In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

PART FOUR Intellectual Coming ofAge CHAPTER 11 TOLSTOI AND TOLSON "FARMER, WHAT ARE YOU reading these days?" It was the voice of Melvin B. Tolson yelling, without straining, across a hundred yards of the Wiley College campus in Marshall, Texas, in the fall of 1934. "Tolstoi! War and Peace," I bellowed. "All right," Tolson thundered. "I'm glad to know that at least you are drinking the broth of knowledge; why don't you eat the meat?" The meat, the broth, the whole meal of the college experience for this fourteen-year-old freshman was not the ivy-covered walls, though we had those, too, at this small black college. It was not the sunken garden in center campus, with its fountain and goldfish, its daffodils and zinnias and bluebonnets-where dreamy-eyed teenagers looked into each other's eyes and vowed that their love was forever. It was not the dances-where I was a wallflower, since I was so young. Or the football games, won or lost, with celebration and weeping. Nor was it the fraternities and sororities, or the college pranks and practical jokes. The real meal was not even the classrooms and labs of chemistry, in which I majored; or biology, my minor; or history; or French; or economics. The banquet of my Wiley years was the tutelage of Tolson. A scholar without credentials (he had only a bachelor's degree), a poet and dramatist who had not yet published, Tolson taught English, but that was the least of the things he taught. He stretched the minds of all whose minds would be stretched. 118 LAY BARE THE HEART My mind was pure rubber. I was at Wiley because my father was teaching there. He was a professor of religion and philosophy. Once again, he was the only Ph.D. on the faculty. My tuition cost him nothing, for two years earlier I had won a four-year college scholarship in a series of high school oratorical contests sponsored by the black Elks (IBPOE OF W).* Entering college at an age when most youngsters are entering high school, I hungered to learn everything and thought that I was capable of knowing all. Yet I had never learned to study, for I had never had to. One morning in midsemester of my first year, Tolson asked me to remain after class. "Farmer," he said, after the others had left the room, "you're doing good work. In fact, you're doing A work, but if you don't do better, I'm going to flunk you." As I reeled from the incongruity of his words, he went on: "You're blessed with a good mind, an analytical mind, but you don't dig. You're lazy. You're not using half your mind, and like most youths with a gift for self-expression, you try to conceal your ignorance with filibustering. "Well, I'm not going to let you get away with it. Above and beyond the class assignments, you're going to read and study and dig. Finish War and Peace and then go on to his other works. Then I want you to tackle Darwin, Freud, and Marx. Don't just taste them; chew them and digest them. Then we'll get together and argue about them. I'll take a devil's advocate position, and you defend your views. That's the way you sharpen your tools-in the clash of opposing views. "Speaking of opposing views, my varsity debaters [he was also Wiley's debate coach] come over to the house every Tuesday and Thursday evening to prepare for the intercollegiate debate season. You come over, too. Some of them, at least one, will try to make hamburger out of you-a young upstart, and Dr. Farmer's son-so fight back, my boy, fight back. "All right, Farmer, I'll see you tonight." I nodded and stood, speechless, staring at Tolson. His eyes seemed ready to jump out at you, so intense was their penetration. He had the mobile mouth of an orator, with lips that wrapped around words. He was not a large man, maybe five eight or nine, but was square-shouldered and trim, though absentmindedly dressed. "By the way," he added, "I want you to tryout for the debate team. You won't make the varsity this year, but next year you'll have a good shot at it if you work hard." As I left the room, I...

Share