The call to service: A commencement address (cont.)
Parts 4 and 5 of John Erskine's essay, "The Call to Service" from his collection of essays, *The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent*.
I can imagine that some of you will be as little troubled by the insufficiency of science as by the shortcomings of religion; you have heard the call to service, but you understand it as a call to teach. Observing that I am by profession a teacher, you probably think that I have saved up education for the end of my discourse as a happy contrast to those other ways of serving. The call to service does indeed seem to be a summons to inquiry, whether of religion or science or any other region of faith or experience, and the life of inquiry might seem to be the life of a college professor. The college is supposed to be a place of precious leisure, in which truth may be sought without distraction. It is not directly practical nor serviceable; it is the gymnasium rather than the arena of the spirit. As its name implies, it is a collection of diverse minds and natures, strengthening their noblest impulses and their finest knowledge by a communal sharing. Into this charged atmosphere of the spirit a student enters, to learn his capacities and to develop them, as his teachers develop theirs, by this high traffic of soul and soul. The service which the college can render is to keep the atmosphere properly charged—to see that there are enough teachers and enough students, so that this interchange of character may be complete. The ideal is a byword—"Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a boy on the other,"
The log, of course, is not necessary. It is only a convenience. But unfortunately the college is seized with that spirit of service which looks for quick results. Neither Mark Hopkins nor the boy can be organized and administered to serve any very immediate popular demand; it is the log, therefore, that the colleges have organized and elaborated. With the sincerest desire to be of service to the greatest number—if possible, to all who present themselves—they have ex- tended the log till some of the boys are almost out of earshot of Mark Hopkins, and for weak backs they have inserted a few bolsters. How narrow and unsympathetic sounds an extract from the report to the trustees of Columbia College in 1810 on the state of instruction in that institution—"Your committee cannot for a moment suppose that it is the intention of the Board to try that most fruitless and mischievous experiment—the experiment of educating either the naturally stupid or the incurably idle."
In justice to the modern educator who does not admit the existence of any such class as the naturally stupid or the incurably idle, be it said that he lives up to his ideal of service, even to the forfeiture of that leisurely investigation and contemplation of truth which is the prime delight of the scholar. The log has not been easy to organize. The college professor has had to manipulate embarrassing entrance requirements, and make the curriculum pliable, and serve as preceptor to the near-idle and as adviser to the near-stupid; nay, having evolved this system of dependence in intellectual things, he has carried it, in the spirit of service, into the amusements of the students, until he acts as director of their sports and treasurer of their gate receipts and sponsor of their business contracts. All this takes time. In more leisurely days the scholar would come from his meditations upon great truths like the prophet from Sinai, with the skin of his face shining. Now from a conference with student managers or from investigating the eligibility of the football captain he returns with that nervous step, that fretful eye, that palpable collapse of spirit, which announce to his sympathetic colleagues, "I have served."
Yet he would still have his reward, did his labors ennoble the served, or confer upon them a more abundant life. That the effect is otherwise might be prophesied from a certain complacency in his sacrifice. If he looks down to those he serves, if the angle of his condescension is to himself the warrant of his welldoing, if football or the college dramatics be not really his career, but only an excuse for demonstrating to the youngsters that he can still revisit their point of view—then he has robbed them of what it is his profession to give; robbed them not simply in their greater dependence, in their lessening enthusiasm and ability to conduct their own affairs, but far more tragically in the defeat of their right to live in the presence, and profit by the inspiration, of a scholar who follows with his whole heart the great quest of truth. Whether or not it is the students' duty to study, it is their right to behold the scholar at his work, and to imitate him; for it is by comradeship and imitation that they share the teacher's life. But if the teacher keeps his scholarship out of the comradeship and the life which they share; if he manages his days as though scholarship were a solace of the leisure to be earned by service, or a hoarded treasure not to be rashly displayed—he will no more make others scholarly than a priest who conceals his holiness will make others holy, or a scientist who does not live his science will make others scientific.
It would be wrong to let you think that by entering any great profession? even my own, you will automatically enter the life of genuine service. With teaching, with science, with religion, I have no quarrel; I long ago gave my allegiance to all three, and it is from noble priests and scholars and teachers that I have drawn the ideals here set forth. But while human nature remains what it is, there is a great temptation to mistake immediate results for the true ends, to impart the by-products rather than the vital principle, to think of ourselves as conserving the torch, instead of handing it on. The mass of mankind are good-natured enough to let us treat them for a certain length of time as objects of charity, as destined to be served, but there is an end to their good nature. In religion this conclusion has already shown itself; in science and in education the writing is on the wall. For that reason I hesitated to call you to service, lest you should understand the summons only in the familiar way, and by your enthusiasm should make the gulf wider between your ideals and your fellow-men. But to be truly serviceable is our loftiest ambition. The service we dream of is such education, such religion, such science, as will increase in all men the abundance of life. The method we dream of is such an illustration of religion or science or scholarship in our own lives as will increase in others a hunger for the same spiritual sustenance. To make this illustration, we must first cultivate religion or science or scholarship in ourselves.
This is the statement of the call to service which I have been approaching slowly and with care, for to the generous-hearted it is on first acquaintance a hard saying. Seek truth or seek goodness for yourselves, if you wish others to have it. If you rise to your own stature, you will thereby perform all the service you could desire—you will help others to rise. Doubtless some of your neighbors will think you selfish. Doubtless the man who buried his talent in a napkin was answering the call to service elsewhere. The sacrifice was his own concern, but the service so rendered must have been for the served also a lessening of spiritual wealth. True service lessens nothing. Not that the teacher should waste himself in the enterprises of boyhood, but that even boys should fall in love with the enterprise of truth; not that the scientist should become a commodity-monger, but that all men should enjoy the high commodity of the scientific spirit; not that the priest should be secularized, but that by a race-wide consecration man should become a nation of priests—this is the end of true service. For this we must be patient and with becoming care make ourselves ready; it is required of us only that we be productive of good at last. For a thousand years of inspiration to unnumbered men, how brief an investment are the forty years, or fifty, of the scholar's seclusion, the saint's discipline! Meanwhile the humble apprentice, so he be faithful, is even at the moment serviceable; for none of us can withdraw himself so far, but he will be still a ganglion of inspiration for all whose fate, by accident or kinship, is bound with his. We cannot too greatly desire to bring our fellows to the truth, but we may underestimate their own desire for it. When we ourselves seek it, every man who feels our contact will go with us.
This is the true call to service—not, "The world is waiting for you—come and help it"; but, "Are you fit to serve? Do you know how to live your own life? Either religion or science may be for you the City of God. If the ramparts need rebuilding, take counsel of those ancient men who after long captivity raised again the walls of Jerusalem. Every man built in front of his own house."
Education, Serialized, a section of EduThirdSpace: The Newsletter, features retellings of how education has been viewed over the course of history from books, reports, letters, and so forth. The posts in this section are the words of the authors and not editorialized by me, Samantha, or anyone else. However, interpretation or commentary on the texts may be published in other sections of EduThirdSpace.