Ford Philanthropy: Funding Education and Scholarships Since the Early 20th Century.

 

The gothic style buildings designed by Harry Carlson of Boston at Berry College, Mount Berry, Ga., were built with money donated by Henry and Clara Ford of the Ford Motor Company.

In his memoir My Life and Work, written in 1934, the brilliant Henry Ford (1863-1947) offers perhaps the best definition you’ll find of the value of an education, and a useful warning against the mere accumulation of information for the sake of its accumulation.  

From Ford’s memoir: 

An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history—he is one who can accomplish things. A man who cannot think is not an educated man however many college degrees he may have acquired. Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do—which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers. There are two extremes to be avoided: one is the attitude of contempt toward education, the other is the tragic snobbery of assuming that marching through an educational system is a sure cure for ignorance and mediocrity. You cannot learn in any school what the world is going to do next year, but you can learn some of the things which the world has tried to do in former years, and where it failed and where it succeeded. If education consisted in warning the young student away from some of the false theories on which men have tried to build, so that he may be saved the loss of the time in finding out by bitter experience, its good would be unquestioned. 

An education which consists of signposts indicating the failure and the fallacies of the past doubtless would be very useful. It is not education just to possess the theories of a lot of professors. Speculation is very interesting, and sometimes profitable, but it is not education. To be learned in science today is merely to be aware of a hundred theories that have not been proved. And not to know what those theories are is to be “uneducated,” “ignorant,” and so forth. If knowledge of guesses is learning, then one may become learned by the simple expedient of making his own guesses. And by the same token he can dub the rest of the world “ignorant” because it does not know what his guesses are. 

But the best that education can do for a man is to put him in possession of his powers, give him control of the tools with which destiny has endowed him, and teach him how to think. The college renders its best service as an intellectual gymnasium, in which mental muscle is developed and the student strengthened to do what he can. To say, however, that mental gymnastics can be had only in college is not true, as every educator knows. A man’s real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life. 

[…] 

Men satisfy their minds more by finding out things for themselves than by heaping together the things which somebody else has found out. You can go out and gather knowledge all your life, and with all your gathering you will not catch up even with your own times. You may fill your head with all the “facts” of all the ages, and your head may be just an overloaded fact−box when you get through. The point is this: Great piles of knowledge in the head are not the same as mental activity. A man may be very learned and very useless. And then again, a man may be unlearned and very useful. 

The object of education is not to fill a man’s mind with facts; it is to teach him how to use his mind in thinking. 

Henry Ford put his money where his mouth was. 

In 1923, when Henry Ford and his wife Clara first visited Martha Berry, he was in the process of building (1917 – 1928) the River Rouge Complex in Michigan, the largest factory of its kind in the world.  In the midst of it, Henry also took delight in the homegrown Berry Schools. Although acutely aware of his wealth and power, he had not forgotten his humble origins as a farm boy.  

Below are a few of the vehicles that were built at the River Rouge Complex after its completion: 

 

 1931 Ford Model A four door sedan, 1931 Ford Model A two door sedan, and a 1930 Ford Model A four door sedan.

The Ford Model A lineup from a different angle.

The 1931 Ford Model A Victoria Coupe was considered a ladies car.

Henry Ford saw in Martha Berry a fierce determination to build with the materials at hand and to carve opportunity out of adversity. It was the same mindset that enabled him to succeed during the turbulent early years of the automotive industry. Both individuals had a resolve that kept them working on a problem long after others had stopped. 

In the 1930's, Berry College’s footprint grew to 30,000 acres, an expansion made possible through Miss Berry’s relentless fundraising efforts, which included a landmark gift from Henry and Clara Ford to fund the construction of Berry’s iconic Ford Complex. 

The Recreation Building.

An archway with a park view.

Mary Hall.

The walkway of Clara Hall.

The view leaving Berry College.

Ford’s philanthropic efforts continue to support education, research, and development. 

The Ford ES&T Building at Georgia Tech.

The 287,000 SF Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building (ES&T), at Georgia Institute of Technology,  provides essential research and instructional facilities for faculty, staff and graduate students from the College of Science and the College of Engineering, houses various research programs from the College of Engineering, College of Science and the Technology Development Center (TDC), a Georgia Research Alliance funded technology transfer incubator for start-up companies. As an environmental sciences research hub, this facility braids scientific and engineering disciplines in Atmospheric Science & Technology, Environmental Technology, Environmental Chemistry, Water Systems, Coastal/Oceanographic Science and Engineering, Sustainable Technologies, and Industrial and Urban Ecology. 

Auto Tech Scholarship Program. 

As the critical nationwide shortage of automotive technicians continues, Ford is announcing a $4 million investment in its Auto Tech Scholarship program. This is in addition to a $1 million investment in 2023 and a $2 million investment in 2024. 

By 2028, an estimated 471,000 automotive technicians will be needed. This shortage leaves approximately three open positions for every graduating technician, creating a significant gap in the industry. 

To combat this and attract more highly skilled talent to the automotive industry, Ford Philanthropy and Ford Dealers are expanding their scholarship program to provide 800 students with $5,000 scholarships each. 

As vehicles on the road become increasingly sophisticated, this investment highlights Ford's commitment to training the next generation of automotive service professionals and ensuring dealerships are equipped to service these vehicles. 

Students looking for a hands-on career with six-figure earning potential can apply through September 2025, at https://techforce.org/fordphilanthropy/.

Photography: www.bonniemoret.com.