The Obligation of Education

"As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped it."

First Part, At Marygreen Chapter II Pg. 13

I few weeks back, my friend Jubilant told a brief story of his ditch-digging experience before his life in academia. The story was brief, perhaps only a few sentences, but it was an intriguing tale. Ditch-digging was a brutally laborious process. After a few short weeks, the menial tasks, animalistic coworkers, and inebriated nights profoundly effected Jubilant. His brief interlude in the ditch-digging world noticeably decreased his intellect and he slowly felt himself molding into the disagreeable environment around him. Jubilant, wanting a fuller life, escaped the numbing effects of ditch digging and entered eagerly into higher education.

Now imagine the slow, desperate feeling that Jubilant experienced and remove any opportunity for an escape. It is all together an dreadful consideration. This quietly hopeless predicament is the life of Jude Fawley.

I think of Jubilant’s story and the Jude’s plight when I think of my college experience as I have a tale similar to Jubilant’s and an obligation to Jude.

I grew up on a wheat farm in central Kansas. Unlike many urban youths, I spent my childhood performing tasks that were expected of rural Kansas farmboys. We had a large farm – nearly 3000 acres – so the tasks were perpetual. Every November, around planting season, the recently seeded fields required fertilization.

The fertilizer that we often chose was Monsato’s anhydrous ammonia: a nasty concoction of genetic manipulators and only a few molecular shifts away from a nerve gas. Monsanto guarantees and three fold increase in crop yield with the fertilizer. As a result, it is extraordinarily popular.

This modern fertilizer is injected into the soil using an antiquated process. The fertilizer is sold in a gargantuan gas tank that is pulled behind a tractor dusting the tops of the newly spouted seeds. Much of the gas released from the fertilization implement does not reach its intended target. If there is any wind, large quantities of gaseous vapors are swept away. Inevitably, the operator inhales some of the fertilizer and much more dissipates into the surrounding environment. The anhydrous performs well in the soil, but once airborne it becomes a gradually lethal carcinogen that permeates into life around it.

I remember the feeling, the sick eerie malaise that was sure to follow a day of fertilization. The roots of my teeth tickled from an odd numbing sensation that ran from my throat to the bottom of my lungs. Even as a little kid, I knew there was something terribly wrong with this process. However, I never mentioned the feelings to my grandfather, as I did not want to be perceived as complacent or weak. Moreover, the environment on the farm was that of willful ignorance. Working hard through tough conditions was not only encouraged it was expected. The burning sensation in the lungs was something that you had to “man up and deal with.” Like some sadistic right of passage that halfwit farmhands had to endure before they were issued their “man card.” Luckily, I escaped Kansas farm life well before high school, so my personal exposure was minimal. Others were not so lucky.

After four years of natural science courses, I have come to understand the complexities of such chemical exposure. The problem with a gradually lethal carcinogen like anhydrous ammonia is that it takes decades to cause damage. Usually materializing in some form of cancer, the accumulative effects of years of exposure to this chemical are physiologically devastating.

Once a year, usually around Christmas time, I make it back to Kansas and visit my family farm. I try to educate the uneducated and explain the destructive nature of anhydrous ammonia. On one hand, modern influences are sought after by country people and on the other, they are resented and seen as threatening. Largely, I am seen as an ivory tower academic, an elitist too good to dirty his hands and work. Most of the time, my words fall on deaf ears. Change is slow, and acceptance is never complete. But, I have made a difference as we have purchased respirators for operators to wear. Often times, they go unused, but at least they are available. Instead of running away from this ignorance, I feel that I am obligated to change it.

Jude, deprived of the opportunity to go to school through a corrupt class system, still fights the ignorance that surrounds him. Wielding his masonry hammer during the day and reading his personal library at night, Jude is an inspiration to me. I feel that the opportunity to attend the university creates an obligation for me to share the knowledge I have acquired. A confused Sue tell Jude in Melchester

“You are one of the very few men Christminster was intended for when the colleges were founded; a man with a passion but no money, or opportunities, or friends. But you were elbowed off the pavement by the millionaires’ sons.” Part Third, At Melchester Pg. 122

Reading Jude the Obscure and noting the struggles that Jude had in getting into school, I see a tension between the educated and uneducated. This tension, at times, seems like an unbridgeable divide. Certainly, the process of rising above one’s environment to academic accomplishment is a good thing, but returning to that environment and fighting to change it is the true test of an education. Knowledge is worthless unless it is shared with others. The sharing of knowledge is a quintessential part of leadership, and true leaders define themselves to others in a way that improves the future.