who owns and cultivates fifty acres of land. This land yields him an
income sufficient to live on each year. This man's note or check is
gladly honoured at the bank. Because of his independence he leads his
people instead of having to cater to their whims. It may be suggested
that what I plead for has not been done by others, after this fashion.
It was done in the early years of the settlement of New England, and
persevered in by the ministers there until the people of the country
had become sufficiently prosperous to support their ministers suitably.
Besides, if one race of people, or one individual, is simply to follow
in the steps of another, no progress would ever be possible in the
world. Let us remember that no other race of people ever had just such
a problem to work out as we have.
What I have tried to say to you to-night about agricultural life may
be said with equal emphasis about city occupations. Show me the race
that leads in work in wood and in metal, in the building of houses and
factories, and in the constructing and operating of machinery, and I
will show you the race that in the long run moulds public thought, that
controls government, that leads in commerce, in the sciences, in the
arts and in the professions.
What we should do in all our schools is to turn out fewer job-seekers
and more job-makers. Any one can seek a job, but it requires a person
of rare ability to create a job.
If it may seem to some of you that what I have been saying overlooks
the development of the race in morals, ethics, religion and
statesmanship, my answer would be this. You might as well argue that
because a tree is planted deep down in Mother Earth, because it comes
in contact with clay, and rocks, and sand, and water, that through its
graceful branches, its beautiful leaves and its fragrant blossoms it
teaches no lesson of truth, beauty and divinity. You cannot plant a
tree in air and have it live. Try it. No matter how much we may praise
its proportions and enjoy its beauty, it dies unless its roots and
fibres touch and have their foundation in Mother Earth. What is true of
the tree is true of a race.
A PENNY SAVED
A large proportion of you, for one reason or another, will not be able
to return to this institution after the close of the present year. On
that account there are some central thoughts which I should like to
impress upon your minds this evening, and which I wish you to take with
you into the world, whether you go out from the school as graduates or
whether you go as undergraduates.
I have often spoken to you about the matter of learning to economize
your time, to save your time, the matter of trying to make the most of
every minute and hour of your existence. I have often spoken to you
about the hurtful reputation which a large proportion of the people of
our race get in one way or another because of this seeming inability to
put a proper value upon time, or a proper value upon the importance of
keeping one's word in connection with obligations.
You know to what a large extent the feeling prevails--whether justly
or unjustly--that as a people we cannot be depended upon to keep our
word; that if we are hired to work in a mill or a factory, we work
until we have got three dollars or four dollars in wages ahead, and
then go on an excursion, or go to town, and do not return to work until
what we have earned has been consumed.
And so, in one way or another, a large proportion of us get the
reputation that we cannot be depended upon for faithful, regular,
efficient service; and that hurts the race. Wherever you go, we wish
you by your own actions, by your advice, by your influence, to try and
disprove and counteract that hurtful reputation. You can do this in the
most efficient manner by yourselves being the highest possible example.
The people who succeed are, very largely, those who learn to economize
time, in the ways I have referred to, and those who also have learned
to save, not only time, but money.
Now this may seem to you a very materialistic thought for me to
emphasize this evening--the saving of money--but to us, as a race, it
is of vital importance. I have heard it expressed recently on several
occasions that the Negro was becoming too much materialized, too much
industrialized. Too much attention, it has been said, is given to the
material side of life. Now it seems to me that I have as yet seen very
little that need arouse our fears in that direction. I am not able
to understand how a race that does not own a single steam railroad,
that does not own a single street-car line, that owns hardly a bank,
that does not own a single block of houses in a large city--I am not
able to understand how such a race as that is in danger of becoming
materialized. When you get millions of dollars in banks, when you get
millions of dollars invested in railroad stocks, when you get other
millions invested in street-car lines, or in the control of large
factories, great plantations, or in other great industrial enterprises
in the South, then I shall say that there are signs of your becoming
too materialistic, of your getting to be too rich; but I do not see any
such signs yet. And until we do see such signs, we can rest ourselves
in peace, I think, so far as that danger is concerned.
But there is a certain influence of money that I do not think we
emphasize enough. In the first place the getting hold of money, the
getting hold of a competency, insures us the possession of certain
influences that we can get in no other way. In order to get hold of
the spiritually best and highest things in life there are certain
material things that we are compelled to have first. In the first place
the getting hold of money and the saving of this money will assure the
possession of decent comfortable houses to live in. No person can do
his best work, or can be of the greatest service to himself and to his
fellow-beings, until he is able to live in a decent, comfortable house.
You will not be ready for life until you own such a house, whether you
live in it or not. Even if you own such a house and rent it out, you
are that much more of a man. I often hear people say that they do not
own a house, or property, because they do not expect to live long in
this place or that place. I have known such people to move six times in
six years. They never will own a house, simply because they have got
into the habit of giving excuses, instead of trying to get to own a
home.
The possession of a decent house insures us a certain amount of proper
comfort. No person can do the best work, can think well, can get along
well, unless he has a certain amount of comfort, and, I may add, a
certain amount of good, nourishing food, well cooked. The person who is
not sure where he is going to get his breakfast, or the one who is not
sure where he is going to get the money to pay his next week's board,
is the individual who cannot do the best work, whether the work be
physical, mental or spiritual. The possession of money enables us to be
sure that we are going to have comfortable clothing, clothing enough to
keep the body warm and vigorous, and in good, healthy condition.
The possession of money enables us to get to the point where we can
do our part in the building of school-houses, churches, hospitals;
it enables us to do our part in all these directions. Money not only
enables us to get upon our feet in these material directions, but it
has another value. The getting of it develops foresight on our part.
People cannot get money without learning to exercise forethought,
without planning to-day for to-morrow, this week for the next week,
and this year for next year. People cannot get hold of money--or
at least cannot keep hold of it--who have not learned to exercise
self-control. They must be able to say "No." I want you students, when
you go out from here, to be able to say "No." I want you to be able to
go by a store and, as you notice the things in that store--whether
candy or spring hats, or whatever it is that attracts you--to be able,
notwithstanding the fact that you have the money in your pockets to
buy, to exercise a self-control that will enable you to pass these
things by and save your money to invest it in a home. Persons cannot
get hold of money without learning to exercise economy, without
learning to make everything go just as far as it is possible to make it
go.
Then, again, the getting money enables a person to become a good,
steady, safe citizen. The people who kill and are killed, nine times
out of ten, whether they are black or white, are people who do not own
a home, who do not have money in the bank. They are people who live in
their gripsacks. They are gripsack leaders. If their gripsacks are in
Montgomery to-night, there is their home. If they are in Opelika the
next night, there is their home that night. There are numbers of these
people who have no home except their gripsacks. Now I don't want you to
go out from here to be that kind of men and women. I want to see you
own land. I want to see you own a decent home. And let me say right
here that your home is not decent or complete unless it contains a
good, comfortable bath-tub. Of the two, I believe I would rather see
you own a bathtub without a house, than a house without a bathtub. If
you get the tub you are sure to get the house later. So when you go out
from here, buy a bathtub, even if you cannot afford to buy anything
else.
The possession of money, the having of a bank account, even if small,
gives us a certain amount of self-respect. An individual who has a bank
account walks through a street so much more erect; he looks people
in the face. The people in the community in which he lives have a
confidence in him and a respect for him which they would not have if he
did not possess the bank account.
Now one great mistake that we make in striving to reach these things
is that we keep putting off beginning. The young man says that he will
begin when he gets married. The young woman says that she will begin
when she gets dressed well enough, or gets a little further on in life.
Yielding to this temptation or to that, they keep putting off beginning
to save. It makes one sick at heart, as he goes into the cities, to
see young men on Sunday afternoons paying two or three dollars for a
hack or carriage to take young women out to drive, when in too many
cases the men do not earn a salary of more than four dollars a week.
Young women, don't go driving with such men. A man who goes driving on
a salary of four dollars a week cannot own a home or possess a bank
account. When you are asked to go to drive by such a man as that, tell
him you would rather he would put his money in the bank, because you
know he is not able to afford to spend it in that way.
I like to see people comfortably and neatly dressed; but there is no
sadder sight than to see young men and women yielding to the temptation
to spend all they earn upon clothes. Then when they die--in many, many
cases--somebody has to pass around a hat to take up a collection in
order that they may be decently put away. Do not make that mistake.
Resolve that no matter how little you may earn, you will put a part of
the money in the bank. If you earn five dollars a week, put two dollars
in the bank. If you earn ten dollars, save four of them. Put the money
in the bank. Let it stay there. When it begins to draw interest you
will find that you will appreciate the value of money.
A little while ago I was in the city of New Bedford, the city which was
formerly the home of Mrs. Hetty Green, who is said to be the richest
woman in the world. I want to tell you a story about her that was told
me by a gentleman who lived in New Bedford, and who knew Mrs. Green
when she lived there. For many years they had in New Bedford no savings
bank that would take a very small deposit. Finally a five-cent savings
bank was opened there. Just after this had been done, Mrs. Green told
this gentleman that she was glad they had opened a five-cent bank,
so that now she would be able to put that amount in and have it draw
interest. You who are here do not think about five cents as a sum to be
saved. You think of it only as money to buy peanuts and candy, or cheap
ribbons, or cheap jewellery.
On last Sunday evening I was in the home of a gentleman in New York who
has in his family a girl who is now only eighteen years old, and who,
when she came to this country a few years ago and went to work in this
family as a maid, could not speak a word of English. This girl now has
fifteen hundred dollars in the bank. Think of it! A young woman coming
to this country poor, and unable to speak a word of English, has saved
in a short time fifteen hundred dollars! I wonder how many of you, five
years from now, will have fifteen hundred dollars in the bank or in
some other safe kind of property.
The civilization of New England and of other such prosperous regions
rests more, perhaps, upon the savings banks of the country than upon
any other one thing. You ask where the wealth of New England is. It is
not in the hands of millionaires. It is in the hands of individuals,
who have a few hundreds or a few thousands of dollars put safely away
in some bank or banks. You will find that the savings banks of New
England, and of all countries that are prosperous, are filled with the
dollars of poor people, dollars aggregating millions in all.
We cannot get upon our feet, as a people, until we learn the saving
habit; until we learn to save every nickel, every dime and every dollar
that we can spare.
GROWTH
I want to impress upon you this evening the importance of continued
growth. I very much wish that each one of you might imagine, this
evening, your father and your mother to be looking at you and examining
into every act of your life while here. I wish that you might feel,
as it were, their very heart throbs. I wish that you might realize,
perhaps as you have never realized before, how anxious they are that
you should succeed here. I wish that you could know how many prayers
they send up, day after day, that your school life may be more and
more successful as one day succeeds another, that you may grow to be
successful, studious, strong men and women, who will reflect credit
upon yourselves and honour upon your families.
Each one of you must have had some thoughts about those who are anxious
about you, some thought for those persons whose hearts are very often
bowed down in anxiety because they fear your school life here will not
be successful. Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of those
who are near and dear to you, those who have done more for you than
anybody else, I want you to make up your minds that this year is going
to be the best one of your lives.
I want you to resolve that you are going to put into this year the
hardest and the most earnest work that you have ever done in your life,
to resolve that this is going to be the greatest, the most courageous
and the most sinless year of life that you have ever lived; I want
you to make up your minds to do this; to decide that you are going to
continually grow--and grow more to-morrow than to-day. There are but
two directions in this life in which you can grow; backward or forward.
You can grow stronger, or you can grow weaker; you can grow greater, or
smaller; but it will be impossible for you to stand still.
Now in regard to your studies; your lessons. I want you to make up
your minds that you are going to be more and more thorough in your
lessons each day you remain here; that you are going to so discipline
yourselves that each morning will find you in the recitation rooms with
your lessons more thoroughly and more conscientiously prepared for the
day's work than they were for the work of the day before. I want you to
make up your minds that you are going to be more nearly perfect, are
going to put more manly and womanly strength into the preparation of
your lessons each day, that you may be more useful. Then you will find
yourselves wanting to grow, I hope; will find yourselves learning the
dignity of labour, and that no class of people can get up and stay up,
can be strong and useful and respected, until they learn that there is
no disgrace in any form of labour.
I hope you are learning that labour with the hand, in any form
whatever, is not disgraceful. I hope that you are learning, day by day,
that all kinds of labour--whether with the mind or with the hand--are
honourable, and that people only disgrace themselves by being and
keeping in idleness.
I want you to go forward by thoroughness in your work; by being more
conscientious in your work; by loving your work more to-day than you
did yesterday. If you are not growing in these respects--that is,
if you are not going forward--you are going backward, and are not
answering the purpose for which this institution was established, are
not answering the purpose for which your parents sent you here.
I want to emphasize the fact that we want you to grow in the direction
of character--to grow stronger each day in the matter of character.
When I say character, here, I mean to use the word in its broadest
sense. The institution wants to find you growing more polite to your
fellows every day, as you come in contact with them, whether it be in
the class-room, in the shop, in the field, in the dining-room, or in
your bedroom. No matter where you are, I want you to find yourselves
growing more polite and gentlemanly. Notice I do not say merely that I
want your teachers--those who are over you--to find you growing more
polite; I want you to find yourselves so. If you are not doing this,
you are going backward, you are going in the wrong direction.
I want to find you each day more thoughtful of others, and less
selfish. I want you to be more conscientious in your thoughts and
in your work, and with regard to your duty toward others. This is
growing in the right direction; not doing this is growing in the wrong
direction. Nor do I want you to feel that you are to strive for this
spirit of growth for this one year alone, or for the time that you are
here. I hope that you will continue to grow in the forward direction.
Then, and this is more important still, we want you to take this habit
of growth--this disposition to grow in the right direction--out with
you from the school, and scatter it as an influence for good wherever
you go. We want you to take it into your schools; for many of you
are going to become teachers. We want you not only to begin it when
you begin teaching in an humble way, but we want to see you grow and
improve in it every year. We want to see you make your school-houses
more attractive; to see you make everything in connection with your
schools and your teaching better and stronger; to see you make a school
more useful every year that you remain as its teacher.
Then, too, when you go out and get employment--no matter of what kind
it may be--we want to see you grow better in that employment; we want
to see you advance in ability, commanding always a larger salary,
advancing in value to those who employ you. We want to see you grow in
reputation for being honest, conscientious, intelligent, hard-working;
no matter in what capacity you are employed.
Some of you are going out to establish homes and settle down in
home life. We want to see you grow in that direction. Nothing is so
disheartening--there is nothing so discouraging--as to see a man or
woman settle down in a home, and then not to see that home grow more
beautiful, inside and outside;--to see it, instead of this, each year
grow dingy and dirty, because it each year receives less and less
attention.
We want Tuskegee students to go out from here and establish homes that
will be models in every respect for those about them--homes that will
show that the lives of the persons who have established them are models
for the lives of those who live about them. If you do this, your lives
are going to be a constant going forward; for, I repeat, your lives
are going to be one thing or the other, continually going backward or
continually going forward.
LAST WORDS
We have come to the close of another school year. Some of you will
go out from among us now, not to return. Others will go home for the
summer vacation and return at the end of that for the next school year.
As you go out, there is one thing that I want to especially caution you
about. Don't go home and feel that you are better than the rest of the
folks in your neighbourhood because you have been away at school. Don't
go home and feel ashamed of your parents because you think they don't
know as much as you think you know. Don't think that you are too good
to help them. It would be better for you not to have any education,
than for you to go home and feel ashamed of your parents, or not want
to help them.
Let me tell you of one of the most encouraging and most helpful things
that I have known of in connection with the life of our students after
they leave this institution. I was in a Southern city, and going
about among the homes of the people of our race. Among these homes I
noticed one which was so neat looking that it was conspicuous. I asked
the person who was with me, "How is it that this house is in such
good condition, looks so much better than some of the others in the
neighbourhood?" "It is like this," said the man who was accompanying
me. "The people who live there have a son whom they sent to your
school, at considerable self-denial to themselves. This young man came
home from school a few weeks ago. For some time after he came back he
did not have work to keep him busy, and so he employed his spare time
in fixing up his parents' home. He fixed the roof and chimney, put new
palings in the fence where they were needed and did such things as
that. Then he got a stock of paint and painted the house thoroughly,
two coats, outside and in. That is why the place looks so neat."
Such testimony as that is very helpful. It shows that the students
carry out from here the spirit which we try to inculcate.
Another thing. Go home and lead a simple life. Don't give the
impression that you think education means superficiality and dress.
Be polite; to white and coloured people, both. It is possible for
you, by paying heed to this, to do a great deal toward securing and
preserving pleasant relations between the people of both races in the
South. Try to have your manners in this respect so good that people
will notice them and ask where you have been, at what school you
learned to be so polite. You will find that politeness counts for a
great deal, not only in helping you to get work, but in helping you to
keep it.
Don't be ashamed to go to church and Sunday school, to the Young Men's
Christian Association and the Christian Endeavour Society. Show that
education has only deepened your interest in such things. Have no going
backward. Be clean, in your person, your language and in your thoughts.
It seems appropriate during these closing days of the school year to
re-emphasize, if possible, that for which the institution stands.
We want to have every student get what we have--in our egotism,
perhaps--called the "Tuskegee spirit"; that is, to get hold of the
spirit of the institution, get hold of that for which it stands; and
then spread that spirit just as widely as possible, and plant it just
as deeply as it is possible to plant it.
In addition to the members of our graduating class, we have each year
a large number of students who go out to spend their vacations. Some
of these will return at the close of vacation, but some, for various
reasons, will not return. Whether you go out as graduates, whether you
go out to return or not to return, it is important that all of you get
hold of the "Tuskegee spirit"; the spirit of giving yourselves, in
order that you may help lift up others. In no matter how small a degree
it may be, see that you are assisting some one else.
Now, after a number of years' experience, the institution feels that it
has reached a point where it can, with some degree of authority, give
advice as to the best way in which you can spend your life.