Booker T. Washington, Builder of a CivilizationScott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
History
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization
Scott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
"After two years of school I went out and rented some land and planted
cotton, and just about time to harvest my crop Mr. Washington sent for
me one Saturday and said: 'I need you. I want you to come back and
work for the school on the farm. I want you to start in Monday
morning.' When I told him about my cotton crop just ready to be picked
he said: 'Can't help that, we need you. You'll have to arrange with
your neighbors to harvest your crop for you.'"
To the inquiry, "Well, did you come?" the old man replied, "Of course
I did. When Mr. Washington said come I came same as everybody did what
he told them. I got a neighbor to harvest my crop and I lost money on
it, but I came to work that Monday morning more than thirty years ago,
and I've been here ever since."
The idea of not doing what Mr. Washington wanted him to do, or even
arguing the matter, was evidently inconceivable to this old man. He
had always obeyed Mr. Washington just as he had obeyed the laws of
nature by sleeping and eating. That is the kind of control which
Booker Washington always exercised over his fellow-workers. He
accepted their implicit obedience as naturally and simply as they gave
it.
As Mr. Page also points out in the introduction to "Up from Slavery,"
however humble Mr. Washington's origin may have been, what might be
termed his intellectual pedigree was of the highest and finest. He may
be called, in fact, the spiritual grandson of the great Dr. Mark
Hopkins of Williams College. Just as Samuel Armstrong was perhaps the
most receptive of Mark Hopkins' pupils, so Booker Washington became
the most receptive pupil of Samuel Armstrong. As says Mr. Page: "To
the formation of Mr. Washington's character, then, went the missionary
zeal of New England, influenced by one of the strongest personalities
in modern education, and the wide-reaching moral earnestness of
General Armstrong himself." In his autobiography Mr. Washington thus
describes General Armstrong's influence and the impression he made
upon him: "It has been my fortune to meet personally many of what are
called great characters, both in Europe and America, but I do not
hesitate to say that I never met any man who, in my estimation, was
the equal of General Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of
the slave plantation and the coal mines, it was a rare privilege for
me to be permitted to come into direct contact with such a character
as General Armstrong. I shall always remember that the first time I
went into his presence he made the impression upon me of being a
perfect man; I was made to feel that there was something about him
that was superhuman. It was my privilege to know the General
personally from the time I entered Hampton till he died, and the more
I saw of him the greater he grew in my estimation. One might have
removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and
industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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