feel that there is more for you to learn. There is no person who makes
himself of so little use in the world as the one who feels that he
knows all there is to be known about his work. If you are milking cows,
and feel that you know all there is to be known about that subject,
you have simply reached a point where you are practically useless and
unfitted for the work. Feel that you can always learn something from
somebody else. It is a mark of intelligence to learn, even from the
humblest person. I do not mean for you always to put into practice
every suggestion that is made to you, or to agree with every statement
made to you; but listen to what people say, weigh their plans alongside
of your own, and then profit by the one which you are convinced is
the best. Persevere in such conversation, and in reading. You will
constantly be surprised to find how little you really know about your
work, and how much more somebody else knows about it than you do.
You want to get to the point where you can anticipate the wants of
your employer. In this way you will make yourself of great service to
him. You do not know how vexing and discouraging it is to a man to
be compelled to say every morning to those in his employ: "Do this
at nine o'clock, and that at twelve o'clock, and the other at five;"
or how pleasant it is to have a person with whom you come in contact
anticipate the needs of the man who employs him.
Then you can make yourself valuable and in demand just in proportion
as you consider that the work you are performing is your own. Do not
consider that it is being performed for a certain man or a particular
organization. Make haste and get to the point where you can feel
that everything connected with the shop in which you work, or in the
office, or in the stable, is under your care, and that you alone are
responsible for it. If you are at the head of a stable or barn, plan
day by day how you can best provide for the well-being of your cows and
horses. When you make yourself master of these humble positions, you
will find that the calls to higher places will come to you. The men you
see spending most of their time looking for higher and more lucrative
positions are, nine times out of ten, men who have made worthless
failures in other places.
EACH ONE HIS PART
I desire to call your attention for a few minutes to-night to the fact
that one thing is dependent for success upon another, one individual
is dependent for success upon another, one family in a community upon
other families for their mutual prosperity, one part of a State upon
the other parts for the successful government of the State. The same
thing is true in nature. One thing cannot exist unless another exists;
cannot succeed without the success of something else. The very forces
of nature are dependent upon other forces for their existence. Without
vegetable life we could not have animal life; without mineral life we
could not have vegetable life. So, throughout all kinds of life, as
throughout the life of nature, everything is dependent upon something
else for its success.
The same thing is true of this institution and of every institution.
The success of the whole depends upon having every person connected
with the institution do his or her whole duty.
We are very apt to get the idea that there are high positions and
that there are low positions, that there is important service and
unimportant service; but I believe that God expects the same amount
of conscientious work from a person in a low position as from one
in a high position, that He expects the same conscientious service
whether the work be a big task or a little one. We are dependent as
an institution--every institution is dependent--for success, upon the
individual consciences of those connected with it as teachers and
students; and there is nothing that gives me more satisfaction and
pleasure, and more faith in the future of the school, than to see
examples of conscientious work here.
I remember a special instance of this kind that occurred at one of
our Commencements. I believe that Commencement, more than any other
time in the school year, is an occasion when there is excitement and a
desire to witness the exercises. After the exercises of that year were
over, I had occasion to go to the dining room, and I found there one
of the teachers who from her appearance I thought had not attended the
exercises. When I asked her about this, she said: "No. I intended to
go, but at the last minute I saw that there were some dishes here that
needed to be washed, and I stayed here to see that they were washed."
Now that was one of the finest exhibitions of conscientious regard for
duty that I ever saw, and there are very few persons who would have
done a thing like that. That we have teachers here whose hearts are
so much in their work that they are willing to do such things as this
gives me great faith in the future of this school as the years go on.
It takes a person with a conscience, when there are public men of note
here, a great many strangers and many things to attract attention, to
be so mindful of her duty that she will stay behind and wash dishes
when every one else is in attendance upon the exercises and seeking
enjoyment. When the people connected with this institution can bring
themselves up to that point, I have no fear for the success of the
institution; and it can succeed only as they do bring their consciences
up to that point.
If I were to ask you individually as students to deliver an address
upon this platform, or to read an essay, I should not be at all afraid
that you would fail. I believe that you would carefully prepare that
address or essay. You would look up all the references necessary in
order to give you what information you needed, and then you would get
up here and speak or read successfully. I feel sure that I would hear
something that I should not be ashamed of. The average man and woman
does succeed when before the public. But where I fear for your success
is when you come to the performance of the small duties--the duties
which you think no one else will know about, the things which no one
will see you do. It is when you think that no one is going to see you
washing dishes, or getting dirt out of crevices, that I am afraid you
are going to fail.
I remember that some time ago when I was travelling in a buggy from
one New England village to another, after we had gone some miles on
our way, the young man who was driving me stopped the horse and got
out. I asked him what was the matter, and he said that something was
the matter with the harness. I looked with all the eyes I had, and yet
I could see nothing at fault. Still the man mended a piece of harness
that he said was not as it should be. It had not seemed to me that
this fault in the harness had been irritating the horse or hindering
him from going so fast as he ought, but after it had been repaired I
could see a difference for the better. That, to my mind, was a great
lesson. It taught me how the people of New England have educated their
consciences so that they cannot allow themselves to let even the
smallest thing go undone or be improperly done. It is this trait in the
New England character that has come to make the very name itself of
that part of the country a synonym for success. Don't we wish that we
had a hundred such men as that driver here! If I could put my hand on a
thousand such persons as that, we could find employment for all of them
as soon as they got their diplomas.
One learns to judge persons by their character in this respect. Not
long ago I had an opportunity to go through the jail of this county. As
the sheriff showed me through the building I was impressed to see how
clean everything was, and I noticed that the man who seemed to be the
janitor of the jail, although he too was a prisoner, seemed to take a
great deal of pride in showing me the cleanness of the corners and the
general good appearance of the place. He seemed to put his whole heart
into the keeping of that jail clean.
"Who is that man?" I asked the sheriff, after we had got out of the
janitor's hearing.
"He is a prisoner," the sheriff replied, "but I believe he is innocent.
I do not believe that a man can be so honest and faithful about his
work and be guilty of a crime. When I see how well he does his work
here, notwithstanding the fact that he is shut up here in prison, I
believe that he is an honest man and deserves his freedom."
In plain words, then, the problem we must work out here is not:--Can
you master algebra, or literature? We know you can do that. We know
you can master the sciences. The general problem we have to work out
here, and work it out with fear and trembling, is:--Can we educate
the individual conscience? Can we so educate a group of students that
there will be in every one of them a conscience on which we can depend.
Can we educate a class of girls here who will not be satisfied when
sweeping their rooms to make the middle of the rooms look clean, but
leave a trail of dirt in the comers and under the furniture? Will
they see to it that everything is properly cleaned and put in its
appropriate place? Can we educate a class of young men who will do
their duty on the farm as they would do it on this platform? Can we
educate your consciences so that you will do certain things, not
because it is the rule that they should be done, but because they
should be done? These are the problems we must work out here.
WHAT WOULD FATHER AND MOTHER SAY?
I think there is no more important or more critical time in a person's
life than when he or she leaves home for the first time, to enter
school, or to go to work, or to go into business. I think that as a
general thing you can judge pretty accurately what a person is going to
amount to in life by the way he or she acts during the first year or
two after leaving home.
You will find, usually, that if a young man is able during this time
to stand up against temptation, is able to practise the lessons that
his father and mother have taught him, and instead of falling by the
wayside gains help and inspiration as he goes along from these lessons,
he is almost sure to prove himself a valuable citizen, one who not
only will be a help to his parents in their old age, but a help to the
community in which he lives.
There is no better way to test an act than to ask yourself the
question: "What would my father or my mother think of this? Would they
approve, or should I be ashamed to let them know that I have done this
thing?" If you will ask yourselves these questions day by day, I think
you will find that you will get a great deal of assistance from them in
the shaping of your lives while you are here at school.
I want you to put that question to yourselves with regard to
deportment, because that is a thing on which we must lay emphasis. We
can fill your heads with knowledge, and we can train your hands to work
with skill, but unless all this training of head and hand is based upon
high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing.
You will be no better off than the most ignorant.
Now, one of the ways in which young people are likely to go astray,
especially when they first go away from home to school, is in yielding
to a temptation to spend their time with persons who have mean and low
dispositions; persons whom you would be ashamed to have your parents
know that you kept company with. Avoid that. Be sure that the young men
and women with whom you associate are persons who are able to raise you
up, persons who will help to make you stronger in every way.
I do not need to tell you, I am sure, of the consequences of
association with persons who will have, a bad influence upon you, or
the results of a disregard of admonitions for good. A student who
persistently keeps bad company, who breaks rules, who is constantly
disobedient, who is repeatedly behind at roll call, who time after time
has to be called up by the officer of the day, or watched in the dining
room or on the parade ground, is the student who in a few years is
going to bring sorrow to the hearts of his parents. There is no getting
away from that.
Only to-day the mother of one of the students came here with a message
from another mother whose son had been sent here. She told me how this
anxious mother had told her to impress upon her son the necessity of
obeying every rule here, and how she wanted him to put in every moment
in hard study and honest work. She wanted this woman to impress upon
the boy how hard his mother was struggling every day so that she could
keep him here, and at the same time provide for the younger children
of the family at home. Now, when this message was delivered, where was
that boy? Was he doing as his mother was so earnestly praying him to
do? No. He had already disgraced himself, and had been sent away from
the institution. How much sorrow will he bring to his poor mother's
heart when she knows! No wonder he was trying to conceal his misconduct
and disgrace from her.
Let me entreat you, then, if you are inclined to fritter away the best
hours of your lives, think how the news of your misconduct will act
upon the hearts of your parents, those fathers and mothers whose every
thought is of you.
I have spoken of these as some of the things that we do not want to
have you do at school. What are some of the things that we do want you
to learn to do? We want to have you learn to see and appreciate the
practical value of the religion of Christ. We hope to help you to see
that religion, that Christianity, is not something that is far off,
something in the air, that it is not something to be enjoyed only after
the breath has left the body. We want to have you see that the religion
of Christ is a real and helpful thing; that it is something which you
can take with you into your class-rooms, into your shops, on to the
farm, into your very sleeping rooms, and that you do not have to wait
until to-morrow before you can find out about the power and helpfulness
of Christ's religion.
We want to have you feel that this religion is a part of your lives,
and that it is meant to be a help to you from day to day. We hope to
have you feel that the religious services that we have you attend here
are not burdens, but that it is a privilege, greatly to be desired, to
come to these meetings, and into the prayer meetings of the various
societies on the grounds, and there commune, not in a far-off,
imaginary way, but in an humble but intimate way, with the spirit of
Jesus. We want you to feel that religion is something to make you
happier, brighter and more hopeful, not something to make you go about
with long, solemn faces. We want you to learn, if you do not already
know, that in order to be Christlike one does not have to be unnatural.
Then we want to have you to learn to govern your actions, not alone for
the sake of the result which they will have upon yourself and those
who are near and dear to you, but for the sake of your influence upon
all with whom you will come in contact. Your life here will be largely
wasted--I am tempted to say wholly wasted--if you fail to learn that
higher, broader, and far more important lesson of your relations to
your fellow-students and to all the persons by whom you are going to
be daily surrounded. Your life will be wasted if you go away from here
and have not learned that the greatest lesson of all is the lesson
of brotherly love, of usefulness and of charity. I want to see young
men who are here realize this spirit to such an extent that they will
rise in chapel and give their seats to students who are strangers at
the school. I want to have you get to the point where you will go to
the matron in the dining room and ask her permission to have some new
student who has not had a chance to get acquainted take his meals at a
seat beside you.
Of the many noble traits exhibited by the late General Armstrong,
none made a deeper impression upon me than his supreme unselfishness.
I do not believe that I ever saw in all my association with General
Armstrong anything in his life or actions which indicated in the
slightest degree that he was selfish. He was interested not only in the
black South, but in the white South, not only in his own school, but
in all schools. Anything which he could do or say to benefit another
institution seemed to give him as much pleasure as if he were speaking
or acting directly for the benefit of Hampton Institute.
I had a pleasant experience of this spirit of a desire to be helpful
to others a little while ago, when I was visiting a certain theological
seminary in Pennsylvania. I think I was never in such an atmosphere
as during the two days I spent in that institution. I was surrounded
by a crowd of young men whose sole object seemed to be to make me
comfortable and happy. Most of these young men were far advanced in the
study of theology and the sciences, and yet they were not above serving
me, even to the extent of offering to black my boots. When I came away
several wished to carry my luggage to the station. This is the kind of
thoughtfulness we want to have in every corner of this institution.
Get hold of the spirit of wanting to help somebody else. Seek every
opportunity possible to make somebody happy and comfortable. Do all
this, and you will find that the years will not be many before we will
have one of the best institutions on the face of the globe, and that
you, in helping to make it such, have been doing things that, when you
ask yourselves: "What would father and mother say about my doing this?"
will enable you to answer the question with pride and satisfaction.
OBJECT LESSONS
Not long ago an old coloured man living in this State said to me: "I's
done quit libin' in de ashes. I's got my second freedom."
That remark meant, in this case, that that old man by economy, hard
work and proper guidance, after twenty years of struggle, had freed
himself from debt, had paid for fifty acres of land, had built a
comfortable house, and was a tax-payer. It meant that his two sons had
been educated in academic and agricultural branches, that his daughter
had received mental training in connection with lessons in sewing and
cooking. Within certain limitations here was a Christian, American
home, the result of industrial effort and philanthropy. This Negro had
been given a chance to get upon his feet. That is all that any Negro in
America asks. That is all that you in this school ask.
What position in State, in letters, or in commerce and in business the
offspring of that man is to occupy must be left to the future and the
capacity of the race. What position you are to occupy must be left to
your future and to your capacity. During the days of slavery we were
shielded from competition. To-day, unless we prepare ourselves to
compete with the world, we must go to the wall as a race.
If I were to go into certain communities in the United States and say
that the German is ignorant, I should be pointed to the best-paying
truck-farm in that neighbourhood, owned and operated by a German. If I
said that the German is without skill, I should be shown the largest
machine-shop in the city, owned and operated by a German. If I said
the German is lazy, I should be shown the largest and finest residence
on the most fashionable avenue, built from the savings of a German who
began life in poverty. If I said that the German could not be trusted,
I should be introduced to a man of that race who is the president of
the largest bank in the city. If I said that the German is not fitted
for citizenship, I should be shown a German who is a respected and
influential member of the city government.
Now, when your critics say that the Negro is lazy, I want you to be
able to show them the finest farm in the community owned and operated
by a Negro. When they ask if the Negro is honest, I want you to show
them a Negro whose note is acceptable at the bank for $5,000. When they
say that the Negro is not economical, I want you to show them a Negro
with $50,000 in the bank. When they say that the Negro is not fit for
citizenship, I want you to show them a man of our race paying taxes on
a cotton factory. I want you to be able to show them Negroes who stand
in the front in the affairs of State, of religion, of education, of
mechanics, of commerce and of household economy. You remember the old
admonition: "By this sign we shall conquer." Let it be our motto.
There are people in the North who have been aiding in the matter of
Negro education in the South during the last ten, twenty, or even
thirty years. It is in part the money of those people that has made
this institution possible. Those people have a right, as a plain matter
of business, to ask what are the results of this aid they have been
giving. What evidences can we present to prove to them that their
investments in this direction have been paying ones? It is, in no small
measure, the duty of you, as students of Tuskegee Institute, to answer,
and to answer satisfactorily, such a question as that.
We have reached a point, largely through the aid which the North has
given to the South during the last thirty years, where there is little
opposition in the South to the people of the Negro race receiving any
form of education. You can go out from here and plant a school in any
county in the South, which will not meet with opposition from the white
residents of the community. What is more, in many cases it will receive
encouragement, and in some a hearty sympathy and support. Not long ago
I received fifty dollars from a white man in Mississippi to pay for the
education of a black boy. This man was formerly a slave-holder, and
at first he was not inclined to encourage the education of the Negro,
but he stated to me frankly, in his letter, that he now believes that
Tuskegee and similar institutions are doing the work that the Negro
most needs to have done. He wanted to show the people of the North,
he said, that Southern white men are as deeply interested in the
development of the Negro as they are. I have in mind another case, of
a Southern white man in Alabama who during the last year contributed
out of his own pocket nearly $2,000 for the building and maintenance of
a Negro school in his county. Still another Southern white man, Mr.
Belton Gilreath, of Birmingham, Alabama, recently sent the Institute
his check for $500--up to that time the largest sum which the school
had received from a Southern man--with this letter:
"As a Southern man and the son of one of the largest slave owners of
the South, I am anxious for our people to do all that can reasonably be
expected of them for the education of the Negroes, thereby making them
more content and useful citizens and friends.
"Furthermore, I think the time has come in the South for all our people
to consider more fully than they have ever done before the question of
the education of _all of our population_; and, wherever practicable, to
give attention in our schools to teaching the art of saving also."
More recently still, Mr. H. M. Atkinson, of Atlanta, one of the most
successful business men in the entire South, came to Tuskegee Institute
and made a thorough inspection of our work. After he returned to
Atlanta I received a letter from him from which I quote one paragraph:
"I enclose my check for $1,000, for the benefit of your school, to be
used as your judgment dictates. I was very much impressed by what I
saw. I will not forget it."
These white people are beginning to see the difference between the
value of an educated Negro and one who is not educated. It is for you
to demonstrate to them this value more and more clearly every year.
SUBSTANCE vs. SHADOW
You are here for the purpose of getting an education. Now, one of the
results of an education is to increase a person's wants. You take the
ordinary person who lives on a plantation, and so long as that person
is ignorant, he is content to live in a cabin with one room, in which
he has a skillet, a bedstead--or an apology for one--a table, and a few
chairs or stools. He is content if he has fat meat, corn bread and peas
on the table to eat, and for clothing he is satisfied to wear jeans
and osnaburg himself, and to have his wife wear a calico dress and a
twenty-five cent hat.
But, as soon as that man becomes educated, he feels that he must have a
house with at least two or three rooms in it, furnished with neat and
substantial furniture. Instead of jeans and osnaburg for clothes, he
wants decent woollen cloth, neat-fitting shoes, and a white collar and
a necktie, things which he never thought of wearing before he became
educated. Sometimes he even thinks that he must have jewellery.