Educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, Du Bois was first and foremost an academic. He was also a writer, editor, sociologist, historian, poet, and civil rights activist. He believed "scientifc study" was the key to solving most of the world's ills (particularly the problem of the color line in the United States and the problem of third world oppression globally) and dedicated his life to this kind of study. For Du Bois, being smart in the world mattered. More than that, being smart obligated you to making a difference. It is his example I think of when I need reminding that I'm not wasting my life away as an academic.
"Teach workers to work, -- a wise saying; wise when applied to German boys and American girls; wiser when said of Negro boys, for they have less knowledge of working and none to teach them. Teach thinkers to think, -- a needed knowledge in a day of loose and careless logic; and they whose lot is gravest must have the carefulest training to think aright. If these things are so, how foolish to ask what is the best education for one or seven or sixty million souls! shall we teach them trades, or train them in liberal arts? Neither and both: teach the workers to work and the thinkers to think; make carpenters of carpenters, and philosophers of philosophers, and fops of fools. Nor can we pause here. We are training not isolated men but a living group of men, -- nay, a group within a group. And the final product of our training must be neither a psychologist nor a brickmason, but a man. And to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure, and inspiring ends of living, -- not sordid money-getting, not apples of gold. The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame. And all this is gained only by human strife and longing; by ceaseless training and education; by founding Right on righteousness and Truth on the unhampered search for Truth."
Recommended: Souls of Black Folk
Recommended: Souls of Black Folk
