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Brown Bag Series

College of Education and Human Services
Undergraduate Commencement Speaker
Friday, May 8, 2009

Edgar E. Roulhac, PhD, MPH
Vice Provost for Academic Services
Johns Hopkins University

Horace Mann Revisited

Provost Donald Rice, Dean Kenneth Teitelbaum, distinguished faculty and colleagues; dear parents, spouses, relatives, and guests; and, yes, to my very eager members of the 2009 graduating class of the College of Education and Human Services – greetings and I salute you!

Many of you already know – but I want to share publically – how deeply honored and thrilled I am to have this opportunity to contribute to these commencement exercises.  Indeed, I am truly humbled – and still a bit numb – having received your 2009 College of Education and Human Services Alumni Achievement Award. 

Although forty years ago, it seems that it was only yesterday that I sat,  somewhat nervously, doing what you’re doing and feeling what you’re feeling.  It seemed as if an eternity would pass before the arrival of that magic moment when a bachelor’s degree would become my prized possession.  Was my tassel tossed correctly?  Could my parents, sister, relatives, and especially my girlfriend identify me amidst this majestic sea of fellow graduates?  What did the diploma look like?  What did it say?  Was my name spelled correctly?  What’s would it be like to become a real professional? 

And then, a sobering thought hit me!  Oops!  Did I remember to pay that outstanding $15.00 library fee?  I honestly couldn’t recall having done so!  Gulp!

Well, let me assure you that, at least from my vantage point, most of your tassels do seem to have the correct orientation.  I’ve been advised by Dean Teitelbaum that your names have been checked and double-checked for accuracy.  Furthermore, we all know that on the eve of Mother’s Day, visual acuity increases at least one thousand-fold.  I’m sure that your family and loved-ones have already zeroed-in on your exact location – have no fear! 

However, I would like to talk with you about that overdue – and perhaps not fully appreciated – outstanding fee.  No, not a library or an Internet service provider fee!  I’m referring to a much deeper debt – your future obligation to society.

In the next ten minutes, I’d like to share some thoughts that might cling-to as you seek and explore a new and well deserved professional role and status.

As educators and human services professionals, what are your societal obligations?

I recall exploring this question one summer as a sophomore at SIU.  Three circumstances helped define that question.  The first – was that I had just gotten a part-time job delivering mail for the campus post office.  The second – was that my mail route included the Wham Building where the College of Education and Human Services is now located.  The third – and most important – was that every day for many weeks I walked passed a black marble pedestal in the lobby of Wham that held an anatomically accurate bust of Horace Mann.  I guarantee you that lugging a 30 pound bag of mail across campus during the dog days of summer in Southern Illinois will cause anyone to seriously ponder their future career prospects!  Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me.  Who was Horace Mann?  What was his philosophy?  How did he earn a bronze bust on a marble pedestal?  It was in the book stacks of Morris Library that I found the answer.

Over the years Horace Mann became one of my silent mentors, because, in a professional sense, his pathway parallels that, somewhat, of Mahatma Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.  Horace Mann risked, and eagerly relinquished, both monetary and professional wealth in order that he might serve and enlighten mankind, particularly those who were disenfranchised, and especially minorities – who were then referred to as slaves.  He actively opposed this horrible tradition. 

Horace Mann, one of five children, was born 210 years ago into unremitting poverty and the harsh realities of farm-life in Franklin, Massachusetts.  His very early childhood was tainted by the premature death of this father and older brother.  He was needlessly consumed with fear, imparted largely by church teachings that God’s wrath might also claim his life as well.  On the positive side, his mother and siblings did what they could to instill in young Horace a strong sense of morality and self-reliance.  Fortunately, he developed an insatiable appetite for knowledge and, subsequently, graduated with high honors from Brown University in 1819.  By 1823 he was admitted to the practice of law.  In 1833, he left a lucrative law practice, and all the prestige he has gained as President of the Massachusetts State Senate, to become obscure and underpaid as the State’s first Secretary of Education.  And it was here that Horace Mann found his reason to exist “... to do something for the benefit of mankind ... and to combat the grief and despair which had held him in clutch ...” since his early childhood. 

Let’s revisit some of his good deeds.

At the beginning of Horace Mann’s tenure as Secretary of Education, free public schools in the State of Massachusetts were in a disastrous state of affairs.  They were grossly disorganized and decentralized; woefully underfinanced and neglected by the general public; completely dilapidated; and shamefully unsanitary.  Barely a third of the state’s school-aged population even attended public schools, and those that did were the, so-called, “common children.”  The school term was much too short to effectuate deep learning; teachers were grossly untrained, underpaid, and unmotivated; and teaching methods were generally incredibility irrational, insensitive and ineffective. 

For fifteen years, Horace Mann championed the cause of change and innovation in public education.  He is called the father of the modern era of American public education because his pioneering efforts sharply aroused the public’s respect and support.  He helped standardize the school calendar, and connected the school curriculum to useful social outcomes.  In large part, he was influential in replacing corporal punishment with kindness; with improving elementary school teaching methods; and increasing salaries for teachers, especially for women.  Horace Mann made schools in Massachusetts physically safe and sound.  He founded the nation’s first teacher training programs and helped established the nation’s first “normal schools” – an important and cherished dimension of SIU’s distinguished history.  Most importantly, he helped to found the principal of free elementary and secondary education for all children, for all people.  Today, this concept is called equal educational opportunity.

Horace Mann’s impact has been immensely positive – both nationally and internationally – and his contributions persist even today. 

Yet, I would be less than honest with you if I failed to convey how deeply troubled I am by what is, or more appropriately, by what is not happening in family settings and in classrooms across America, in communities large and small, rich and poor.

Before instruction and learning can properly occur, parents, teachers and students alike find it necessary to intellectually and physically brace themselves against the rising tide of drug abuse, childhood obesity, unwanted pregnancy, alcohol related injury, school homicide, homelessness and hunger – just to mention a few!  Our demographers tell us these unconscionable social obstacles will only intensify in the future – no one is immune!   And all of this is happening at a point in time in US history when college graduates in education and human services are needed the most! 

And so, how will you respond if, and when, a drug over-dose, attempted rape, or another one of life’s dramatic unconscionable obstacles unfolds before your very eyes in your classroom or office – only to disrupt an otherwise perfect day at work?  And better yet, what is your responsibility for what happens outside of the classroom, where the lesson plans of street life are taught by professionals of quite another sort? 

Let’s revisit Horace Mann’s instructive philosophy for some guidance and reaffirmation.

Horace Mann felt that education was “the great equalizer of the conditions of men and women.”  He firmly believed that “social and economic distinctions, unless reduced by a common educational experience, would create communities of interest that would eventually ...” divide mankind.  Said simply, Horace Mann believed that education was the “balance wheel of society,” indeed, of life itself.  He suggests that educators and human services professionals – such as you and I – must be fully and forever committed to provide those incessant sparks or creativity that somehow, over these many years, have helped keep America’s social and economic gyroscopes spinning.  America’s Fortune 500 companies and major foundations have long championed the establishment of creative partnerships with schools and communities to boost interest and proficiency in math and science because their future success is inextricably tied to the energized minds and hearts of graduates who will become their future employees, scientists, engineers and corporate leaders.  However, today’s economic ills have stalled these efforts and the time has come for you and me to pick-up-the-slack and help shield our great American tradition of self-actualization, reclaim our physical environment, and re-position our educational systems to meet sobering challenges of the current decade.

Horace Mann once noted that “observation (is an) activity of both (the) eyes and (the) ears.”  In view of the challenges we face over the next decade, I believe Horace Mann would instruct us to observe the needs of students and clients we serve with great diligence and objectivity – and in technicolor, so that everyone is part of the solution.  He would instruct us to penetrate to the very depths of our hearts and souls to discover professional truth and deliverance, no matter how exciting or painful the revelation.  Because of experiences endured as a child, Horace Mann, in his own way, must have been sensitive to the fact that a young child’s developing personality craves parental love, attention and trust.  Horace Mann helped replace corporal punishment with kindness in the classroom, and you and I must broaden this to provide, on an individual basis if necessary, whatever professional love, attention and trust that is needed to help children voluntarily reduce their own susceptibility to the growing appeal of crime, drugs and violence.

Horace Mann, had a great sense of urgency about most matters, and once observed that “Lost yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, (were) two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond-like minutes ... they are gone forever.”  American public education, with growing support from faculty and practicing professionals alike, is more effectively confronting many of the social obstacles I mentioned earlier.  But more time will need to pass before true victory can be recognized.  Until then, you and I shouldn’t, for one diamond-like minute, loose faith or forget that almost any obstacle can be overcome if we use our time and resources wisely.  In the press of time we are often tempted to take short cuts.  Some are possible because of advanced technology.  For example, in the classroom should the power of the math co-processor be emphasized over the power of thought, a sharp pencil, a good eraser, and plain piece of paper?  Clearly, the successful professional in 2009 and beyond must depend upon neither high technology, nor low technology, but upon an artful blend of the two.

An excellent example of this is the role education played in the seemingly impossible task of eliminating smallpox from the face of the earth.  On the high-tech side, a stable, safe and effective vaccine was readily available that could be carried directly into the field without risk of spoilage.  On the low-tech side, a simple, hand-held, metal needle could be used to inoculate endangered humans.  The inoculation process was simple to both teach and learn.  The difficult part, however, was convincing millions of remote villagers across 69 drastically different and sometimes warring cultures and nations to undergo the strange practice of inoculation, as well as help identify relatives and friends who were unprotected by the umbrella of mass immunization.  Most had never seen a public health worker before!  Yet, in 1976, for the first time in human history, a once truly pandemic disease had been completely eliminated, and this  couldn’t have been achieved without family and community involvement in a massive education program.  As an observer of the conclusion of this campaign, what I learned was that this seemingly colossal social obstacle was reduced to “zero” not because of a high-tech magic bullet vaccine, not because of the ingenious low-tech bifurcated inoculation needle, but because of get-up-and-go human-technology – that unstoppable, can-do spirit which often permeates a group of highly dedicated, over-worked, and sometimes unappreciated professionals who, nonetheless, join hands, hearts and resources for the singular purpose of saving human kind.  “Zero smallpox” was the official motto then.  Zero drug abuse, zero childhood obesity, zero unwanted pregnancies, zero alcohol related injuries, zero school homicides, and zero child homelessness and hunger must become the motto now!  The chief architect of the worldwide smallpox eradication campaign, my good friend and colleague of the past 31 years, Dr. Donald A. Henderson, now advises officials globally about how to mount effective civilian bio-defense systems – a task that now occupies center stage in view of our current influenza situation.  Clearly, we need future architects and champions in these and many other areas – and that’s exactly where you come in.

Thanks to your faculty mentors and colleagues at SIU, and yes, because of Horace Mann and others, I am optimistic about your response to the challenges we must endure – both now and in the future.  I firmly believe that you, the 2009 graduating class of the College of Education and Human Services, have inherited the responsibility – no, the obligation – to follow Horace Mann’s example by “...resist(ing) the temptation (of mediocrity)” and pursuing excellence in absolutely everything you do as a professional; by serving all students and clients as if each day represented your last opportunity to give; by striving to make a creative difference no matter how microscopic; and by doing something rather than merely dreaming or talking about it.  Yes, mediocrity and complacency and ambivalence have absolutely no place in a true professional’s code of ethics.  

Almost 150 years ago, Horace Mann’s last words to the graduating class at Antioch College, where he was president, were, “be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”  They remain etched on the scroll of my heart forever.  I can only trust that you will remember them as well.

Before I close, allow me to share a short passage taken from John Masefield’s poem entitled, “The University”:

In these days of broken frontiers and collapsing values,
when the dams are down and the floods are making misery,
when every future looks somewhat grim, and
every ancient foothold has become something of a quagmire,
wherever a University stands, it stands and shines;
wherever it exists, the free minds of men [and women],
urged on to full and fair inquiry,
may still bring wisdom into human affairs.

Members of the 2009 graduating class of the College of Education and Human Services, by now you must know that SIU has endowed you with the rare and wonderful asset ... the power of a timeless intellect ... and a distinguished faculty is confident that your life and professional career shall be deeply enriched for many years to come.

And so, on this glorious occasion, the time has come for these several words to set you free and serve you well.

Good luck.  I bid you farewell.  And I know that you will indeed fair well.