Apr. 5: Booker T. Washington, American educator, author, and presidential advisor

BORN APRIL 5:

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was an American educator, author, and presidential advisor. He was born enslaved on a Virginia plantation and taught himself to read and write around age 9 or 10. He worked hard to put himself through college and, at 25 years old, was chosen to lead a new teacher's training college in Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute. He oversaw students in building the school, which emphasized practical trades: his students would not just learn to make buildings and to grow crops and farm animals, but to teach others to do the same. He saw education as the solution to the oppression of American blacks, especially in the South. His two autobiographies, The Story of My Life and Work and Up From Slavery, are worth reading, though the latter is a more polished version of the first and might be read alone.

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Mar. 26: Joseph Campbell, American mythologist, writer and lecturer

BORN MARCH 26:

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer. Campbell was born in New York City and spent most of his life teaching there at Sarah Lawrence College. His first major work was also one of his most important and best-known: The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he finds a common structure underlying the hero stories of virtually every culture. His work was consulted by George Lucas when he began writing his Star Wars mythos; Lucas later funded the library that holds Campbell's collection. Something of an amateur and a popularizer, Campbell's work has been criticized by professionals in the field, but they can't deny his influence. His philosophy is summed up in the usually-misunderstood saying, "Follow your bliss." He also wrote the four-volume Masks of God series; numerous other works have been published of his essays, interviews (most famously Bill Moyers's The Power of Myth), and even travel journals.

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Mar. 18: Edward Conze, Anglo-German Buddhist scholar

BORN MARCH 18:

Edward Conze (1904-1979) was an Anglo-German Buddhist scholar known for his many translations of seminal Buddhist works, as well as authoring such texts as Buddhism: Its Essence and Development; Buddhism: A Short History; and The Memoirs of a Modern Gnostic. Born in London of German parents (his father was a diplomat posted there), he grew up and was educated in Germany but fled (back) to Britain when the Nazis came to power in 1933. He converted to Buddhism after a mid-life crisis; he later taught in America (where one of my best professors was his student). His Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra has been lodged next to my bed for decades. Read it and reread it.

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Feb. 23: W. E. B. Du Bois, American scholar and activist

BORN FEBRUARY 23:

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. After becoming the first African American to earn a doctorate at Harvard, he became a professor at Atlanta University. He was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He worked for full civil rights and increased political representation for blacks, and fought for the independence of African colonies from European powers, making several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. Dr. Du Bois was a prolific author. He opened his seminal work, the collection of essays titled The Souls of Black Folk, with this central thought: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line."

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Jan. 11: Aldo Leopold, American naturalist

BORN JANUARY 11:

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) American naturalist. His A Sand County Almanac is a delight to read; a professor at the University of Wisconsin, he influenced the development of modern environmental ethics and the movement for wilderness conservation.

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Jan. 3: J. R. R. Tolkien, British professor and writer

BORN JANUARY 3:

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) Oxford professor and fantasy writer, Father of Hobbits--and Orcs. Also a stellar translator of medieval texts, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

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Jan. 2: Isaac Asimov, American sci-fi writer and scientist

BORN JANUARY 2:

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) prolific American sci-fi writer and professor of biochemistry; with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers. The Foundation series (seven books) is required reading; then, maybe, the stories in I, Robot; the Galactic Empire series; the Robot series; Nightfall; and essay collections.

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Dec. 28: Arthur Eddington, English scientist and writer

BORN DECEMBER 28:

Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) English astronomer, physicist, mathematician, philosopher who (most importantly for many of us) became a household name as a popularizer of science; The Mathematical Theory of Relativity; The Nature of the Physical World; and New Pathways in Science.

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Dec. 24: Matthew Arnold, British writer

BORN DECEMBER 24:

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic, as well as school inspector. Poems: The pessimistic "Dover Beach" is perhaps his most-anthologized work today (love is the answer to modern despair); "The Scholar-Gipsy" is based on undercover work by an impoverished 17th-century Oxford student; "Thyrsis" was written at the death of the poet Arthur Hugh Clough; books include Culture and Anarchy and Literature and Dogma among others.

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Dec. 22: Jean-Henri Fabre, French scientist and writer

BORN DECEMBER 22:

Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) French naturalist, entomologist, and author who wrote works on insects, especially for younger readers. Known for his "lively style," Fabre was the rare individual who could teach something about bugs while keeping it "fun." Try Fabre's Book of Insects, a retelling of his Souvenirs entomologiques (also worth a look--if you read French).

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Dec. 1: (Nicholas) Black Elk, Lakota (Sioux) elder

BORN DECEMBER 1:

(Nicholas) Black Elk (1863-1950) a second cousin to Crazy Horse who fought at his side in the Battle of Little Bighorn, he became a "medicine man" of his people, the Oglala Lakota ("Sioux"). He also survived the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, and toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. In 1932, poet John Neihardt published Black Elk Speaks based on Black Elk's religious views, visions, and life story. How much was Black Elk and how much Neihardt no one can be sure. He later became a Catholic and served as a catechist.

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Nov. 25: Joseph Wood Krutch, American writer

BORN NOVEMBER 25:

Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) American writer, critic, and naturalist whose nature books on the American Southwest include The Desert Year; he also wrote The Twelve Seasons and The Measure of Man.

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Oct. 20: John Dewey, American educator

BORN OCTOBER 20:

John Dewey (1859-1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educator. His influence on American education is so vast--he published more than 700 articles in 140 journals, and wrote approximately 40 books, in addition to operating pragmatic "teaching lab" schools and teaching in universties--that it's hard today to separate out what is Dewey and what is not.

He wrote (among many those others) Democracy and Education; The Public and its Problems; Art as Experience; Freedom and Culture; and Knowing and the Known.

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