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$Title{Up From Slavery An Autobiography
Chapter XV. The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Washington, Booker T.}
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$Subject{audience
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$Date{1902}
$Log{See Booker T. Washington*0011201.scf
}
Title:       Up From Slavery An Autobiography
Author:      Washington, Booker T.
Date:        1902

Chapter XV. The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking

     As to how my address at Atlanta was received by the audience in the
Exposition building, I think I prefer to let Mr. James Creelman, the noted war
correspondent, tell.  Mr. Creelman was present, and telegraphed the following
account to the New York World: -

Atlanta, September 18.

     While President Cleveland was waiting at Gray Gables to-day, to send the
electric spark that started the machinery of the Atlanta Exposition, a Negro
Moses stood before a great audience of white people and delivered an oration
that marks a new epoch in the history of the South; and a body of Negro troops
marched in a procession with the citizen soldiery of Georgia and Louisiana.
The whole city is thrilling to-night with a realization of the extraordinary
significance of these two unprecedented events.  Nothing has happened since
Henry Grady's immortal speech before the New England society in New York that
indicates so profoundly the spirit of the New South, except, perhaps the
opening of the Exposition itself.

     When Professor Booker T. Washington, Principal of an industrial school
for coloured people in Tuskegee, Ala. stood on the platform of the Auditorium,
with the sun shining over the heads of his auditors into his eyes, and with
his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy, Clark Howell, the successor
of Henry Grady, said to me, "That man's speech is the beginning of a moral
revolution in America."

     It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in the South on any
important occasion before an audience composed of white men and women.  It
electrified the audience, and the response was as if it had come from the
throat of a whirlwind.

     Mrs. Thompson had hardly taken her seat when all eyes were turned on a
tall tawny Negro sitting in the front row of the platform.  It was Professor
Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and
Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man
of his race in America.  Gilmore's Band played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and
the audience cheered.  The tune changed to "Dixie" and the audience roared
with shrill "hi-yis." Again the music changed, this time to "Yankee Doodle,"
and the clamour lessened.

     All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight at the
Negro orator.  A strange thing was to happen.  A black man was to speak for
his people, with none to interrupt him.  As Professor Washington strode to the
edge of the stage, the low, descending sun shot fiery rays through the windows
into his face.  A great shout greeted him.  He turned his head to avoid the
blinding light, and moved about the platform for relief.  Then he turned his
wonderful countenance to the sun without a blink of the eyelids, and began to
talk.

     There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a Sioux chief,
high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong, determined mouth, with
big white teeth, piercing eyes, and a commanding manner.  The sinews stood out
on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm swung high in the air, with a
lead-pencil grasped in the clinched brown fist.  His big feet were planted
squarely, with the heels together and the toes turned out.  His voice rang out
clear and true, and he paused impressively as he made each point.  Within ten
minutes the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm - handkerchiefs were
waved, canes were flourished, hats were tossed in the air.  The fairest women
of Georgia stood up and cheered.  It was as if the orator had bewitched them.

     And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers
stretched wide apart, and said to the white people of the South on behalf of
his race, "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the
fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress," the
great wave of sound dashed itself against the walls, and the whole audience
was on its feet in a delirium of applause, and I thought at that moment of the
night when Henry Grady stood among the curling wreaths of tobacco-smoke in
Delmonico's banquet-hall and said, "I am a Cavalier among Roundheads."

     I have heard the great orators of many countries, but not even Gladstone
himself could have pleaded a cause with more consummate power than did this
angular Negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the men who
once fought to keep his race in bondage.  The roar might swell ever so high,
but the expression of his earnest face never changed.

     A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of the aisles,
watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous face until the supreme
burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face.  Most of the
Negroes in the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing just why.

     At the close of the speech Governor Bullock rushed across the stage and
seized the orator's hand.  Another shout greeted this demonstration, and for a
few minutes the two men stood facing each other, hand in hand.

     So far as I could spare the time from the immediate work at Tuskegee,
after my Atlanta address, I accepted some of the invitations to speak in
public which came to me, especially those that would take me into territory
where I thought it would pay to plead the cause of my race, but I always did
this with the understanding that I was to be free to talk about my life-work
and the needs of my people.  I also had it understood that I was not to speak
in the capacity of a professional lecturer, or for mere commercial gain.

     In my efforts on the public platform I never have been able to understand
why people come to hear me speak.  This question I never can rid myself of.
Time and time again, as I have stood in the street in front of a building and
have seen men and women passing in large numbers into the audience-room where
I was to speak, I have felt ashamed that I should be the cause of people - as
it seemed to me - wasting a valuable hour of time.  Some years ago I was to
deliver an address before a literary society in Madison, Wis.  An hour before
the time set for me to speak, a fierce snow-storm began, and continued for
several hours.  I made up my mind that there would be no audience, and that I
should not have to speak, but, as a matter of duty, I went to the church, and
found it packed with people.  The surprise gave me a shock that I did not
recover from during the whole evening.

     People often ask me if I feel nervous before speaking, or else they
suggest that, since I speak so often, they suppose that I get used to it.  In
answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer intensely from
nervousness before speaking.  More than once, just before I was to make an
important address, this nervous strain has been so great that I have resolved
never again to speak in public.  I not only feel nervous before speaking, but
after I have finished I usually feel a sense of regret, because it seems to me
as if I had left out of my address the main thing and the best thing that I
had meant to say.

     There is a great compensation, though, for this preliminary nervous
suffering, that comes to me after I have been speaking for about ten minutes,
and have come to feel that I have really mastered my audience, and that we
have gotten into full and complete sympathy with each other.  It seems to me
that there is rarely such a combination of mental and physical delight in any
effort as that which comes to a public speaker when he feels that he has a
great audience completely within his control.  There is a thread of sympathy
and oneness that connects a public speaker with his audience, that is just as
strong as though it was something tangible and visible.  If in an audience of
a thousand people there is one person who is not in sympathy with my views, or
is inclined to be doubtful, cold, or critical I can pick him out.  When I have
found him I usually go straight at him, and it is a great satisfaction to
watch the process of his thawing out.  I find that the most effective medicine
for such individuals is administered at first in the form of a story, although
I never tell an anecdote simply for the sake of telling one.  That kind of
thing, I think, is empty and hollow, and an audience soon finds it out.

     I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when
he speaks merely for the sake of speaking.  I do not believe that one should
speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that he has a message
to deliver.  When one feels, from the bottom of his feet to the top of his
head, that he has something to say that is going to help some individual or
some cause, then let him say it; and in delivering his message I do not
believe that many of the artificial rules of elocution can, under such
circumstances, help him very much.  Although there are certain things, such as
pauses, breathing, and pitch of voice, that are very important, none of these
can take the place of soul in an address.  When I have an address to deliver,
I like to forget all about the rules for the proper use of the English
language, and all about rhetoric and that sort of thing, and I like to make
the audience forget all about these things, too.

     Nothing tends to throw me off my balance so quickly, when I am speaking,
as to have some one leave the room.  To prevent this, I make up my mind, as a
rule, that I will try to make my address so interesting, will try to state so
many interesting facts one after another, that no one can leave.  The average
audience, I have come to believe, wants facts rather than generalities or
sermonizing.  Most people, I think, are able to draw proper conclusions if
they are given the facts in an interesting form on which to base them.

     As to the kind of audience that I like best to talk to, I would put at
the top of the list an organization of strong, wide-awake, business men, such,
for example, as is found in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Buffalo.  I have
found no other audience so quick to see a point, and so responsive.  Within
the last few years I have had the privilege of speaking before most of the
leading organizations of this kind in the large cities of the United States.
The best time to get hold of an organization of business men is after a good
dinner, although I think that one of the worst instruments of torture that was
ever invented is the custom which makes it necessary for a speaker to sit
through a fourteen-course dinner, every minute of the time feeling sure that
his speech is going to prove a dismal failure and disappointment.

     I rarely take part in one of these long dinners that I do not wish that I
could put myself back in the little cabin where I was a slave boy, and again
go through the experience there - one that I shall never forget - of getting
molasses to eat once a week from the "big house." Our usual diet on the
plantation was corn bread and pork, but on Sunday morning my mother was
permitted to bring down a little molasses from the "big house" for her three
children, and when it was received how I did wish that every day was Sunday! I
would get my tin plate and hold it up for the sweet morsel, but I would always
shut my eyes while the molasses was being poured out into the plate, with the
hope that when I opened them I would be surprised to see how much I had got.
When I opened my eyes I would tip the plate in one direction and another, so
as to make the molasses spread all over it, in the full belief that there
would be more of it and that it would last longer if spread out in this way.
So strong are my childish impressions of those Sunday morning feasts that it
would be pretty hard for any one to convince me that there is not more
molasses on a plate when it is spread all over the plate than when it occupies
a little corner - if there is a corner in a plate.  At any rate, I have never
believed in "cornering" syrup.  My share of the syrup was usually about two
tablespoonfuls, and those two spoonfuls of molasses were much more enjoyable
to me than is a fourteen-course dinner after which I am to speak.

     Next to a company of business men, I prefer to speak to an audience of
Southern people, of either race, together or taken separately.  Their
enthusiasm and responsiveness are a constant delight.  The "amens" and "dat's
de truf" that come spontaneously from the coloured individuals are calculated
to spur any speaker on to his best efforts.  I think that next in order of
preference I would place a college audience.  It has been my privilege to
deliver addresses at many of our leading colleges, including Harvard, Yale,
Williams, Amherst, Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley,
the University of Michigan, Trinity College in North Carolina, and many
others.

     It has been a matter of deep interest to me to note the number of people
who have come to shake hands with me after an address, who say that this is
the first time they have ever called a Negro "Mister."

     When speaking directly in the interests of the Tuskegee Institute, I
usually arrange, some time in advance, a series of meetings in important
centres.  This takes me before churches, Sunday-schools, Christian Endeavour
Societies, and men's and women's clubs.  When doing this I sometimes speak
before as many as four organizations in a single day.

     Three years ago, at the suggestion of Mr. Morris K. Jesup, of New York,
and Dr. J. L. M. Curry, the general agent of the fund, the trustees of the
John F. Slater Fund voted a sum of money to be used in paying the expenses of
Mrs. Washington and myself while holding a series of meetings among the
coloured people in the large centres of Negro population, especially in the
large cities of the ex-slaveholding states.  Each year during the last three
years we have devoted some weeks to this work.  The plan that we have followed
has been for me to speak in the morning to the ministers, teachers, and
professional men.  In the afternoon Mrs. Washington would speak to the women
alone, and in the evening I spoke to a large mass-meeting.  In almost every
case the meetings have been attended not only by the coloured people in large
numbers, but by the white people.  In Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, there
was present at the mass-meeting an audience of not less than three thousand
persons, and I was informed that eight hundred of these were white.  I have
done no work that I really enjoyed more than this, or that I think has
accomplished more good.

     These meetings have given Mrs. Washington and myself an opportunity to
get first-hand, accurate information as to the real condition of the race, by
seeing the people in their homes, their churches, their Sunday-schools, and
their places of work, as well as in the prisons and dens of crime.  These
meetings also gave us an opportunity to see the relations that exist between
the races.  I never feel so hopeful about the race as I do after being engaged
in a series of these meetings.  I know that on such occasions there is much
that comes to the surface that is superficial and deceptive, but I have had
experience enough not to be deceived by mere signs and fleeting enthusiasms. I
have taken pains to go to the bottom of things and get facts, in a cold,
business-like manner.

     I have seen the statement made lately, by one who claims to know what he
is talking about, that, taking the whole Negro race into account, ninety per
cent of the Negro women are not virtuous.  There never was a baser falsehood
uttered concerning a race, or a statement made that was less capable of being
proved by actual facts.

     No one can come into contact with the race for twenty years, as I have
done in the heart of the South, without being convinced that the race is
constantly making slow but sure progress materially, educationally, and
morally.  One might take up the life of the worst element in New York City,
for example, and prove almost anything he wanted to prove concerning the white
man, but all will agree that this is not a fair test.

     Early in the year 1897 I received a letter inviting me to deliver an
address at the dedication of the Robert Gould Shaw monument in Boston.  I
accepted the invitation.  It is not necessary for me, I am sure, to explain
who Robert Gould Shaw was, and what he did.  The monument to his memory stands
near the head of Boston Common, facing the State House.  It is counted to be
the most perfect piece of art of the kind to be found in the country.

     The exercises connected with the dedication were held in Music Hall, in
Boston, and the great hall was packed from top to bottom with one of the most
distinguished audiences that ever assembled in the city.  Among those present
there were more persons representing the famous old anti-slavery element than
it is likely will ever be brought together in the country again.  The late
Hon. Roger Wolcott, then Governor of Massachusetts, was the presiding officer,
and on the platform with him were many other officials and hundreds of
distinguished men.  A report of the meeting which appeared in the Boston
Transcript will describe it better than any words of mine could do: -

     The core and kernel of yesterday's great noon meeting in honour of the
Brotherhood of Man, in Music Hall, was the superb address of the Negro
President of Tuskegee.  "Booker T. Washington received his Harvard A. M. last
June, the first of his race," said Governor Wolcott, "to receive an honorary
degree from the oldest university in the land, and this for the wise
leadership of his people." When Mr. Washington rose in the flag-filled,
enthusiasm-warmed, patriotic, and glowing atmosphere of Music Hall, people
felt keenly that here was the civic justification of the old abolition spirit
of Massachusetts; in his person the proof of her ancient and indomitable
faith; in his strong thought and rich oratory, the crown and glory of the old
war days of suffering and strife.  The scene was full of historic beauty and
deep significance.  "Cold" Boston was alive with the fire that is always hot
in her heart for righteousness and truth.  Rows and rows of people who are
seldom seen at any public function, whole families of those who are certain to
be out of town on a holiday, crowded the place to overflowing.  The city was
at her birthright fete in the persons of hundreds of her best citizens, men
and women whose names and lives stand for the virtues that make for honourable
civic pride.

     Battle-music had filled the air.  Ovation after ovation, applause warm
and prolonged, had greeted the officers and friends of Colonel Shaw, the
sculptor, St. Gaudens, the memorial Committee, the Governor and his staff, and
the Negro soldiers of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts as they came upon the
platform or entered the hall.  Colonel Henry Lee, of Governor Andrew's old
staff, had made a noble, simple presentation speech for the committee, paying
tribute to Mr. John M. Forbes, in whose stead he served.  Governor Wolcott had
made his short, memorable speech, saying, "Fort Wagner marked an epoch in the
history of a race, and called it into manhood." Mayor Quincy had received the
monument for the city of Boston.  The story of Colonel Shaw and his black
regiment had been told in gallant words, and then, after the singing of

     Mine eyes have seen the glory
     Of the coming of the Lord,

Booker Washington arose.  It was, of course, just the moment for him.  The
multitude, shaken out of its usual symphony-concert calm, quivered with an
excitement that was not suppressed.  A dozen times it had sprung to its feet
to cheer and wave and hurrah, as one person.  When this man of culture and
voice and power, as well as a dark skin, began, and uttered the names of
Stearns and of Andrew, feeling began to mount.  You could see tears glisten in
the eyes of soldiers and civilians.  When the orator turned to the coloured
soldiers on the platform, to the colour-bearer of Fort Wagner, who smilingly
bore still the flag he had never lowered even when wounded, and said, "To you,
to the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty
sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured this occasion with your presence, to
you, your commander is not dead.  Though Boston erected no monument and
history recorded no story, in you and in the loyal race which you represent,
Robert Gould Shaw would have a monument which time could not wear away," then
came the climax of the emotion of the day and the hour.  It was Roger Wolcott,
as well as the Governor of Massachusetts, the individual representative of the
people's sympathy as well as the chief magistrate, who had sprung first to his
feet and cried, "Three cheers to Booker T. Washington!"

     Among those on the platform was Sergeant William H. Carney, of New
Bedford, Mass., the brave coloured officer who was the colour-bearer at Fort
Wagner and held the American flag.  In spite of the fact that a large part of
his regiment was killed, he escaped, and exclaimed, after the battle was over,
"The old flag never touched the ground."

     This flag Sergeant Carney held in his hands as he sat on the platform,
and when I turned to address the survivors of the coloured regiment who were
present, and referred to Sergeant Carney, he rose, as if by instinct, and
raised the flag.  It has been my privilege to witness a good many satisfactory
and rather sensational demonstrations in connection with some of my public
addresses, but in dramatic effect I have never seen or experienced anything
which equalled this.  For a number of minutes the audience seemed to entirely
lose control of itself.

     In the general rejoicing throughout the country which followed the close
of the Spanish-American war, peace celebrations were arranged in several of
the large cities.  I was asked by President William R. Harper, of the
University of Chicago, who was chairman of the committee of invitations for
the celebration to be held in the city of Chicago, to deliver one of the
addresses at the celebration there.  I accepted the invitation, and delivered
two addresses there during the Jubilee week.  The first of these, and the
principal one, was given in the Auditorium, on the evening of Sunday, October
16.  This was the largest audience that I have ever addressed, in any part of
the country; and besides speaking in the main Auditorium, I also addressed,
that same evening, two overflow audiences in other parts of the city.

     It was said that there were sixteen thousand persons in the Auditorium,
and it seemed to me as if there were as many more on the outside trying to get
in.  It was impossible for any one to get near the entrance without the aid of
a policeman.  President William McKinley attended this meeting, as did also
the members of his Cabinet, many foreign ministers, and a large number of army
and navy officers, many of whom had distinguished themselves in the war which
had just closed.  The speakers, besides myself, on Sunday evening, were Rabbi
Emil G. Hirsch, Father Thomas P. Hodnett, and Dr. John H. Barrows.

     The Chicago Times-Herald, in describing the meeting, said of my address:
-

     He pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than extinction; recalled
Crispus Attucks shedding his blood at the beginning of the American
Revolution, that white Americans might be free, while black Americans remained
in slavery; rehearsed the conduct of the Negroes with Jackson at New Orleans;
drew a vivid and pathetic picture of the Southern slaves protecting and
supporting the families of their masters while the latter were fighting to
perpetuate black slavery; recounted the bravery of coloured troops at Port
Hudson and Forts Wagner and Pillow, and praised the heroism of the black
regiments that stormed El Caney and Santiago to give freedom to the enslaved
people of Cuba, forgetting, for the time being, the unjust discrimination that
law and custom make against them in their own country.

     In all of these things, the speaker declared, his race had chosen the
better part.  And then he made his eloquent appeal to the consciences of the
white Americans: "When you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of
the Negro in the Spanish-American war, have heard it from the lips of Northern
soldier and Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionist and ex-masters, then decide
within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country
should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country."

     The part of the speech which seemed to arouse the wildest and most
sensational enthusiasm was that in which I thanked the President for his
recognition of the Negro in his appointments during the Spanish-American war.
The President was sitting in a box at the right of the stage.  When I
addressed him I turned toward the box, and as I finished the sentence thanking
him for his generosity, the whole audience rose and cheered again and again,
waving handkerchiefs and hats and canes, until the President arose in the box
and bowed his acknowledgments.  At that the enthusiasm broke out again, and
the demonstration was almost indescribable.

     One portion of my address at Chicago seemed to have been misunderstood by
the Southern press, and some of the Southern papers took occasion to criticise
me rather strongly.  These criticisms continued for several weeks, until I
finally received a letter from the editor of the Age-Herald, published in
Birmingham, Ala., asking me if I would say just what I meant by this part of
my address.  I replied to him in a letter which seemed to satisfy my critics.
In this letter I said that I had made it a rule never to say before a Northern
audience anything that I would not say before an audience in the South.  I
said that I did not think it was necessary for me to go into extended
explanations; if my seventeen years of work in the heart of the South had not
been explanation enough, I did not see how words could explain.  I said that I
made the same plea that I had made in my address at Atlanta, for the blotting
out of race prejudice in "commercial and civil relations." I said that what is
termed social recognition was a question which I never discussed, and then I
quoted from my Atlanta address what I had said there in regard to that
subject.

     In meeting crowds of people at public gatherings, there is one type of
individual that I dread.  I mean the crank.  I have become so accustomed to
these people now that I can pick them out at a distance when I see them
elbowing their way up to me.  The average crank has a long beard, poorly cared
for, a lean, narrow face, and wears a black coat.  The front of his vest and
coat are slick with grease, and his trousers bag at the knees.

     In Chicago, after I had spoken at a meeting, I met one of these fellows.
They usually have some process for curing all of the ills of the world at
once.  This Chicago specimen had a patent process by which he said Indian corn
could be kept through a period of three or four years, and he felt sure that
if the Negro race in the South would, as a whole, adopt his process, it would
settle the whole race question.  It mattered nothing that I tried to convince
him that our present problem was to teach the Negroes how to produce enough
corn to last them through one year.  Another Chicago crank had a scheme by
which he wanted me to join him in an effort to close up all the National banks
in the country.  If that was done, he felt sure it would put the Negro on his
feet.

     The number of people who stand ready to consume one's time, to no
purpose, is almost countless.  At one time I spoke before a large audience in
Boston in the evening.  The next morning I was awakened by having a card
brought to my room, and with it a message that some one was anxious to see me.
Thinking that it must be something very important, I dressed hastily and went
down.  When I reached the hotel office I found a blank and innocent-looking
individual waiting for me, who coolly remarked: "I heard you talk at a meeting
last night.  I rather liked your talk, and so I came in this morning to hear
you talk some more."

     I am often asked how it is possible for me to superintend the work at
Tuskegee and at the same time be so much away from the school.  In partial
answer to this I would say that I think I have learned, in some degree at
least, to disregard the old maxim which says, "Do not get others to do that
which you can do yourself." My motto, on the other hand, is, "Do not do that
which other can do as well."

     One of the most encouraging signs in connection with the Tuskegee school
is found in the fact that the organization is so thorough that the daily work
of the school is not dependent upon the presence of any one individual.  The
whole executive force, including instructors and clerks, now numbers
eighty-six.  This force is so organized and subdivided that the machinery of
the school goes on day by day like clockwork.  Most of our teachers have been
connected with the institution for a number of years, and are as much
interested in it as I am.  In my absence, Mr. Warren Logan, the treasurer, who
has been at the school seventeen years, is the executive.  He is efficiently
supported by Mrs. Washington, and by my faithful secretary, Mr. Emmett J.
Scott, who handles the bulk of my correspondence and keeps me in daily touch
with the life of the school, and who also keeps me informed of whatever takes
place in the South that concerns the race.  I owe more to his tact, wisdom,
and hard work than I can describe.

     The main executive work of the school, whether I am at Tuskegee or not,
centres in what we call the executive council.  This council meets twice a
week, and is composed of the nine persons who are at the head of the nine
departments of the school.  For example: Mrs. B. K. Bruce, the Lady Principal,
the widow of the late ex-senator Bruce, is a member of the council, and
represents in it all that pertains to the life of the girls at the school.  In
addition to the executive council there is a financial committee of six, that
meets every week and decides upon the expenditures for the week.  Once a
month, and sometimes oftener, there is a general meeting of all the
instructors.  Aside from these there are innumerable smaller meetings, such as
that of the instructors in the Phelps Hall Bible Training School, or of the
instructors in the agricultural department.

     In order that I may keep in constant touch with the life of the
institution, I have a system of reports so arranged that a record of the
school's work reaches me every day in the year, no matter in what part of the
country I am.  I know by these reports even what students are excused from
school, and why they are excused - whether for reasons of ill health or
otherwise.  Through the medium of these reports I know each day what the
income of the school in money is; I know how many gallons of milk and how many
pounds of butter come from the dairy; what the bill of fare for the teachers
and students is; whether a certain kind of meat was boiled or baked, and
whether certain vegetables served in the dining room were bought from a store
or procured from our own farm.  Human nature I find to be very much the same
the world over, and it is sometimes not hard to yield to the temptation to go
to a barrel of rice that has come from the store - with the grain all prepared
to go into the pot - rather than to take the time and trouble to go to the
field and dig and wash one's own sweet potatoes, which might be prepared in a
manner to take the place of the rice.

     I am often asked how, in the midst of so much work, a large part of which
is before the public, I can find time for any rest or recreation, and what
kind of recreation or sports I am fond of.  This is rather a difficult
question to answer.  I have a strong feeling that every individual owes it to
himself, and to the cause which he is serving, to keep a vigorous, healthy
body, with the nerves steady and strong, prepared for great efforts and
prepared for disappointments and trying positions.  As far as I can, I make it
a rule to plan for each day's work - not merely to go through with the same
routine of daily duties, but to get rid of the routine work as early in the
day as possible, and then to enter upon some new or advance work.  I make it a
rule to clear my desk every day, before leaving my office, of all
correspondence and memoranda, so that on the morrow I can begin a new day of
work.  I make it a rule never to let my work drive me, but to so master it,
and keep it in such complete control, and to keep so far ahead of it, that I
will be the master instead of the servant.  There is a physical and mental and
spiritual enjoyment that comes from a consciousness of being the absolute
master of one's work, in all its details, that is very satisfactory and
inspiring.  My experience teaches me that, if one learns to follow this plan,
he gets a freshness of body and vigour of mind out of work that goes a long
way toward keeping him strong and healthy.  I believe that when one can grow
to the point where he loves his work, this gives him a kind of strength that
is most valuable.

     When I begin my work in the morning, I expect to have a successful and
pleasant day of it, but at the same time I prepare myself for unpleasant and
unexpected hard places.  I prepare myself to hear that one of our school
buildings is on fire, or has burned, or that some disagreeable accident has
occurred, or that some one has abused me in a public address or printed
article, for something that I have done or omitted to do, or for something
that he had heard that I had said - probably something that I had never
thought of saying.

     In nineteen years of continuous work I have taken but one vacation.  That
was two years ago, when some of my friends put the money into my hands and
forced Mrs. Washington and myself to spend three months in Europe.  I have
said that I believe it is the duty of every one to keep his body in good
condition.  I try to look after the little ills, with the idea that if I take
care of the little ills the big ones will not come.  When I find myself unable
to sleep well, I know that something is wrong.  If I find any part of my
system the least weak, and not performing its duty, I consult a good
physician. The ability to sleep well, at any time and in any place, I find of
great advantage.  I have so trained myself that I can lie down for a nap of
fifteen or twenty minutes, and get up refreshed in body and mind.

     I have said that I make it a rule to finish up each day's work before
leaving it.  There is, perhaps, one exception to this.  When I have an
unusually difficult question to decide - one that appeals strongly to the
emotions - I find it a safe rule to sleep over it for a night, or to wait
until I have had an opportunity to talk it over with my wife and friends.

     As to my reading; the most time I get for solid reading is when I am on
the cars.  Newspapers are to me a constant source of delight and recreation.
The only trouble is that I read too many of them.  Fiction I care little for.
Frequently I have to almost force myself to read a novel that is on every
one's lips.  The kind of reading that I have the greatest fondness for is
biography.  I like to be sure that I am reading about a real man or a real
thing.  I think I do not go too far when I say that I have read nearly every
book and magazine article that has been written about Abraham Lincoln.  In
literature he is my patron saint.

     Out of the twelve months in a year I suppose that, on an average, I spend
six months away from Tuskegee.  While my being absent from the school so much
unquestionably has its disadvantages, yet there are at the same time some
compensations.  The change of work brings a certain kind of rest.  I enjoy a
ride of a long distance on the cars, when I am permitted to ride where I can
be comfortable.  I get rest on the cars, except when the inevitable individual
who seems to be on every train approaches me with the now familiar phrase:
"Isn't this Booker Washington?  I want to introduce myself to you." Absence
from the school enables me to lose sight of the unimportant details of the
work, and study it in a broader and more comprehensive manner than I could do
on the grounds.  This absence also brings me into contact with the best work
being done in educational lines, and into contact with the best educators in
the land.

     But, after all this is said, the time when I get the most solid rest and
recreation is when I can be at Tuskegee, and, after our evening meal is over,
can sit down, as is our custom, with my wife and Portia and Baker and
Davidson, my three children, and read a story, or each take turns in telling a
story.  To me there is nothing on earth equal to that, although what is nearly
equal to it is to go with them for an hour or more, as we like to do on Sunday
afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for a while near the heart of
nature, where no one can disturb or vex us, surrounded by pure air, the trees,
the shrubbery, the flowers, and the sweet fragrance that springs from a
hundred plants, enjoying the chirp of the crickets and the songs of the birds.
This is solid rest.

     My garden, also, what little time I can be at Tuskegee, is another source
of rest and enjoyment.  Somehow I like, as often as possible, to touch nature,
not something that is artificial or an imitation, but the real thing.  When I
can leave my office in time so that I can spend thirty or forty minutes in
spading the ground, in planting seeds, in digging about the plants, I feel
that I am coming into contact with something that is giving me strength for
the many duties and hard places that await me out in the big world.  I pity
the man or woman who has never learned to enjoy nature and to get strength and
inspiration out of it.

[See Booker T. Washington: I pity the man or woman who has never learned to
enjoy nature and to get strength and inspiration out of it.]

     Aside from the large number of fowls and animals kept by the school, I
keep individually a number of pigs and fowls of the best grades, and in
raising these I take a great deal of pleasure.  I think the pig is my
favourite animal.  Few things are more satisfactory to me than a high-grade
Berkshire or Poland China pig.

     Games I care little for.  I have never seen a game of football.  In cards
I do not know one card from another.  A game of old-fashioned marbles with my
two boys, once in a while, is all I care for in this direction.  I suppose I
would care for games now if I had had any time in my youth to give to them,
but that was not possible.