Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work

In the noble and resonant words of W. E. B. Du Bois, we find a vision not merely for education, but for the creation of civilization itself: “Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools — intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it — this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.” With this declaration, Du Bois speaks not as a mere scholar, but as a prophet of human destiny. He reminds us that the true purpose of education is not to manufacture workers or clerks, but to forge souls — to cultivate beings of wisdom, compassion, and courage who may uphold the dignity of humanity itself. His words, written in an age of division and ignorance, still call to every generation that has mistaken learning for information, or progress for possession.

To understand the origin of this quote, we must look to the life and mission of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, one of the most luminous minds of the twentieth century — a sociologist, historian, and civil rights leader who sought to awaken the conscience of America. Born in 1868, only years after the Civil War, Du Bois rose from the struggle of his people to become the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP. In his book The Souls of Black Folk and many other writings, he spoke passionately about the role of education in uplifting the human spirit, particularly in the face of racial oppression. This quote captures his deepest belief: that the goal of learning is not the accumulation of skill, but the cultivation of character, not the training of the hands alone, but the awakening of the heart and mind together.

The meaning of Du Bois’s words reaches far beyond race or nation. He speaks to the essence of civilization — that we “shall have men” only when we make the pursuit of manhood (that is, true humanity) the aim of education. By manhood, Du Bois means not gender, but the full stature of human virtue: intelligence, sympathy, and knowledge of the world. The schools, he insists, must not be factories of utility, but gardens of wisdom. To teach a man to labor is good; to teach him to understand why he labors, and how his labor fits into the vast web of history and humanity — that is divine. It is only through such higher education that a society can rise above ignorance, greed, and cruelty, and approach what Du Bois calls “true life.”

History offers us many mirrors for this truth. In ancient Greece, Plato’s Academy was not designed merely to train administrators or soldiers, but to form philosopher-kings, men whose intellect was guided by moral insight. Plato understood, as Du Bois did, that knowledge without virtue is dangerous, and virtue without knowledge is blind. Likewise, during the Renaissance, the revival of art, science, and letters was not simply about rediscovering lost facts, but about reawakening the human spirit — the conviction that man, through wisdom and imagination, could become something greater than he was. Du Bois, standing in his own age of inequality and materialism, took up that same torch and carried it into the modern world, declaring that education must form souls capable of justice and empathy, not merely minds capable of calculation.

In his time, Du Bois confronted a society that believed education for African Americans should be limited to manual training — to the learning of tools and trades, without access to philosophy, history, or the higher arts. Against this narrow vision, he thundered that a people could not be truly free if they were educated only to serve, rather than to think. “The object of the work of the schools,” he said, must be to shape men and women who could see themselves as part of the grand human story, who could understand the relation of men to the world, and thus act with wisdom rather than impulse. His dream was not simply of equal schooling, but of education that ennobled the soul — education that made of a student not a servant, but a citizen of the universe.

There is a story that captures Du Bois’s wisdom well. It is said that when the great scientist Albert Einstein visited Lincoln University, a historically Black college, he told the students that knowledge without conscience is the ruin of the soul. He echoed, unknowingly, the same truth Du Bois had preached: that education must be wed to ethics. The young, no matter how gifted, must be taught sympathy — to feel the sufferings of others; knowledge — to see the vastness of human history; and intelligence — to reason with truth rather than prejudice. These three together form the trinity of manhood Du Bois envisioned — the foundation of that higher life upon which all true progress must rest.

The lesson Du Bois leaves us is as urgent now as it was in his own century: we must reclaim the soul of education. In an age where schools too often measure success in wealth, rank, or competition, we must remember that the greatest work of learning is to make men and women whole. Let the teacher see not only a student’s intellect, but their humanity. Let the student seek not only to pass tests, but to understand the world and his place within it. Let knowledge be tempered by compassion, and ambition by wisdom. For intelligence without moral purpose is a sword without a hilt — sharp, but destructive to the one who wields it.

So let us walk in the path Du Bois laid before us. Let education be not a ladder of privilege, but a lamp of truth. Let every school, every home, every heart make manhood — that is, full humanity — the object of its work. For only then shall we have not merely scholars, but souls; not merely progress, but peace. And when we have raised such men and women — intelligent, compassionate, and wise — then, and only then, will we know the meaning of Du Bois’s dream: the creation of a true life, founded upon knowledge, sustained by love, and guided by justice.