Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 54
When the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational
Association met in Atlanta, Ga., in 1904, many of the delegates, after
adjournment, visited the Tuskegee Institute. Among these delegates was Prof.
Paul Monroe of the Department of History and Principles of Education of the
Teachers' College of Columbia University. In recording his impressions of his
visit, Professor Monroe says: "My interest in Tuskegee and a few similar
institutions is founded on the fact that here I find illustrated the two most
marked tendencies which are being formulated in the most advanced
educational thought, but are being worked out slowly and with great difficulty.
These tendencies are: first, the endeavor to draw the subject matter of education,
or the 'stuff' of
Page 64
schoolroom work, directly from the life of the pupils; and second, to relate the
outcome of education to life's activities, occupations, and duties of the pupil in
such a way that the connection is made directly and immediately between
schoolroom work and the other activities of the person being educated. This is
the ideal at Tuskegee, and, to a much greater extent than in any other institution
I know of, the practice; so that the institution is working along not only the lines
of practical endeavor, but of the most advanced educational thought. To such an
extent is this true that Tuskegee and Hampton are of quite as great interest to the
student of education on account of the illumination they are giving to
educational theory as they are to those interested practically in the elevation of
the Negro people and in the solution of a serious social problem. May I give just
one illustration of a concrete nature coming under my observation while at the
school, that will indicate the difference between the work of the school and that
which was typical under old conditions, or is yet typical where the newer ideas,
as so well grasped by Mr. Washington, are not accepted? In a class in English
composition two boys, among others, had placed their written work upon the
board, one having written upon 'Honor' in the most stilted language, with
various historical references which meant nothing to himself or to his
classmates--the whole paragraph evidently being drawn from some outside
source; the other wrote upon 'My Trade--Blacksmithing'--and told in a simple
and direct way of his day's work, the nature of the general
Page 65
course of training, and the use he expected to make of his training when
24.03.2006