Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 48 William H. Lewis of Boston was appointed successively Assistant United States District Attorney and Assistant Attorney-General of the United States; Robert H. Terrell was given a Municipal judgeship of the District of Columbia; Whitefield McKinlay was made Collector of the Port for the Georgetown District, District of Columbia; Dr. W. D. Crum was appointed Collector of Customs for the Port of Charleston, S. C.; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor for the Navy Department at Washington, D. C.; James A. Cobb, Special Assistant U. S. Attorney in charge of the enforcement of the Pure Food Law for the District of Columbia, and Charles A. Cottrell, Collector of Internal Revenue for the District of Hawaii at Honolulu. In all these notably excellent appointments Mr. Washington had a voice. In 1903, in commenting on a speech of Mr. Washington's in which he had emphasized the importance of quality rather than quantity in Negro appointments, President Roosevelt wrote him as follows: MY DEAR MR. WASHINGTON: That is excellent; and you have put epigrammatically just what I am doing--that is, though I have rather reduced the quantity I have done my best to raise the quality of the Negro appointments. With high regard, Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Page 57 CHAPTER THREE WASHINGTON: THE EDUCATOR THE Tuskegee Commencement exercises dramatize education. They enable plain men and women to visualize in the concrete that vague word which means so little to them in the abstract. More properly they dramatize the identity between real education and actual life. On the platform before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction, and a piece of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jumpers comes onto the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle, whereupon young men and women come hurrying from all directions, 24.03.2006
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 49 and each turns to his or her appointed task. A young carpenter completes the little house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a young farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the audience, a sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and after this patient, educative animal has been shod he is turned over to a representative of the veterinary division to have his teeth filed. At the same time on the opposite side of the platform one of the girl students is having a dress fitted by one of her classmates who is a dressmaker. She at length walks proudly from the platform Page 58 in her completed new gown, while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the tailoring department sit crosslegged working on suits and uniforms. In the background are arranged the finest specimens which scientific agriculture has produced on the farm and mechanical skill has turned out in the shops. The pumpkin, potatoes, corn, cotton, and other agricultural products predominate, because agriculture is the chief industry at Tuskegee just as it is among the Negro people of the South. This form of commencement exercise is one of Booker Washington's contributions to education which has been widely copied by schools for whites as well as blacks. That it appeals to his own people is eloquently attested by the people themselves who come in ever-greater numbers as the commencement days recur. At three o'clock in the morning of this great day vehicles of every description, each loaded to capacity with men, women, and children, begin to roll in in an unbroken line which sometimes extends along the road for three miles. Some of the teachers at times objected to turning a large area of the Institute grounds into a hitching-post station for the horses and mules of this great multitude, but to all such objections Mr. Washington replied, "This place belongs to the people and not to us." Less than a third of these eight 24.03.2006
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Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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