Washington has done more for the education of the negro than any other one man, white or black. His work at Tuskegee, his great educational campaigns, and his speeches and writings have combined to make his accomplishments of supreme value. Not only has he done this for the negro, but his work has helped the cause of education for the white people very greatly. All education in the South was backward. Like his great teacher, General Armstrong, Washington realized that in their progress the two races were bound together in the South, and that they must grow or step backward together. It is impossible for the negro to make his best progress unless the white man does so at the same time. And of course this works both ways. Because he believed this, Washington was anxious for school conditions for white people to change just as well as the school conditions for negroes. Besides, he wanted all the people to have the advantages of education. He did not hate anybody, and consequently did not want anybody to be deprived of the best there was in life. He did not want anybody, white or black, to fail to have his best opportunity. So he worked for the advancement of the cause of the white schools as well as the black, and his services to the white schools were great. The future of negro education is very bright. Schools and colleges are being built every year. Better teachers are being prepared. Children are going to school in larger numbers than ever before, and their work is more satisfactory. Every year the states appropriate more and more money for negro education. The negro is now able to pay a large part of the cost of his own education, and he is very willingly doing so. The negro is determined to get an education. When he gets it, he will be a better citizen. And the better the citizens of a country are, the better life is in every way, and the more completely are all our problems solved. CHAPTER XII LEADING HIS PEOPLE Immediately following Washington’s great speech in Atlanta in 1895, there came the statement from all parts of the country, “Here is the new leader of the negro race.” During the last years of slavery, and the Civil War, and on for years after the war, Frederick Douglass, as has been said, was the acknowledged leader of the negro in the United States. Douglass had died in the early part of the year 1895. It seemed that this man Washington had been raised up to take his place. The Atlanta speech continued to be a topic of discussion throughout the country, and coupled with this discussion was invariably the statement that here was the new leader of the race. Washington says that he was at a great loss to know what people meant when they referred to him as the leader of his people. Of course, this leadership was not a thing that he had sought. The people thrust this duty upon him, and of course no man has a right to shun or dodge responsibility that is thus bestowed.