Indulge me this brief history jolt before I get to my point:

In 1930, W.E.B. Du Bois gave the commencement address at what was then Howard College. The title of that speech was “Education versus Work.” In it, he addressed what had been, from the late 1800’s to about 1915, a public disagreement between him and the ideas of Booker T. Washington. In a nutshell, Washington gave a speech in 1895 at the Atlanta Exposition in which he called for “Separate but Equal.” He proposed that the African-American community, particularly in the south, should not concern themselves with the folly of higher education, of learning Greek and Latin, when they could barely read and had no job, no money. “He insisted that the former slaves and children of former slaves should “cast down their bucket where they stand.” They should use what they know–agriculture–to build their lives up and make some money to buy some land. Learn a trade, he insisted. He was right; in fact, the school he principled, Tuskegee, is now one of the leading universities in the world, particularly in aeronautical engineering.

But at the time there was only one source of financial support for this so-called industrial education: Industrialists like J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and others. This in itself wasn’t so bad, but there are some who, though at first supported Washington, started to recognize that he was popular–world famous in fact–with the White leaders of the country because not only was he not threatening, he was downright compromising (in fact, that speech he gave in Atlanta later became known as the “Great Compromise Speech”).

One of those dissenters was the first Black PH.D from Harvard, a man who wrote the treatise on the poor of Philadelphia: Du Bois. He wrote a book called The Souls of Black Folk, and in chapter three, called “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington,” he calls out his friend and colleague for undermining their pursuit of equality in this country. He said that at least ten percent of every race are leaders, the ones who insure the progress of the other ninety percent. He called it the “Talented Tenth.” These were the people who would pull the train. Because no matter how much money they earned, what kind of land they might buy, if they didn’t have CEO’s in the boardroom, representation in Congress, lawyers and judges to defend them and insure justice, they would just be taken advantage of by systemic racism and hatred. He was right. He stated when speaking of Washington’s speech in retrospect, that, “In one five minute speech Mr. Washington set back our hopes of Civil Rights in this country by decades.” He was right again. He was not against industrial education; in fact, he wrote and spoke often of the brilliance of the ideas of Washington. He just insisted those progresses came at a cost, and since the only source of money was going to industrial pursuits, the cost was much too high. “We must,” he insisted, “put all of our efforts into insisting on our rights to higher education, if not for any other reason than to protect our welfare.”

Okay. Now this:

This meme has been circulating with what looks like a very cool version of The Village People with the tag, “Promote trade schools with the same passion we promote college.”

No, I don’t believe I will. I support them, of course. I absolutely support trade schools; the vast majority of the people I know are in the trades: electricians, HVAC, construction, mechanics with auto and marine specialties for which they went to trade schools. For thirty years I taught retiring military who first learned a trade and led constructive, successful lives, making a greater contribution to their community and this country than most I’ve ever known. Then they went to college. Of course I support trade schools. On any given day for the past three decades I have recommended students abandon their course of action in higher education and pursue a trade since that is where their passions truly lie.

But my passion is not. My passion is the exchange of ideas, philosophies, and civil discourse. My skills and my support go fully behind learning the thoughts and ideas of the Renaissance, the Classical age, the Greco-Roman period, from when we learn to consider how to argue, how to understand validity and the difference between facts and opinions, where we learn fallacies and how to recognize the intricacies of human behavior and understanding from philosophy to psychology and, of course, the humanities. It is in higher education where we learn the significance of history and its relevance to what happens next; it is where we understand constitutionality and precedents.

Trade schools are essential and those whose ambitions are to pursue excellence in the trades should have the support of everyone. Of course. But do I support the trades with as much passion as I do higher education? Again, absolutely not. When it comes to discourse from experts to dissect what is accurate and what is fable, experts who can check the authorities and keep them in line, balanced, experts who pull the train, I put all my energies behind higher education. Without these experts to study the trends and changes in society, in particular in a global market where trades are no longer simply “local,” the working class, which is made up mostly of tradespeople, would not have a fighting chance in congress, in unions, in contracts, in employment security, benefits, and fair workplace conditions.

There is a place for them both, and we should all support them both; but I’m not going to pretend I don’t first believe in the necessity and power of higher education. I am not proposing, hopefully obviously, everyone should pursue a higher education. People in my life I am closest too and love the most never did. One’s a musician, one a photographer, one a technician, several are watermen, one an electrician, one a contractor. Come on, we need them all.

But we need the study of classical music, of jazz, of literature, of impressionistic art; we need knowledge of the philosophers and the understanding of social sciences; people should know who Albert Schweitzer was, who Emmanuel Kant was, why Bach as so important and how Hemingway not only changed how we write but what we read.

Why? I’m sorry but I’m going to have to quote John Keating again, the character based upon my colleague in writing Sam Pickering: “These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”