An old Chinese proverb contains wisdom. If you are planning a year ahead, plant rice; if 10 years, plant trees; if a 100 years, educate people. The proverb was often quoted by Herman Wells, President and Chancellor of Indiana University 50 years ago. The proverb was true when Wells was active. It was true hundreds of years ago in China. It is true and urgent in Montgomery County today.
The proverb’s three phases are correct. Planning for one’s wellbeing is necessary and imperative. Few of us grow our own food, but we must garner the resources to provide for basic needs. For some that means working two or three jobs to earn modest incomes. Even at this level, learning can improve livelihood. We have all heard the saying, “Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Few can make a living by fishing; diverse skills are now necessary to make a life.
A friend plants thousands of trees on his tree plantations northeast of Crawfordsville. He is retirement age, so he is planting trees that he will not live to see harvested. His heirs and grandchildren will gain the financial benefit. In the meantime, the trees surround us with beauty and with a cloud of fresh air and oxygen. Some fruit trees can be harvested in 10 years. We benefit from such planning and planting.
The critical issue today is the third clause: “If you are planning for a 100 years, educate people.” Education is debased in many contexts today. Higher educational institutions are in crisis because fewer youth are reaching college age and young people are being discouraged from taking the time and making the effort to obtain an education. The emphasis is on obtaining skills that prepare them for entry-level jobs in local businesses and industry, which consign them to minimum wages with few opportunities for advancement.
Reliable studies show that failure to obtain a high school education results in poverty. A couple stories of dropouts developing million-dollar products are bright lights that blind us from the reality of ninety-nine percent who cannot do that. Statistics show that those who have college degrees earn over a million dollars more than high school graduates in their lifetime. Our certain future is that rapid developments in technology will change work in ways that require a person to change occupations several times in a lifetime. Re-skilling and up-skilling are future job paths. Learning how to learn, to be creative, and to adapt is essential and more important than learning specific skills.
Equally important, more education improves health. We know that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is harmful to health. Statistically, being educated improves health as much a smoking harms health. Correlation of effects is not proof of cause-and-effect results, but they show that educated people are more healthy than uneducated people.
Quality of life is often ignored when talking about education. Emphasis is generally upon trying to get an economic advantage with the question being, “What size paycheck does it produce?” Of course, it is necessary to climb the first mountain of economic security. David Brooks points to the second more important mountain to climb, which is to attain a higher quality of life beyond economic security.
“Ignorance is bliss” is a dangerous, false saying we have all heard. Ignorance leads to enslavement and disaster for a person, a family, a community, and a nation. Ponder this wise saying, “Teach a youth to read, and he will always be free.” That requires a liberal education — the liberal arts, much maligned, that are the skills of freedom. Knowledge, wisdom, and good education lead to our flourishing and flourishing of our neighbors in Crawfordsville and Montgomery County.
Raymond Brady Williams, Crawfordsville, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus, contributed this guest column.
