether it was the Christian faith or not,
required courage. If a person believed in a desegregated society, he
proclaimed his belief without equivocation. Jesus, for example, died
for his convictions. The fourth mark of an educated man was
restlessness. He urged his audience members never to be satisfied or
complacent. Self-satisfaction was always disastrous. Easy contentment
never brought out the best in a person or lead to high achievement.
The fifth mark was “an appreciation of all values and all
knowledge.” It was important for students to understand that
knowledge was vast and wide and came from many places. He emphasized
that the goal of education was to instill in a people an appreciation
of different philosophical and cultural values as they shaped their
own lives. The final mark was sensitivity to “social and economic
injustices.” It was important that an educated person be sensitive
to the most vulnerable in society. For Mays, it was not enough for an
educated individual to serve his own needs; education was a privilege
requiring that an individual serve others. Being truly educated, he
believed, meant that one should practice altruism and
self-sacrifice.”
