Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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
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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
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