Up from Slavery: An AutobiographyWashington, Booker T.
History
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Washington, Booker T.
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Tuskegee Institute; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
After spending some time in Antwerp, we were invited to go with a part
of a half-dozen persons on a trip through Holland. This party included
Edward Marshall and some American artists who had come over on the same
steamer with us. We accepted the invitation, and enjoyed the trip
greatly. I think it was all the more interesting and instructive
because we went for most of the way on one of the slow, old-fashioned
canal-boats. This gave us an opportunity of seeing and studying the
real life of the people in the country districts. We went in this way
as far as Rotterdam, and later went to The Hague, where the Peace
Conference was then in session, and where we were kindly received by
the American representatives.
The thing that impressed itself most on me in Holland was the
thoroughness of the agriculture and the excellence of the Holstein
cattle. I never knew, before visiting Holland, how much it was possible
for people to get out of a small plot of ground. It seemed to me that
absolutely no land was wasted. It was worth a trip to Holland, too,
just to get a sight of three or four hundred fine Holstein cows grazing
in one of those intensely green fields.
From Holland we went to Belgium, and made a hasty trip through that
country, stopping at Brussels, where we visited the battlefield of
Waterloo. From Belgium we went direct to Paris, where we found that Mr.
Theodore Stanton, the son of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had kindly
provided accommodations for us. We had barely got settled in Paris
before an invitation came to me from the University Club of Paris to be
its guest at a banquet which was soon to be given. The other guests
were ex-President Benjamin Harrison and Archbishop Ireland, who were in
Paris at the time. The American Ambassador, General Horace Porter,
presided at the banquet. My address on this occasion seemed to give
satisfaction to those who heard it. General Harrison kindly devoted a
large portion of his remarks at dinner to myself and to the influence
of the work at Tuskegee on the American race question. After my address
at this banquet other invitations came to me, but I declined the most
of them, knowing that if I accepted them all, the object of my visit
would be defeated. I did, however, consent to deliver an address in the
American chapel the following Sunday morning, and at this meeting
General Harrison, General Porter, and other distinguished Americans
were present.
Later we received a formal call from the American Ambassador, and were
invited to attend a reception at his residence. At this reception we
met many Americans, among them Justices Fuller and Harlan, of the
United States Supreme Court. During our entire stay of a month in
Paris, both the American Ambassador and his wife, as well as several
other Americans, were very kind to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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