Another of his great speeches was made at Cambridge, Mass., in 1896. Harvard University, the oldest and most famous university in America, conferred the honorary degree of master of arts upon Mr. Washington in 1896. This was the first time in the history of America that a college or university of such high standing had ever conferred an honorary degree upon a negro. Washington says this honor was the greatest surprise of his life. At the time the ceremony of conferring this degree took place, he made a speech that won great applause from the audience. It is very interesting to read Washington’s own account of his experiences. “People often ask me,” he says, “if I feel nervous before speaking, or else suggest that, since I speak so often, they suppose I get used to it. In answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer intensely from nervousness before speaking. More than once, just before I was to make an important address, this nervous strain has been so great that I have resolved never again to speak in public. I not only feel nervous before speaking, but after I have finished I usually feel a sense of regret, because it seems to me as if I had left out of my address the best thing that I had meant to say.... Nothing tends to throw me off my balance so quickly, when I am speaking, as to have some one leave the room. To prevent this, I make up my mind, as a rule, that I will try to make my address so interesting, will try to state so many interesting facts one after another, that no one will leave.”[22] Washington made it a rule never to say anything to a Northern audience that he would not say to a Southern audience. He also made it a rule never to say to a negro audience anything that he would not say to a white audience. In this honest and fair way he kept close to the truth, and at the same time never offended fair-minded people of either race. He was a capital story-teller, but he did not make a practice of telling jokes and funny stories in his speeches, just to make people laugh. He always had a serious purpose in his stories. He had two or three stories that he told frequently, because they were so full of meaning. This was one of them: One day he was going along the road, and he met old Aunt Caroline, with a basket on her head. He said, “Good morning, Aunt Caroline. Where are you going this morning?” And she replied, “Lor’ bless yer, Mister Washington, I dun bin where I’s er goin.” “And so,” he would then say, “some of the races of the earth have done been where they was er goin’. But the negro race is not one of them. Its future lies before it.”[23]