But you should also look among all the people for able and God-fearing men, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain, and set them as officers over groups of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. (Exodus 18:21)
George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln are listed as two of the most renowned
presidents who are not college graduate and named
among the favorites of the Americans. Both completed the Mount
Rushmore National Memorial’s foursome.
Twenty five percent (25%) equivalent to eleven (11) presidents
made it to the highest government seat. Meaning, neither a university degree
nor an academic excellence is the most significant qualification that one
possesses when aiming for the Chief Executive of the country and be exemplary
while in this journey with the people.
Were you surprised or inspired?
Personally, it took the wind out of my sails and turned me to be
effusive at the same time because this is clearly an expression of equality.
Here they are:
Harry S.
Truman (1919-1972)
After finishing high school he worked for the Santa Fe
railroad. He left a Kansas City business
school after one semester and followed by an attempt in a law school night
classes but dropped out.
He
enrolled in college but did not complete a degree, who is often said to have
never attended college, though he actually spent a semester at a business
college in Kansas City before dropping out to get a job and later attended some
night classes at the University of Missouri’s Kansas City law school.
Among the 33rd president’s achievements was the signing of the
Veterans Adjustment Act of 1952, which greatly extended the G.I. Bill’s tuition
and other education benefits.
To date, he is the last
president not to have finished college. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker whose
candidacy for president scandalized media and prospective rivals because of the
absence of college degree, may follow the footsteps of the abovementioned
eleven.
William McKinley (1897-1901)
He finished regular school at 16 but dropped out of
Allegheny College after a year, then went to Albany Law School and was admitted
to the bar without earning a degree.
The 25th president enlisted in the Union Army as a
private, and by the time his college-age years were over, he had into battle
throughout the entire Civil War and commissioned as an officer.
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889 and 1893-1897)
He wasn’t a college graduate. To support his family after his
father’s death, he quitted school at the age of 16.
He was the only president to serve two non-successive terms, one
of just two to win the popular vote three times, and the record-holder for most
presidential vetoes before being passed by Franklin Roosevelt almost 50 years
after.
Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
At the age of ten, this Tennessee destined to be a President was
apprenticed to a tailor. He eloped after several years, but not before
acquiring a few lessons in basic literacy. That education was enough for him to
become vice president. Lincoln’s assassination made him to the White House,
where he promptly became the first president to be impeached.
Abraham
Lincoln (1861-1865)
He
didn’t attend college at all. Yet like George Washington, he is engraved onto
Mount Rushmore, a tribute to the U.S. greatest presidents.
The first Republican president was eminently born in a one-room
log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky.
In a hardscrabble youth on the frontier, he received less than a
year of formal education, but he was a committed self-taught personn noted for being
a broad reader and incredible fluency in writing style that eventually produced
the Second Inaugural speech, the Gettysburg Address, and other classics of
political literature.
Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
Raised by a New York farmer, he appears to have made attempts at
finishing a formal education, but he splurged his school-age years serving a
range of apprenticeships and studying law.
Acknowledged as anti-slavery moderate, he however signed the
Fugitive Slave Act, a will’s strength that usually placed him at the bottom of
presidential rankings.
He was the last Whig
President before that party disintegrated and reformed into the
abolitionist Republican Party which is still existent to this day.
Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
The 12th president was young, rough and uneducated before his
recognition as “Old Rough and Ready.”
Biographer K. Jack Bauer described his handwriting “that of a
near-illiterate.”
He was much-loved for his victory in the Mexican War and
subsequently died after a little more than a year in the White House. Millard Fillmore who is also a non-graduate
succeeded him.
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
The eight president left school at 14, but he got an early start
on law and politics. The bar in New York State admitted him at the age of
21. He turned out to be the linchpin in
the Democratic-Republican Party.
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)
The seventh president managed to develop a prosperous law practice
and acquire a large chunk of land in North Carolina - all before his school-age
years had finished.
The local society had been scandalized by his involvement with a
woman who had not yet divorced her husband.
George
Washington (1759-1799)
Competing
with Abraham Lincoln as the greatest president in U.S. history, he earned a
surveyor’s license at the College of William & Mary in Virginia but not a
bachelor’s degree.
Before he made it as the commander of the Continental Army and
first president under the Constitution, he had been appointed surveyor of
Culpeper County at the age of 22, started an exceptionally flourishing career
in farming and land acquisition, been appointed a major in the Virginia
Colony’s army, and arguably caused the French and Indian War with a devastating
expedition into the western border.
William
Henry Harrison (1841-1841)
Left by his father’s death without savings, he was not privileged
of higher education and thus joined the army.
He started at the University of Pennsylvania
studying medicine but never graduated.
He ended a three-president
run of no-diploma presidents by
dying of pneumonia just a month into his term. He died
on his 32nd day in office in 1841.
His triumph at the Battle of the Thames was one of a handful of
American victories in the War of 1812.
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