My father graduated from Purdue University in 1943 at the age of 21, in chemical engineering.  The degree was expedited, being required to be completed in three years, instead of the usual four, due to the World War.  The course of study was arduous and rigorous.  According to my family’s oral history, my father’s cousin, also pursuing the same degree, had a nervous breakdown and could not finish.  This graduating class of 1943’s yearbook was entitled “Debris of ‘43.”  At some point my father entered the Army Air Corp.  In 1945 he was registered by the War Manpower Commission on the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel.  Over the years my father was employed in a variety of increasingly complex and responsible engineering positions.

In 2021, my father died at 99 years of age of complications from Covid.  A few days ago, I was looking through a box of his papers and found, enclosed with his diploma, the address of the then President of Purdue University, Edward C. Elliott, to the Class of August, 1943.  I hadn’t seen it before.  It struck me deeply.  It was in stark contrast to the hedonistic, narcissistic, and selfish aspects of too much of our society today.

Edward C. Elliott (public domain photo)

President Elliott started the address by writing, “You have been submitted to the Purdue process of higher scientific training.  From that critical part of your life spent on this campus, three results are assumed.  First, a right set has been given to your character.  You have gained competency for skillful service in your chosen field of useful work.  And, finally, your aspirations for personal achievements have been energized.”

In the crucible of world war, these three assumed results of the university curriculum were believed to be crucial for the individual and for the nation.  There was nothing frivolous.  There was nothing destructive of soul or society.  The desired results were a formula that had made America successful throughout its history: character, skill in useful work, and personal achievement.

In retrospect, there were many evidences during my father’s life that this educational approach had profoundly affected him in positive ways.  There also must have been many other graduates equally influenced.  I regret that I only developed the deep respect that I should have had for my father after his death.  Testimony of his character is inscribed on his grave marker, a quote from the King James Bible, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good.”                                                      

Yet character, skill in useful work, and personal achievement were to be in the context of unselfish service to the Nation.  President Elliott continued the address by writing, “The demands of these days of struggle for survival have compelled the Nation to draw a requisition for the maximum unselfish use of this character, this competency, and these aspirations.”

Reading on, a short sentence hits hard.  President Elliott had injected, “But that is not enough.”

President Elliot explained, “As educated men and women you need to know the meaning of human freedom, and to appreciate the price, in the forms of sacrifice and heroism, that mankind has paid, and is now paying on a hundred battle fronts, to gain and to hold that freedom.”  Having a right understanding of the history of the quest for and cost of human freedom is a requisite of a sound education.  Yet today, history is being rewritten to justify radical or enemy agenda and dogma so much so that the very fabric of our culture is at risk.

President Elliott went on to reference great works that today are almost universally forgotten, withheld, overlooked, misinterpreted, discounted, or weakened.  He wrote, “…there is no complete American education that does not include an understanding of the power” of “the great historical documents” that record humankind’s progress towards freedom.   He referenced the Sermon on the Mount, the Magna Charta, the Mayflower Compact, the English Declaration of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, the Constitution of the United States, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the American Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and the Atlantic Charter.  Undoubtably, had President Elliott been alive up until our time he would have included others.

President Elliott’s last statement was “may you not forget that Purdue does include each of these great documents as an essential part of that education of which you are now the living instruments.”  As a living instrument, it is within one’s sphere of influence where the opportunity and power to achieve and hold freedom, liberty, and justice reside.  Ripples extending out from those spheres of influence can change the course of our Nation.  Teaching generations that follow preserves.  This unofficial representative of the Greatest Generation, President Elliott, is calling out to our day.

My father was a good man.  Unfortunately, but realistically, good men and women make mistakes.  I wish that my father himself had taught me the crucial information in this address to his graduating class of 1943, rather than relying on the public educational system to train me on such matters of importance.  It’s taken until my 71st year of age to receive the message.  Nevertheless, I have begun to share President Elliott’s patriotic formula with those in my circles of influence.  In my opinion, it is requisite of one to do so.