A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis
LESSONS LEARNED BY THE AUTHOR (Part 20)
THE ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREEK REPUBLIC MR. CONSTANTINE TSATSOS
This is the address by the President of the Republic Mr. Constantine Tsatsos on the occasion of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the American Farm School on October 27, 1979.
“I did not intend to speak, but this visit is a challenge, and I must speak. All things come from God, and all lead back to God. And the road which we cover from beginning to end is a road of mission. This work here is the work of a missionary soul, who started out from America and came to this land, then under Turkish rule, to do good works. Seventy-five years have passed since then, and today we marvel at the harvest of that sowing. First of all, I want to express my gratitude to the founder, to his successors, and to today’s President and Director of the School. The work which is done here with the help of the American state is an educational work of great importance like other American initiatives in the development of cultural relations between the two peoples, as is Athens College in Psychiko, as is Pierce College, and many other manifestations. The Greek people do not forget, and even when they are embittered, they do not forget how many enterprises have come about in this country with the help of American initiative. The possibilities in the educational field are still very great. We await them, we want them. Cultural relations are something beyond time – temporary problems do not disturb them.
I have been speaking of those on the American side who helped to accomplish this work, and I want also to thank the Greeks who have cooperated with them for its fulfillment. But now I will address my words to the young people of the School.
I took the podium to express these thanks, but above all, I wanted to speak to you, my children. I am going to say something that may impress you. Not only am I happy with you, but I am ashamed in your presence. Because I am one of those of whom Bruce Lansdale spoke: “I have a big head, and I do not have calloused hands.” I wish I did have calloused hands, and I wish I had the honor, the high honor, of being able each evening to eat my bread with calloused hands, smelling of the soil, the Greek soil. This honor has not been given me. I was born in a city. I studied. I pursued learning. But this beautiful nature that God has given us, I view it with longing from afar. I may have some scholarly qualifications, such as they are, but I do not know this joy of immediate contact with primitive creation, this creation which the earth gives us – the animals, the plants, the flowers, the trees.
Bruce said these things, and I am going to say them again. We used to think that the most important thing for the peasant, should we earn a few pennies, was to make his child into a lawyer or a doctor; he would have been ashamed to be a farmer. I am here to say that this philosophy of an evil hour has passed. Today the proletariat are those who have many diplomas, and the top people are those who work the land. That is why I said earlier that I am ashamed in your presence. I would have wished to be one of you. And if, with the mind I have today, I had the choice whether to be President of the Hellenic Republic or a peasant in a village on the Macedonian frontier, I would choose the second. I want to emphasize that nothing is more important than this contact with the soil. The soil on which we are standing, the soil for which we fought wars, the soil which we work in times of peace, the soil which will some day be our grave.
Surely for this hands are needed, but, lest I offend my dear Bruce, brain is also needed. At one time the cultivation of the earth was the work of the hands only – now it is a collaboration of hand and brain. You are not, as you were once called, manual laborers. You are the intellectuals of agriculture. And this is fundamental. The aim of this school is to give you the hands and the brain to work the land as it should be worked. Cultivation of the land which was once practical has now become scientific.”