Atlanta Daily World

87 Atlanta Graduates Hear Dr. Proctor

Dr. Samuel D. Proctor accused university communities of failing to impart personal, social and spiritual values to their students as he addressed the summer graduating class at Atlanta University.

The president of Virginia Union University said that the university, a cohesive, voluntary community, was ideally suited for the transmission of human values. but that news from the campuses is discouraging.

Eighty-seven students were awarded graduate degrees by President Rufus E. Clement at the exercises.

Citing studies which indicate that there is very little difference between the permanent values of the freshman and the senior, Dr. Proctor charged teachers with indifference to life's basic issues and with lack of love for young people. He likened real teaching to arts such as music and painting as he accused the majority of teachers of just wanting to join a union and get paid.

The campus has an aged responsibility in imparting personal values. he said, since students no longer can be counted on having acquired them at home. Mobility of population with resulting anonymity has destroyed adherence to high personal standards. Historical study of the Bible has given a degree of relativity to the Judaeo-Christian ethic and the church, in which ministers, particularly inadequately trained Negro ministers, cannot give the needed help.

The teacher should also teach what a good society should do for its members, he said as he attacked whites whose theories about race were based on spurious anthropology and Negro leaders who were interested in race, but who turned their backs on the depressed people of their own group.

Of spiritual values, he said "Whatever you think about God, let your answer be a respectable one. Everyone should define for himself his response to basic questions about the ultimate powers in the universe."