Our Heritage and Our Responsibility

OUR HERITAGE AND OUR RESPONSIBILITY Commencement Address, University of Arkansas,June 5, 1954 by Stanley Andrews, Executive Director, National Project in Agricultural Communications Graduates of the 80th Class, University of Arkansas: If I were a preacher seeking a biblical text around which to group the few remarks I make today, I would turn to St. Paul in two of the great letters he wrote as a communicator of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION. They are as follows: Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 22, 26th Verse: "And the chief captain answered, 'with a great sum obtained I this freedom.' But Paul said, 'I was free borne.'" Corinthians, Chapter 4, 9th Verse: "Except ye utter by the tongues, words easy to be understood, how shall it be, ye know what is spoken — for ye shall speak in the air." The graduates of this class, like others in the some 53 land-grant colleges and universities of this country, are the recipients of an important heritage. Arkansas is a land-grant university. These universities are unique in the world of higher education. This system, started in 1855, was a revo- lution in education. They were founded by government grants. They are sup- ported by taxes from all the people. For the first time in this country, or the world, great universities turned their attention not only to the serving of the scholarly but also the practical needs of the common man. Education became one of the fruits of democracy and among the rights of citizenship and a responsibility of the state to provide. This is a part of the heritage which we, as citizens of this state and a nation devoted to free education, have received by virtue of being born here. We, the inheritors, did not have to purchase it at a great price