“To the students who are to go out from the Hampton institute today to begin what I hope are to be careers of usefulness, I wish to say: I hope that you will learn to be even tempered, self-controlled and hopeful. You will find many conditions that will try your soul, but the test of Hampton’s training will be shown by the ability with which you are able to choose the fundamental things in life and stick to them and not become discouraged because of the temporary and non-essential. The great thing is for you to conduct yourselves so as to become worthy of the privileges of an American citizen and these privileges will come. I hope you will not yield to the temptation of becoming grumblers and whiners, but will hold up your head and march bravely forward, meeting manfully and sensibly all the problems that may confront you. Place emphasis upon your opportunities rather than upon your disadvantages; place emphasis upon achievement rather than upon the injustices to which you will be subjected. As you go out into the world you may expect rebuffs, sometimes insults, opposition, injustice. You will meet with race prejudice in many forms, but if you are true to Hampton and its traditions you will meet and overcome all of these conditions with a calm and patient spirit. [Illustration: VIRGINIA AND CLEVELAND HALLS] “No one can degrade you; you, yourselves, are the only individuals who can inflict that punishment. I hope that you will pursue the policy of making yourself so indispensably useful in every community into which you go that the members of that community, black and white, will feel that they cannot dispense with your services. The race that goes quietly and contentedly on doing things day by day will reap its reward. It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to retaliate; more courage not to strike back than to strike; more courage to be silent than to speak. We must not permit ourselves to harbor the belief that our friends among the white people in the south are disappearing. If we pursue the sensible and conservative course, the number of such friends will multiply. There are great opportunities for us here in the south in education, industry, business and the professions. The race that gets most out of the soil, out of the wood, out of the kitchen, out of the school room, the doctor’s office or the pulpit, is the race that is going to succeed regardless of all obstacles.”