COMMENTARY (Austin American-Statesman)

Hobby: Honor our history: Give young Texans a future

Paul Hobby, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

This week we celebrate the 169th anniversary of Texas independence. We all know, and take great pride in, the story of Sam Houston's victory at San Jacinto . From that beginning has followed the emergence of a state that is great by any definition — save one. Our literacy rate is abysmal.

We can (and do) debate the politics, the funding, the cultural reasons, the social cost and the economic impact of underperformance in education, but we would all have to agree that it holds us back.

Another guy who knew something about independence, Thomas Jefferson, provided the seminal quote for the worth of literacy in any free society:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."

Jefferson taught us — and is still teaching the world — that literacy and freedom are two sides of the same coin.

What you may not know is that this year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of another kind of Texas independence. In 1930, Will Hogg, son of a Texas governor and citizen of Houston , died, leaving a remarkable gift of independence through his last will and testament. After caring for the sustenance of his family and personal servants, Hogg declared simply that, "I am desirous of aiding worthy boys and girls of Texas to secure the advantages of attendance upon some one of our State higher educational institutions," and left all of his estate to scholarships, an endowed lecture series and, "all needed educational facilities in keeping with the dignity and aspiration of our great State."

Hogg, by providing for the education of needy among us, under girded all of our liberties. His bequest of approximately $2 million (during the worst period of the depression) has now become almost $130 million, and it has generated many millions of dollars in grants paid out to worthy educational projects since his death. How's that for dignity and aspiration?

To the Hogg family, of course, we all owe a great debt of political leadership and philanthropy in other respects. His sister Ima's remarkable foresight focused much of the Hogg family's beneficence on the subject of mental health, a topic that our society is only now coming to appreciate fully.

The good news is that there is a way we can all have a little Hogg in us, because the College for Texans Campaign is now underway to enroll more than 300,000 young Texans who otherwise would be missing from our colleges and universities in 2015. It needs our help.

Now more than ever, freedom is understood not as something that occurs naturally in the world, but as the product of education. Remember Houston, Hogg and Jefferson. Strike a blow for Texas Independence this week — log on and visit collegeforalltexansfoundation.com and make a gift.

  Hobby is founding chairman of Genesis Park, L.P., a Houston-based private equity business. He also is a member of the board of trustees for the College for All Texans Foundation: Closing the Gaps.