Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 56
24.03.2006
forgetting that textbooks are at best but tools, and in many cases ineffective
tools, for the development of man. . . .
"The average parent cannot appreciate how many examples Johnny has worked
out that day, how many questions in history he has answered; but when he says,
'Mother, I cannot go back to that school until all the buttons are sewed on my
coat,' the parent will at once become conscious of school influence in the home.
This will be the best kind of advertisement. The button propaganda tends to
make the teacher a power in the community. A
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few lessons in applied chemistry will not be amiss. Take grease spots, for
example. The teacher who with tact can teach his pupils to keep even threadbare
clothes neatly brushed and free from grease spots is extending the school
influence into the home and is adding immeasurably to the self-respect of the
home."*
*From "Putting the Most Into Life," by Booker T. Washington. Thomas Y.
Crowell Co., Publishers.
The idea that education is a matter of personal habits of cleanliness, industry,
integrity, and right conduct while of course not original with Booker
Washington was perhaps further developed and more effectively emphasized by
him than by any other American education. Just as Matthew Arnold insisted that
religion was a matter of conduct rather than forms and dogmas so Booker
Washington held that education is a matter of character and not forms. He
concluded one of his Sunday night talks to his students with these words: "I
want every Tuskegee student as he finds his place in the surging industrial life
about him to give heed to the things which are 'honest and just and pure and of
good report,' for these things make for character, which is the only thing worth
fighting for. . . ." In another of these talks he said: "A student should not be
satisfied with himself until he has grown to the point where, when simply
sweeping a room, he can go into the corners and crevices and remove the hidden
trash which, although it should be left, would not be seen. It is not very hard to
find people who will thoroughly clean a room which is going to be occupied, or
wash a dish which is to be
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handled by strangers; but it is hard to find a person who will do a thing right