CHAPTER XII.

HONORED BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

One of the most helpful things accomplished during the year 1896 was an exhibit of the industrial products of the Tuskegee Institute made in New York City, Boston and Philadelphia, in connection with a similar exhibit from the Hampton Institute. The Armstrong Association in New York City was instrumental in bringing about this exhibit. A large number of people who had no idea of the extent of our industrial work had an opportunity at these exhibits to see for themselves just what was being done by Hampton and Tuskegee. Our industrial exhibit included wagons, carriages and wearing apparel of all kinds, manufactured by the students. The exhibit, however, was not confined to industrial products, but a thorough exhibit of academic work was also made.

Some people have an idea that because industrial education is emphasized at Tuskegee and Hampton very little attention is given to the academic training. This is an error. A close examination will prove that both at Hampton and Tuskegee the academic training is very thorough and far-reaching; in fact, I for some

time have been conscious of the fact that if we had only called this institution “University” or “College” and had given the same course of training that we now give, we would have met with no criticism on account of not giving more academic training. We are thoroughly imbued with the idea that a little training thoroughly given goes farther than to attempt to cover a great deal of ground poorly. Education after all is only valuable in giving mental grasp and culture.

Several times I have been asked what was the most surprising incident in my life. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the following letter from Harvard University, asking me to be present at the commencement at Harvard in June, 1896, for the purpose of having an honorary degree conferred upon me.

“HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

“CAMBRIDGE, May 28, 1896.

“MY DEAR SIR: Harvard University desires to confer on you at the approaching commencement an honorary degree; but it is our custom to confer degrees only on gentlemen who are present. Our commencement occurs this year on June 24th, and your presence would be desirable from about noon till about five o’clock in the afternoon. Would it be possible for you to be in Cambridge on that day?

“Believe me, with great regard, “Very truly yours, “CHARLES W. ELIOT.

“PRESIDENT BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.”

Up to the time of receiving this letter I had not the faintest idea that any college, much less the oldest and highest educational institution in the country, was about to or would ever confer upon me any honorary degree. It took me, of course, greatly by surprise.

Commencement day at Harvard, June 24, 1896, was a memorable one, certainly one that I shall never forget. At the appointed hour I met President Eliot and the overseers of the College at the designated place on the grounds for the purpose of being escorted in company with others to Sander’s Theatre, where the commencement exercises were to take place and the degrees to be conferred. In addition to the degree to be conferred on me, among others Major-Gen. Nelson A. Miles, the Commander of the United States Army, Dr. Bell, the inventor of the Bell telephone system, Dr. M. J. Savage of Boston, and others, were invited to be present at commencement for the purpose of receiving degrees. We were assigned places in the line of march immediately behind the President and Overseers. As soon as we were placed in the line the Governor of Massachusetts, escorted by the Lancers, arrived, and was assigned to the head of the line of march by the side of President Eliot. In this order, accompanied by the various officers clad in caps and gowns, we marched to Sander’s Theatre. After the usual commencement exercises the time for the conferring of honorary degrees came. This at Harvard is always the most interesting and exciting feature of commencement, owing largely to the fact that no one knows until commencement day on whom honorary degrees are to be conferred, and as each name is called for an honorary degree the expectation rises to the highest pitch and the individuals receive cheers and applause in proportion as they are popular at the college. When it came my turn I arose and President Eliot conferred upon me the degree of Master of Arts in appropriate language. The whole ceremony for the first time at Harvard was performed in English.

At the close of the commencement exercises I was invited with Gen. Miles and others receiving honorary degrees to lunch with President Eliot. After the lunch at the residence of the President we were formed into line again and were escorted under the guidance of the Marshal of the Day, who in this case happened to be Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts, through the grounds, in which at different points we were met and cheered by the students, each individual who had received an honorary degree receiving the Harvard yell. The most interesting feature of that day was the Alumni Dinner, which occurred at the close of our march through the grounds. This dinner was served in Memorial Hall, and, I think, was attended by at least a thousand graduates of Harvard from all sections of the country, many of them eminent in affairs of state, religion and the field of letters. Among the speakers at the Alumni Dinner were Governor Roger A. Wolcott, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, Dr. Savage and others. When I was called upon to speak at the Alumni Dinner I delivered the following address:

“_Mr. President and Gentlemen:_--

“It would in some measure relieve my embarrassment if I could, even in a slight degree, feel myself worthy of the great honor which you do me to-day. Why you have called me from the Black Belt of the South, from among my humble people, to share in the honors of this occasion, is not for me to explain; and yet it may not be inappropriate for me to suggest that it seems to me that one of the most vital questions that touch our American life, is how to bring the strong, wealthy and learned into helpful touch with the poorest, most ignorant and humblest, and at the same time make the one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening influence of the other. How shall we make the mansions on yon Beacon street feel and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama cotton fields or Louisiana sugar bottoms? This problem Harvard University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the masses up.

“If through me, an humble representative, seven millions of my people in the South might be permitted to send a message to Harvard--Harvard that offered up on death’s altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, and scores of others, that we might have a free and united country--that message would be, ‘Tell them that the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up. Often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice, but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence and property, there is no power on earth that can permanently stay our progress.’

“If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the bringing about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more. In the economy of God there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed--there is but one for a race. This country demands that every race shall measure itself by the American standard. By it a race must rise or fall, succeed or fail, and in the last analysis mere sentiment counts for little. During the next half century and more, my race must continue passing through the severe American crucible. We are to be tested in our patience, our forbearance, our perseverence, our power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use skill; in our ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all. This, this is the passport to all that is best in the life of our republic, and the Negro must possess it, or be debarred.

“While we are thus being tested, I beg of you to remember that wherever our life touches yours, we help or hinder. Wherever your life touches ours, you make us stronger or weaker. No member of your race in any part of our country can harm the meanest member of mine without the proudest and bluest blood in Massachusetts being degraded. When Mississippi commits crime, New England commits crime, and in so much, lowers the standard of your civilization. There is no escape--man drags man down, or man lifts man up.

“In working out our destiny, while the main burden and center of activity must be with us, we shall need, in a large measure in the years that are to come as we have in the past, the help, the encouragement, the guidance that the strong can give the weak. Thus helped, we of both races in the South, soon shall throw off the shackles of racial and sectional prejudice and rise, as Harvard University has risen and as we all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness and selfishness, into that atmosphere, that pure sunshine, where it will be our highest ambition to serve man, our brother, regardless of race or previous condition.”

As this was the first time that an honorary degree had ever been conferred upon a Negro by any university in New England, of course it occasioned a great deal of newspaper comment throughout the country. I think I shall not speak further of the occurrence, but will insert a few newspaper clippings that will tell the story perhaps better than I feel like doing it.

Mr. Thos. J. Calloway, who was present on this occasion, wrote as follows to the Colored American:

“First in the history of America a leading American university confers an honorary degree upon a colored man. Harvard has been always to the front in ideas of liberty, freedom and equality. When other colleges of the North are accepting the Negro as a tolerance, Harvard has been awarding him honors, as in the case of Clement G. Morgan of recent date. Her present action, therefore, in placing an honorary crown upon the worthy head of Mr. Washington is but a step further in her magnanimity in recognizing merit under whatever color of skin.

“The mere announcement of this event is a great testimony to the standing of Mr. Washington, but to any black person who, as I did, saw and heard the enthusiasm and applause with which the audience cheered the announcement by President Eliot, the degree itself was insignificant. The Boston Lancers had conducted Gov. Wolcott to Cambridge, and 500 Harvard graduates had double filed the march to Sander’s Theatre. It was a great day. Latin orations, disquisitions, dissertations and essays in English were delivered by selected graduates, clad in stately and classic cap and gown. Bishops, generals, commodores, statesmen, authors, poets, explorers, millionaires and noted men of every calling, sat as earnest listeners. President Eliot had issued 500 diplomas by handing them to representatives of the graduates in bundles of twenty to twenty-five. Then came the awarding of honorary degrees. Thirteen were issued, Bishop Vincent and General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the United States Army, being among the recipients. When the name of Booker T. Washington was called, and he arose to acknowledge and accept, there was such an outburst of applause as greeted no other name except that of the popular soldier patriot, General Miles. The applause was not studied and stiff, sympathetic and condoling; it was enthusiasm and admiration. Every part of the audience from pit to gallery joined in, and a glow covered the cheeks of those around me, proving that sincere appreciation of the rising struggle of an ex-slave and the work he has accomplished for his race.

“But the event of the day was the Alumni Dinner, when speeches formed the most enjoyable bill of fare. Two hundred Harvard alumni and their invited guests partook of their annual dinner. Four or five speeches were made, among them one from Mr. Washington.

“At the close of the speaking, notwithstanding Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Dr. Minot J. Savage and others had spoken, President Eliot warmly grasped Mr. Washington by the hand and told him that his was the best speech of the day.”

Anent the conferring of the degree and the toast, the papers were unusual in favorable comment. Says the Boston Post:

“In conferring the honorary degree of Master of Arts upon the principal of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard University has honored itself as well as the object of this distinction. The work which Prof. Booker T. Washington has accomplished for the education, good citizenship and popular enlightenment in his chosen field of labor in the South, entitles him to rank with our national benefactors. The university which can claim him on its list of sons, whether in regular course or _honoris causa_, may be proud.

“It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of his race to receive an honorary degree from a New England University. This, in itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not conferred because Mr. Washington is a colored man, or because he was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which count for greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.”

The Boston Globe said: “It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges, confers an honorary degree upon a black man. No one who has followed the history of Tuskegee and its work, can fail to admire the courage, persistence and splendid common sense of Booker T. Washington. Well may Harvard honor the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike to his race and country, only the future can estimate.”

The correspondent of the New York Times wrote: “All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the colored man carried off the oratorical honors, and the applause which broke out when he had finished, was vociferous and long continued.”

In July of the same year I delivered one of the addresses before the National Christian Endeavor Convention which met in Washington. This meeting of the Christian Endeavor Society was attended by thousands of people from all sections of the country and some from foreign countries. I remember that in order to be present in time to speak at this meeting, I had to make a long and tiresome trip from Spirit Lake, Iowa, to Washington, and reached Washington rather late in the evening. In fact, when I got to the church where I was to speak, I found President F. E. Clark and the audience rather nervous about my appearance. I found it a difficult matter to get into the room, owing to the fact that every seat was taken and the aisles were full and the people on the outside of the church were clamoring for entrance. My address was finished about 10 o’clock that evening. At 11 o’clock I took a train for Buffalo, New York, where I was to speak the next night before the National Educational Association, where 20,000 teachers were present. As I now recall the incident, I think these two meetings caused me perhaps as great mental strain and anxiety as I have ever experienced. I had to prepare special and set addresses for each meeting, and coming, as they did, so near together, any one who has had experience in public speaking can easily imagine the difficulty with which I had to contend. I will give one or two short newspaper extracts that may convey an idea of the effect of these two addresses.

The Buffalo Express gave expression in part as follows:

“It was a great close. It began with music and it ended with music. Not a false note was struck. Every tone rang true, and when the gavel rose for the final fall, the audience rose with it, and with one mighty voice sang ‘America.’ All credit is due to Booker T. Washington for the keying up of the spirit that dominated the vast audience. His address was magnificent. There was nothing of speculation, nothing of theory, nothing of supposition in his speech. It was a truthful, convincing statement of the condition of the Negro and the remedy for his wrongs. It teemed with humor and was arrayed in a splendid cloak of eloquence. The audience was larger than at any of the other sessions. An overflow meeting was held in Concert Hall, at which the addresses of the closing session were repeated. The overflow meeting overflowed, and over 2,000 people were turned away. A thousand lingered outside until the convention ended.”

On July 12th the Buffalo Courier contained the following:

“Booker T. Washington, the foremost educator among the colored people of the world, was a very busy man from the time he arrived in the city the other night from the West, and registered at the Iroquois. He had hardly removed the stains of travel when it was time to partake of supper. Then he held a public levee in the parlors of the Iroquois until 8 o’clock. During that time he was greeted by over 200 eminent teachers and educators from all parts of the

United States. Shortly after 8 o’clock, he was driven in a carriage to Music Hall, and in one hour and a half he made two ringing addresses, to as many as 5,000 people, on Negro education. Then Mr. Washington was taken in charge by a delegation of colored citizens, headed by the Rev. Mr. Watkins, and hustled off to a small, informal reception, arranged in honor of the visitor, by the people of his race.”

Both in Washington at the Christian Endeavor meeting and in Buffalo at the National Educational Association meeting I was surprised as well as gratified at the large number of Southern gentlemen and ladies belonging to the white race who pressed forward to shake my hand at the close of these addresses. I have rarely spoken anywhere in the North that a number of Southern white people did not come forward and most earnestly thank me for my position and words.

A Southern man writing to the Charleston News and Courier concerning my address at Buffalo expressed himself as follows:

“Notwithstanding the fact that the gentlemen speaking were of great ability, the audience showed signs of impatience; they wanted Mr. Washington, and no one else would do. At last he came. He is quiet looking, a little nervous but determined. His face indicates that he has above all qualities, patience and self-control. His address to the second audience was very much the same as that delivered before the first. He was a little freer; told several amusing instances and from the start carried the crowd as no one else has done during this meeting.”

It has been my privilege to be invited to address the national gathering of both the Christian Endeavor Society and the National Educational Association at almost every session that these organizations have held, and I have been very glad to accept the invitation as often as I could find time to do so.

The following September I delivered the opening address before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn, N. Y., and in October of the same year while in Durham, N. C., for the purpose of speaking at the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair held at that place by the colored people, I was invited by the President of Trinity College, located in Durham, to deliver an address before the students of that college. This was the first time that I had ever received an invitation to address a white college in the South. I accepted the invitation and was treated with every possible courtesy both by the officers and students of the college. After my address, as I was preparing to leave the grounds in company with a number of colored friends who had been kind enough to call with me, the students assembled in the front yard and gave me their usual college yell in a hearty manner.

I have often wondered if there is a white institution in this country whose students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred companions of another race in the cordial way that the black students at Hampton welcomed the red ones. How often have I wanted to say to white students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift others, and that the more unfortunate the race and the lower in the scale of civilization, the more does one raise one’s self by giving the assistance.

This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon. Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was traveling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his color, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same fare as the other passengers. When some of the white passengers went to the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him, “I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner,” Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting, and replied: “They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.”

My experience has been, that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than by observing the conduct of the old-school type of Southern gentleman when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants.

An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington, who, meeting a colored man in the road once, who politely lifted his hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the incident, criticised Washington for his action. In reply to their criticism, George Washington said: “Do you suppose that I am going to permit a poor, ignorant colored man to be more polite than I am?”