Booker T Washington, Democracy and Education (1899) 8

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON , PRINCIPAL TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE , TUSKEGEE , ALA .

Mr Chancellor , ladies and gentlemen : This evening I find myself in the midst of strange associations and surroundings . From the humble and debasing life of a Virginia plantation , I have not had that to fit me to share in the work of an institution created by such great souls as John Jay , James Kent and Alexander Hamilton and later made illustrious and powerful by George William Curtis , and the eminent gentlemen by whom we are surrounded this even- ing . My message to you must be a very simple and humble one . My history and opportunities have not fitted me to be your teacher this evening in any line of education .

I was born a on a plantation in Virginia about 1858 or '59 . I have never been able to learn the exact place or date of my birth , but have some pretty good evidence of the fact that I was born some where at some time . My first recollection of life is that of living in a one - room log cabin , without floor and windows and almost with- out a door . Early one morning at the close of the war , in company with about 80 other s , I was commanded to go to the ' big house ' and listen to the reading of some papers , and when this was through with , my mother , who was standing by my side , leaned over and whispered to me ' Now we are free ' . Then I went with my mother into West Virginia and began working in the coal mines for her support . While working in these coal mines I heard of the Hampton institute , Gen. Armstrong's school in Virginia . Though without a dollar , I resolved to go there , as I heard it was an insti- tution where a poor boy would be given a chance to work for a portion of his education . After making every effort possible to get money , I started early one morning to find my way to the Hampton institute . After walking a great part of the distance , begging rides in wagons and cars , I finally found myself one night in the city of Richmond , Va . without money , friends or a place to sleep . Wan- dering about the streets till it had grown to be quite midnight and I had become tired and almost broken down I chanced upon a hole under a sidewalk that presented a tempting place for sleep . In that hole I spent my first night in Richmond . Waking up next morning I went to the captain of a vessel near by and he kindly gave me work so that I earned my breakfast ; I continued work- ing on this vessel during the day and sleeping in this hole at night till I had earned money enough to continue my way to the Hampton institute where I soon arrived with a surplus of 50 cents with which to begin my education .

I found the opportunity in the way of buildings , teachers and industries , very largely furnished by friends in the north , for me to remain there and work for my education , so far as my board was concerned . While going through Hampton in this way I resolved that if God permitted me to finish the course of study there that I would go into the far south , into the ' Black Belt ' of the south and give my life in whatever humble manner I could in trying to provide that same kind of opportunity for my people to lift themselves up through industrial education that I found pro- vided for me at Hampton . So in 1881 I was permitted to found in the little town of Tuskegee , Alabama , the Tuskegee normal and industrial institute . And so my word to you to - night must be somewhat of a narration of impressions that have come to me in the furtherance of my life work at Tuskegee rather than an attempt at any philosophical exposition of educational principles .

It is said that the strongest chain is no stronger than its weakest link . In the southern part of our country are 22,000,000 of your brethren who are bound to you and to whom you are bound by ties which you can not tear asunder if you would . The most intel- ligent man in your community has his intelligence darkened by the ignorance of a fellow citizen in the Mississippi bottoms . The most wealthy in your city would be more wealthy but for the poverty of a fellow being in the Carolina rice swamps . The most moral and religious among you has his religion and morality modified by the degradation of the man in the south whose religion is a mere matter of form or emotionalism . The vote in your state that is cast for the highest and purest form of government , is largely neutralized by the vote of the man in Louisiana whose ballot is stolen or cast in ignorance . When the south is ignorant you are ignorant ; when the south is poor you are poor ; when the south commits crime you commit crime . My friends , there is no escape , you must help us raise the character of our civilization or yours will be lowered . No member of your race in any part of our country can harm the weakest and meanest member of mine without the proudest and bluest blood in the state of New York being degraded .

The central idea which I wish you to help me consider this even- ing is , the reaching and lifting up of the lowest , most unfortunate and negative element that occupy so large a proportion of our terri- tory and compose so large a percentage of our population . It seems to me that there never was a time in the history of our country when those interested in education should more earnestly consider to what extent the mere acquiring of the ability to read and write , the mere acquiring of a knowledge of literature and science makes men producers , lovers of labor , independent , honest , unselfish , and above all supremely good . Call education by what name you please and if it does not bring about these results among the masses it falls short of its highest end . The science , the art , the literature , that fails to reach down and bring the humblest up to the enjoyment of the fullest blessings of our government is weak , no matter how costly the buildings or apparatus used , or how modern the methods of instruction employed . The study of arithmetic that does not result in making some one more honest and self - reliant , is defective . The study of history that does not result in making men conscien- tious in receiving and counting the ballots of their fellow men is most faulty . The study of art that does not result in making the strong less willing to oppress the weak means little . How I wish that from the most cultured and highly endowed university in New York to the humblest log cabin schoolhouse in Alabama , we could burn it , as it were , into the hearts and heads of all , that usefulness , service to our brother , is the supreme end of education . Putting the thought more directly as it applies to conditions in the south : can you make your intelligence affect us in the same ratio that our ignorance affects you ? Let us put a not improbable case : a great national question is to be decided , one that involves peace or war the honor or dishonor of our nation yea , the very existence of the government . The north and west are divided . There are 5,000,000 votes to be cast in the south and of this number one half are ignorant ; not only are one half the voters ignorant , but because of this ignorant vote , corruption , dishonesty in a dozen forms has crept into the exercise of the political franchise to the extent that the conscience of the intelligent class is soured in its attempts to defeat the will of the ignorant voters . Here then you have on the one hand an ignorant vote and on the other an intelligent vote largely minus a conscience . The time may not be far off when to this kind of jury we shall have to look for the verdict that is to decide the course of our democratic institutions . When a great national calamity stares us in the face , we are , I fear , too much . given to depending on a short ' campaign of education ' to do on the hustings what should have been accomplished in the schoolroom .

But in spite of this confusion there are a few things of which I feel certain and that furnish a basis for thought and action . I know that whether we are increasing or decreasing , whether we are grow- ing better or worse , whether we are valuable or valueless , that a few years ago 14 of us were brought into this country and now there are 10,000,000 of us . I know that whether in ry or freedom we have always been loyal to the stars and stripes , that no schoolhouse has been opened for us that has not been filled , that 2,000,000 ballots that we have the right to cast are as potent for weal or woe as the ballot cast by the whitest and most influential man in your common- wealth . I know that wherever our life touches yours we help or we hinder ; that wherever your life touches ours you make us stronger or weaker . Farther I know that almost every other race that has tried to live in the midst of the Anglo - Saxon race , that has tried to look the white man in the face , has disappeared . I know that with all the conflicting opinions , and with a full knowledge of all our weaknesses , only a few centuries ago we went into ry in this country pagans , we came out Christians ; we went into ry a piece of property , we came out American citizens ; we went into ry without a language , we came out speaking the proud Anglo- Saxon tongue ; we went into ry with the chains clanking about our wrists , we came out with the American ballot in our hands . My friends , I submit it to your candid and sober judgment , that if a race that is capable of such a feat , such a transformation , is not worth saving and making a part in reality as well as in name of our democratic government . That the negro may be fitted for the fullest enjoyment of the privileges and responsibilities of our country it is important that we be honest and candid with the negro himself , whether our honesty and candor for the time being pleases or dis- pleases him . It is with an ignorant race as it is with a child , it craves at first the superficial , the ornamental , the signs of progress rather than the reality . The ignorant race is tempted to jump , at one bound , to the position that it has required years of hard struggle for others to reach .

It seems to me that the temptation in educational and missionary work is to do for a people that which was done a thousand years ago or is being done for a people a thousand miles away without always making a careful study of the needs and conditions of the people whom we are trying to help . The temptation is to run all people through a certain educational mold , regardless of the con- dition of the subject or the end to be accomplished . Unfortunately for us as a race , our education was begun , immediately after the war , in many cases too nearly where New England education ended . We seemed to overlook the fact that we were dealing with a race that had little occasion to labor in their native land and consequently brought little love for labor with them to America . Added to this was the fact that they had been forced for 250 years to labor without compensation under circumstances that were calculated to do any- thing but teach them to see the dignity , beauty and civilizing power of intelligent labor . We forgot the industrial education that was given the Pilgrim fathers of New England in clearing and planting its cold , bleak and snowy hills and valleys , in providing shelter , founding small mills and factories , in supplying themselves with home - made garments , thus laying the foundation of an industrial life that now keeps going a large part of the colleges and missionary effort of the world .

May I be tempted one step farther in showing how prone we are to make our education formal , technical , instead of making it meet actual needs regardless of formality or technicality ? At least 80 % of my people in the south are found in the rural districts , and they are dependent on agriculture in some form for their support . Not- withstanding that in this instance we have practically a whole race dependent upon agriculture , and notwithstanding that 30 years have passed since our freedom , aside from what has been done at Hamp- ton and Tuskegee and one or two other institutions , not a thing has been attempted by state or philanthropy in the way of educating the race in this one industry on which their very existence depends . Boys have been taken from the farms and educated in law , theology , Hebrew and Greek -- educated in everything else but the very sub- ject that they should know most about . I question whether or not among all the educated colored people in the United States you can find six , if we except the institutions named , that have received anything like a thorough training in agriculture . It would have seemed that since self - support , industrial independence , is the first condition for lifting up any race , education in theoretic and prac- tical agriculture , horticulture , dairying and stock raising should have occupied the first place in our system . Sometime ago when we decided to make tailoring a part of our training at the Tuskegee institute I was amazed to find that it was almost impossible to find in the whole country an educated colored man who could teach the making of clothing . I could find them by the score who could . teach astronomy , theology , German or Latin , but almost none who could instruct in the making of clothing , something that has to be used by every one of us every day in the year . How often has my heart been made to sink as I have gone through the south and into the homes of the people and found women who could converse in- telligently on Grecian history , who had studied geometry , could analyze the most complex sentences , and yet who could not analyze the poorly cooked and still more poorly served corn bread and fat meat that they and their families were eating three times a day . It is little trouble to find girls who can locate Pekin or the desert of Sahara on an artificial globe , but seldom can you find one who can locate on an actual dinner table the proper place for the carving knife and fork , or the meat and vegetables .

A short time ago in one of the southern cities , a colored man died who had received training as a skilled mechanic during the days of ry . By his skill and industry he built up a great business as a house contractor and builder . In this same city there are 35000 colored people , among them young men who have been well edu- cated in the languages and literature , but not a single one could be found who had been so trained in mechanical and architectural drawing that he could carry on the business which this ex - had built up , and so it was soon scattered to the wind . Aside from the work done in the institutions that I have mentioned , you can find almost no colored men who have been trained in the principles of architecture , notwithstanding that the vast majority of our race is without homes . Here then are the three prime conditions for growth , for civilization : food , clothing , shelter , and yet we have been the s of forms and customs to such an extent that we have failed in a large measure to look matters squarely in the face and meet actual needs . You can not graft a 15th century civiliza- tion on a 20th century civilization by the mere performance of mental gymnastics . Understand , I speak in no faultfinding spirit , but with a feeling of deep gratitude for all that has been done , but the future must be an improvement on the past .

I have endeavored to speak plainly in regard to the past because I fear that the wisest and most interested have not fully compre- hended the task which American ry has laid at the doors of this republic . Few , I fear , realize what is to be done before the 8,000,000 of my people in the south can be made a safe , helpful , progressive part of our institutions . The south in proportion to its ability has done well , but this does not change facts . Let me illus- trate what I mean by a single example . In spite of all that has been done I was in a county in Alabama a few days ago where there are some 30000 colored people and about 7000 whites . In this county not a single public school for negroes has been open this year longer than three months , not a single colored teacher has been paid more than $ 15 per month for his teaching . Not one of these schools was held in a building that was worthy of the name of schoolhouse . In this county the state or public authorities do not own a single dollar's worth of school property not a schoolhouse , a blackboard or a piece of crayon . Each colored child had spent on him this year for his education about 50 cents , while each one of your children had spent on him this year for education not far from $ 20 . And yet each citizen of this county is expected to share the burdens and privileges of our democratic form of government just as intelligently and conscientiously as the citizens of your beloved New York . A vote in this county means as much to the nation as a vote in the city of Boston . Crime in this county is as truly an arrow aimed at the heart of the government as crime committed in your own streets .

Do you know that a single schoolhouse built this year in a town near Boston to shelter about 300 students has cost as much for building alone as will be spent this year for the education , including buildings , apparatus , teachers , for the whole colored school popula- tion of Alabama ? The commissioner of education for the state of Georgia recently reported to the state legislature that in the state there were 200,000 children that had entered no school the past year and 100,000 more who were at school but a few days , making prac- tically 300,000 children between 6 and 18 years that are growing up in ignorance . The same report states that outside of the cities and towns , while the average number of schoolhouses in a county is 60 , all of these 60 schoolhouses are worth in a lump less than $ 2000 , and the report farther adds that many of the schoolhouses in Georgia are not fit for horse stables . These illustrations , my friends , as far as concerns the gulf states , are not exceptional or overdrawn cases .

I have referred to industrial education as a means of fitting the millions of my people in the south for the duties of citizenship . Until there is industrial independence it is hardly possible to have a pure ballot . In the country districts of the gulf states it is safe to say that not more than one black man in 20 owns the land he culti- vates . When so large a proportion of a people are dependent , live in other people's houses , eat other people's food , and wear clothes they have not paid for , it is a pretty hard thing to tell how they are going to vote .

My remarks thus far have referred mainly to my own race . But there is another side . The longer I live and the more I study the question , the more I am convinced that it is not so much a problem of what you will do with the negro as of what the negro will do with you and your civilization . In considering this side of the subject , I thank God that I have grown to the point where I can sympathize with a white man as much as I can sympathize with a black man . I have grown to the point where I can sympathize with a southern white man as much as I can sympathize with a northern white man . To me ' a man is but a man for a ' that and a ' that ' . The most eloquent recent representative of the white south not long ago in a Boston banquet hall gave utterance to this declaration : ‘ The supremacy of the white race of the south must be maintained forever and the dominion of the negro race resisted at all hazards ' . My love for the whole south is such that I would go farther , I would change this declaration , I would make it broader , deeper and more Christ- like ; I would make this proposition read : ' The supremacy of the most virtuous , intelligent and substantial individual or race in the south is to be maintained and the advance of all races is to be assisted forever , not resisted ' . Standing thus , this utterance would need no modification to make it fit the growing intelligence and liberality of the world , and would teach the lesson that the south and the world needs to be taught .

As bearing upon democracy and education , what of your white brethren in the south , those who suffered and are still suffering the consequences of American ry for which both you and they were responsible ? You of the great and prosperous north still owe to your less fortunate brethren of the Caucasian race in the south not less than to yourselves , a serious and uncompleted duty . What was the task you asked them to perform ? Returning to their des- titute homes after years of war to face blasted hopes , devastation , a shattered industrial system , you asked them to add to their own burdens , that of preparing for citizenship , in education , politics , and economics , in a few short years , 4,000,000 of former s . That the south staggering under the burden made blunders , and that in a measure there has been disappointment no one need be surprised . The educators , the statesmen , the philanthropists , have never com- prehended their duty toward the millions of poor whites in the south who were buffeted for 200 years between ry and freedom , between civilization and degradation , who were disregarded by both master and . It needs no prophet to tell the character of our future civilization when the poor white boy in the country districts of the south receives one dollar's worth of education and your boy $ 20 worth , when one never enters a reading room or library and the other has reading rooms and libraries in every ward and town . When one hears a lecture or sermon once in two months and the other can hear a lecture or sermon every day in the year . When you help the south you help yourselves , mere abuse will not bring about the remedy . The time has come , it seems to me , and if our present war accomplishes nothing else , I pray God it will accomplish this , when in this matter we should rise above party , or race , or sectionalism into the region of duty of man to man , citizen to citizen , Christian to Christian , and if the negro who has been oppressed , and denied rights in a Christian land can help you north and south to rise , can be the medium of your rising into this atmosphere of generous Christian brotherhood and self - forgetfulness , he will see in it a recompense for all that he has suffered in the past .

Not very long ago a white citizen of the south boastingly expressed himself in public to this effect : ' I am now 46 years of age , but have never polished my own boots , have never saddled my own horse , have never built a fire in my room , have never hitched a horse ' ; he was asked a short time since by a lame man to hitch his horse , but refused and told him to get a negro to do it . Our state law requires that a voter be able to read the constitution before voting , but the last clause of the constitution is written in Latin . The negroes can not read Latin and so they are asked to read the Latin clause and are thus disfranchised , while the whites are permitted to read the English portion of the constitution . I do not quote these statements for the purpose of condemning the individual or the south , for though myself a member of a despised and unfortunate race , I pity from the bottom of my heart any of God's creatures whence such a statement can emanate . Evidently here is a man who so far as mere book training is concerned is educated , for he boasts of his knowl- edge of Latin , but so far as the real purpose of education - the making of men useful , honest and liberal , this man has never been touched . Here is a citizen in the midst of our republic , clothed in a white skin , with all the technical signs of education , but who is as little fitted for the highest purposes of life as any creature found in Central Africa . My friends , can we make our education reach down far enough to touch and help this man ? Can we so control science , art , and literature as to make them to such an extent a means rather than an end , that the lowest and most unfortunate of God's creatures shall be lifted up , ennobled and glorified shall be freemen instead of s of narrow sympathies and wrong customs .

Some years ago a bright young man of my race , succeeded in passing a competitive examination that secured him a cadetship at the U. S. Naval academy at Annapolis . This young man , Mr Henry E. Baker , in describing his stay at this institution , says :

' I was several times attacked with stones , and was forced finally to appeal to the officers , when a marine was detailed to accompany me across the campus to and from mess hall at meal times . My books were mutilated , my clothes were cut , and in some instances destroyed , and all the petty annoyances which ingenuity could devise were inflicted upon me daily , and during seamanship practice at- tempts were often made to do me personal injury , while I would be aloft in the rigging . No one ever addressed me by name . I was called the " Moke " usually , the " d - n nigger " , for variety . I was shunned as if I were a veritable leper , and received curses and blows as the only method my persecutors had of relieving the monotony . Not once during the two years , with a single exception , did any one of the more than 400 cadets enrolled ever come to him with a word of advice , counsel , sympathy or information and he never held conversation with any one of them for as much as five minutes during the whole course of his experience at the academy , except on occasions when he was defending himself against their assaults . The one example of a departure from the rule was in the case of a Pennsylvania boy who stealthily brought him a piece of his birth- day cake at 12 o'clock one night . The act so surprised Baker that his suspicions were aroused , but these were dispelled by the donor who read to him a letter he had received from his mother from whom the cake came , in which she requested that a slice be given to the colored cadet who was without friends .

I recite this incident not for the purpose merely of condemning the wrong done a member of my race no , no , not that . I men- tion the case not for the sake of the one cadet but for the sake of the 400 cadets , for the sake of the 400 American families , the 400 American communities whose civilization and Christianity these cadets represented . Here were 400 and more picked young men representing the flower of our land , who had passed through our common schools and were preparing themselves at public expense to defend the honor of our country . And yet with grammar , read- ing and arithmetic , in the public schools , and with lessons in the arts of war , and the principles of physical courage , at Annapolis , both systems seem to have utterly failed to so prepare a single one of these young men for real life , that he could be brave enough , Christian enough , American enough , to take this poor defenseless black boy by the hand in open daylight and let the world know that he was his friend . Education , whether of white or black man , that gives one physical courage to stand in front of the cannon and fails to give him moral courage to stand up in defense of right and justice is a failure .

With all that your colleges and public schools stand for in their equipment , their endowment , their wealth and culture , their in- structors , can they produce mothers that will produce boys that will not be ashamed to have the world know that they are friends to the most unfortunate of God's creatures ? Can this board of regents put in motion an influence that will penetrate down through univer- sity , college , academy and high school , that will set the standard of citizenship so high as to make impossible , in our democratic life , distinctions that only serve to hurt and degrade the individual or race that inflicts them ?

Not long ago , a mother , a black mother , who lived in one of your northern cities , had heard it whispered around in her community for years that the negro was lazy , shiftless and would not work . So when her only boy grew to sufficient size , at considerable expense and great self - sacrifice she had him thoroughly taught the machin- ist's trade . A job was secured in a neighboring shop . With dinner bucket in hand and spurred on by the prayers of the now happy- hearted mother , the boy enters the shop to begin his first day's work . What happened ? Had any one of the 20 white Americans . been so educated that he gave this stranger a welcome into their midst ? No , not this . Every one of the 20 white men threw down their tools and deliberately walked out swearing that they would not give a black man an opportunity to earn an honest living . Another shop was tried with the same result , and still another and the same . To - day this once promising and ambitious black man is a wreck a confirmed drunkard — with no hope , no ambition . My friends , who blasted the life of this young man , on whose hands does his blood rest ? Our system of education , or want of education , is responsible . Can our public shools and colleges turn out a set of men that will throw open the doors of industry so that all men everywhere , regardless of color , shall have the same opportunity to earn a dollar that they now have to spend a dollar ? I know a good many species of cowardice and prejudice , but I know none equal to this . I know not who is the worse , the ex - holder who perforce compelled his to work without compensation , or the man who by force and strikes compels the negro to refrain from working for compensation .

My friends , we are one in this country . The question of the highest citizenship and the complete education of all concerns 10,000,000 of my people and 60,000,000 of yours . We rise as you rise , when we fall you fall . When we are strong you are strong , when we are weak you are weak . There is no power that can separate our destiny . The negro can afford to be wronged , the white man can not afford to wrong him . Unjust laws or customs that may exist in many places regarding the races , injure the white man and inconvenience the negro . No race can wrong another race simply because it has the power to do so without being per- manently injured in morals . The negro can endure the temporary inconvenience but the injury to the white man is permanent . It is for the white man to save himself from this degradation that I plead . If a white man steals a negro's ballot it is the white man who is permanently injured . Physical death comes to the one negro lynched in a county , but death of the morals - death of the soul ---- comes to the thousands responsible for the lynching .

We are a patient , humble race . We can afford to work and wait . There is plenty in this country for us to do . Away up in the atmos- phere of goodness , forbearance , patience , long suffering and for- giveness , the workers are not many or overcrowded . If others would be little we can be great . If others would be mean we can be good . If others would push us down we can help push them up . Character , not circumstances , makes the man . It is more important that we be prepared to hold office than that we hold office , more important that we be prepared for the highest recognition than that we be recognized .

Those who fought and died on the battlefield performed their duty heroically and well , but a duty remains for you and me . The mere fiat of law could not make an ignorant voter an intelligent voter , could not make a dependent man an independent man , could not make one citizen respect another . These results come to the negro as to all races , by beginning at the bottom and gradually working up to the highest civilization and accomplishments .

In the economy of God , there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed - there is but one for a race . This country demands that every race measure itself by the American standard . By it a race must rise or fall , succeed or fail , and in the last analysis , mere sentiment counts for little . During the next half century and more , my race must continue passing through the severe American crucible . We are to be tested in our patience , our forbearance , our perseverance , our power to endure wrong , to withstand temptations , to economize , to acquire and use skill ; our ability to compete , to succeed in commerce , to disregard the superficial for the real , the appearance for the substance , to be great and yet small , learned and yet simple , high and yet the servant of all . This , this is the passport to all that is best in the life of our republic , and the negro must possess it , or be debarred .

In working out our own destiny , while the main burden and center of activity must be with us , we shall need , in a large measure , in the years that are to come , as we have had in the past , the help , the encouragement , the guidance that the strong can give the weak . Thus helped , we of both races in the south , shall soon throw off the shackles of racial and sectional prejudice and rise above the clouds of ignorance , narrowness and selfishness , into that atmosphere , that pure sunshine , where it will be our highest ambition to serve man , our brother , and thus help you hasten the coming of that democracy which shall be in the south what it is in the north , and the same to the black man that it is to the white man in every part of our beau- tiful land . In all parts of our country we are wont to turn to New York to note the rise and fall of the stock market , to get the gage of our commercial progress , and as we look here for the highest exam- ple of material prosperity , may we not more and more through the influence of the University of the State of New York , turn here to find the most perfect object lesson in education an education that -- shall make men intelligent , useful , and in the highest degree helpful to their fellow men regardless of race or color ?