Aprl 13, 2015 (Monday)
Last week I wrote a blog which quoted Horace Mann, famous pioneer of education for all. Horace Mann’s statue stands in front of the Massachusetts State House along with that of Daniel Webster. Seems like I heard his name mentioned often when I was growing up, but not so much anymore.
One of his greatest statements was made in a commencement address in 1859 at Antioch College: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” A monument on that campus is engraved with that quote, and the statement has been adopted as the college motto.
That motto set me to thinking about mottoes and slogans of other colleges and universities in our world. (Wikipedia has a list). First in my mind, of course, is my own alma mater, and that of my wife and children, Baylor University. Baylor’s motto is included in its seal, “Pro Ekklesia – Pro Texana.” (“For church, for Texas). As you may know, Baylor has been around since 1845 and is the oldest university in Texas. Sam Houston contributed the first $5000 for its establishment.
An informal slogan I love belongs to Howard Payne University, a Baptist school “where everybody is somebody.” At the heart of HPU is a commitment to be a distinctively Christian university.
I attended East Texas Baptist University for 9 weeks, became ill and completed no courses, but loved the school, where the motto is, “A world of opportunity in a community of faith.”
These mottoes and others like them give students worthy objectives and goals for their 
education. The first one on this page, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity,” will probably never belong to a school which makes the “50 Greatest Party Schools” list. Perhaps it should be printed at the bottom of every application for admission to every institution of higher learning.
until you have won
some victory
for humanity.