Speech at the University of Massachusetts concerning what the university should or will do, 1970 December

Julian Bond

The ability of the university to continue while faced with a number of hazards and attacks from inside and out must have been a topic of discussion shortly after the first collection of scholars and students gathered together to paint the walls of a cave.

In twentieth century America, however, it seems to occupy more and more the consciousness of the schooled and unschooled; the continuing question of what the university should or will do or be goes unanswered.

A part of this dilemma, is usmmed up by a young lady, a former student at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, who wrote of her reaction upon discovering that Brown University in Providence, R.I., and Tougaloo had entered into a compact, with Brown acting as big brother.

"We argued," she wrote, "that Tougaloo could do better, that we did not have to pattern ourselves after Brown or any of the Ivy League schools, that we had an opportunity to make Tougaloo a revolutionary

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institute of learning. We questioned the notion that Brown offered a superior education; we felt in fact taht t hey dealt in mid-education. We felt that if schools like Brown had been truly education their studetns then the state of the country adn the world would be a lot different."

The dilemma of what the university ougth to be - a Brown University, massive and omnipotent, or a Tougaloo, small and intimate - is only a part of the question raised on campus today.

Aside from the great and predominate question of race, the question is: what have all of these educated unviersity trained people been doing to the rest of us? That is the primary question of the day.

One might beleive that it is educated and civilised man - the prime product of the university - who has put us where we are today. The rape of Vietnam was not begun by high school drop outs, but by liberally educated men.

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The pollution of the air and water is not carried out by fools and idiots, but by|men educated at the best scientific and technical centers. The ability to shape a society taht spends nearly one hundred billions on conquering space and dominating the globe militarily comes from men of genius, not from men whos minds are limited.

Civilized man, or educated man, is supposed to solve his problems in a civilised manner.

But the problems of the 20th century are so vast that many have quite properly been urged to seek uncivilised solutions to them. These problems include the poisoning of the air and water; the rape of the land; the new colonialization of peoples, both here and abroad; the new imperialism practiced by western democracy, and the continuing struggle of those who have not against those who have.

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With the birth, two hundred years ago, of the colossus called the United States, rational and educated men began to believe that civilisation stretched to its highest order had begun. Building on a heritage of revolution, expressing a belief in the equality of most, if not all men, this new democracy was to be the highest eelevation of man's relations, one to the other, and a new beginning of decency between nations.

Civilisation, as it was then defined, included imposing limitations on war between nations, encouraging the spread of industrialization, the civilizating of so-called heathen elements, the harnessing of nature for the beenfit and pleasure of man. It was believed generally that man's better nature would triumph over his base desire to conquer and rule and make war, and that intellect, reason and logic would share equally with morality in deciding man's fate.

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"Of course|it has not been so. Man still makes war, he still insists that one group subordinate its wishes and desires to that of another, he still insists on gather material wealth at the expense of his fellows and his environment.

"Men and nations have grown arrogant, and the struggle of the 20th century has continued.

"And while the struggle has continued, the unviersity has remained aloof, a cetner for the study of why man behaves as he does, but never a center for the study of how to make man behave in a civilised manner.

"Robert M. Hutchins, former chancellor of the University of Chicago, descries the present day university thusly: it was hoped "it would lead the way to national power and prosperity...become the central factory of the knowledge industry, the foundation of our future. (But it became)... the national screening device