America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty.

"America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few." These words, spoken by Will Rogers, the beloved American humorist and philosopher of the early twentieth century, carry the dual edge of humor and truth that defined his wisdom. At first glance, they seem lighthearted—a jest at his own expense. Yet beneath the laughter lies a profound reflection on the state of education, knowledge, and human nature. Rogers, a man who spoke for the common people, knew that intelligence without humility becomes arrogance, and learning without wisdom becomes vanity. His jest, then, was also a warning: that in a world swelling with knowledge, true wisdom may become rare, and that ignorance—especially humble ignorance—might one day be the strangest thing of all.

To understand this quote, one must first know the spirit of Will Rogers himself. Born in 1879 in the rugged land of Oklahoma, he grew up not in libraries or lecture halls, but on horseback and open plains. He was a man of the frontier—sharp, observant, and deeply human. He rose to fame not as a scholar but as a truth-teller, a man who could make presidents laugh and common folk think. His humor was not cruel but revealing; he used it to hold a mirror to society. In saying he would "belong to the select few" of the ignorant, Rogers was not glorifying foolishness—he was humbling himself before the great tide of modern learning, even as he mocked how knowledge without understanding can make people blind to their own limits.

At the time Rogers spoke these words, America was undergoing great transformation. The twentieth century had dawned with inventions that promised progress—electricity, radio, automobiles, airplanes, and the first steps toward universal education. Knowledge was spreading faster than ever before. But Rogers saw a paradox within this progress: as people learned more facts, they often lost sight of the simple truths that once bound them together—kindness, honesty, and common sense. He feared that in the race toward enlightenment, humanity might forget the humility of being human. His humor, then, was a lantern in the fog—a reminder that wisdom does not grow in proportion to information.

The ancients, too, would have understood Rogers’ insight. Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks, declared, “I know that I know nothing.” He, too, belonged to that “select few” of the humbly ignorant who recognized the vastness of truth beyond human grasp. In his time, Athens was the most educated city in the world, yet Socrates saw that knowledge without virtue led to pride and corruption. For this, he was condemned by the very educated men who could not bear to see their ignorance exposed. So too did Rogers, centuries later, mock the same tendency in his own world—the belief that education alone makes one wise. His humor carried the same divine irony as that of the philosophers: that those who admit their ignorance often understand more than those who boast of their learning.

History offers another echo of Rogers’ wisdom in the life of Abraham Lincoln. Like Rogers, Lincoln had little formal education, yet his mind was vast and his judgment profound. He read by firelight, studied alone, and learned from life itself. When he rose to lead the nation through its darkest hour, it was not book-learning but moral clarity that made him great. He, too, belonged to the “select few”—not because he was ignorant, but because he remained humble before the immensity of truth. His example reminds us that education is not measured by schooling, but by one’s ability to think, to feel, and to act rightly.

Rogers’ words, though humorous, reveal an enduring truth about society: that the growth of knowledge does not guarantee the growth of wisdom. A man may know the stars by name and still fail to see the beauty of the night sky. A nation may fill its schools and libraries, yet lose the ability to listen, to reason, or to empathize. In this sense, Rogers’ “select few” are not those who celebrate ignorance, but those who remain teachable—those who know that no amount of education can replace the curiosity and humility of the unlearned heart. For wisdom is not stored in the mind but cultivated in the soul.

Let this then be the teaching drawn from Will Rogers’ wit: learn much, but never forget how little you know. Education should open the eyes, not close the mind. The wise man reads to understand, not to boast. The humble man listens more than he speaks, questions more than he preaches, and learns from every soul he meets. Do not mistake cleverness for wisdom, nor mock simplicity as ignorance. For, as Rogers teaches through laughter, the truly enlightened are those who remember the limits of human understanding. And in a world racing toward knowledge, it may indeed be a miracle to find those who still possess the rarest kind of wisdom—the wisdom to laugh at their own ignorance and keep learning all their lives.